China’s Harvest Fields: Book Review
Tabor Laughlin and various contributors, China’s Harvest Fields. Eugene, Oregon: Resource Publications, 2020. 150 pages, including bibliography.
“Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest.” – Jesus
I arrived in China as a missionary in the summer of 2000, as the global church continued to celebrate fruit there as exceptionally ripe for the picking. The 1990s and early 2000s were remarkably “spiritually open” years as foreign Christians entered China in unprecedented numbers, and younger generations especially seemed receptive to the Gospel. House churches exploded in number and raised up many indigenous leaders. The nation shifted towards a free-market economy model and its leadership loosened reins on both internal and external controls. The disillusionment that followed the horrors of Tian’an men Square filled the minds and hearts of many Chinese and caused them to ask deeper questions about life. Evangelism, university ministries, and church planting expanded rapidly. God was kind to bless many labors of both foreigners and Chinese working to further his kingdom in the “Middle Kingdom.”
Since returning to the States, I have wondered how much has shifted on the ground level of Gospel sowing and reaping in China. The current administration has tightened the reins once more on both public practices of faith, and external influences. Do foreigners continue to be useful in supporting the church in China? After an important push to mature Chinese churches through indigenization, how can and should foreign brothers and sisters continue to link arms with their family in the East while honoring the primary role of local believers? “China’s Harvest Fields,” seeks to answer such questions while pinpointing current needs – and opportunities. Edited by Tabor Laughlin and composed of topical essays by contributing experts in fields ranging from business to minority people groups, the book offers socio-historical perspective and practical ideas to in-country laborers and all Christians invested in the continued growth of God’s church in Asia. As the introduction clarifies, the book aims to look at “the numerous factors involved with reaching China, and the factors of a ‘strong’ Chinese body standing up for the years to come.”
Each of the twelve chapters highlights a different ministry need and how entering into that need might be executed directly through Chinese churches, or indirectly by the support of foreigners. The chapters explore spheres of influence ranging from bioethics to greater in-country seminary establishment, and the book progresses through the following four sections: Impacting Urban and Influential Chinese, Social Impact on Chinese Society, Impacting Chinese House Churches and Other Key Components in China’s Harvest Fields.
Part I: Impacting Urban and Influential Chinese
The opening chapters provide fascinating background on recent shifts in China and the church, prominent among them being the growth of urban centers over the last several decades. Brent Fulton identifies “streams” of believers who have together shaped the face of unregistered, city churches in China: migrant communities who have found work in the cities, campus fellowship alumni and Christians returning from abroad. A fourth stream flows from believers participating in state-run churches. With such variety and constant need for the church to navigate changing contexts and compositions, Fulton adeptly speaks to how foreigners might take on a supporting role. He recommends a shift from a training emphasis to that of mentoring, and even serving as neutral bridges between Chinese of different backgrounds. He calls both foreigners and Chinese to employ creativity and innovation, such as utilizing online ministry opportunities, and identifies the need of house churches to discover the teachers and mission-platforms from within themselves.
Elisabeth Kim tackles Gospel opportunities within the prominent sphere of the workplace, encouraging foreigners to recognize the great potential they have for shaping company cultures, seeking equity between genders, and incorporating prayer into the workplace. In chapter two, she outlines wonderfully specific ideas for empowering Chinese professionals – both young, white collar workers and senior business leaders – especially as local pastors are often limited in their ability to speak to and shepherd these members of their flocks.
The book’s editor, Tabor Laughlin, emphasizes one of the longest-standing ministry opportunities for foreigners: that of teaching English. He clarifies that job openings for foreigners have not decreased in recent years, but rather the issue is “having enough native English speakers to fill spots.” Teaching English is a tremendous and personal way to connect with the culture, providing a legitimate platform for good work for English speakers, as well as direct access to undergraduates. Laughlin advises foreigners to work strategically with and alongside house churches and network between the campus and the church, ideally blessing and strengthening both the individual and the local body.
Part II: Social Impact on Chinese Society
With at least 13 million annual abortions, China lays claim to the highest number of terminated pregnancies worldwide. John Ensor suggests that pregnancy crisis intervention, post-abortion care, and the development of safe homes for unmarried mothers, are some of the most loving and hands-on ways local churches can embody the Gospel to individuals and the culture at large. Four significant questions are offered (p. 45) for pastors to answer to equip their churches to be better healing and caring communities, while engaging the culture about the value of human life.
The history and current reality of humanitarian efforts are explored and explained in Chapter Five. As the government limits numbers of expatriates and foreign organizations, there is a ripe opportunity for Chinese Christians to continue to “become China’s largest NGO” (64). The lamentable dichotomy between a “social gospel” and a “proclamation gospel” that for too long has plagued the West has also spread to churches in the East and must be resisted by teaching and action. Older generations particularly have been shaped by the theological dualism of the 20th century. Positive house church attempts to respond to the needs of society, such as relief care after the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, were at times married by unfortunate coercive tactics to convert people to the Christian faith.
This section encourages local churches to teach and live out a comprehensive Gospel, with abundant opportunities both within and around them, such as relational counseling, care of children and the elderly, and serving the poor. The development of local Christian service centers that hold each other accountable and provide training is a wise suggestion, as is better fundraising from within the church for such social efforts.
A priority among China’s harvest fields is the marginalized, just as Jesus made a point to go out of his way to bring justice and mercy to those overlooked or shunned by society. J. Haddon Bennett gives some very clear suggestions for local churches to live out Biblical acts of love and service towards orphans, the disabled, and those suffering long-term illnesses. Foster care is a constant practical need among all communities where the local church exists, as is advocating for orphans and providing pediatric physical therapy:
“Foreign partnerships might range in scope from funding, staffing, professional training and strategic consulting, while partnerships with the government are typically limited to funding. Pediatric Physical Therapy can create space for more people, believers and unbelievers, to be involved in these children’s lives.” (p. 71)
Local believers can use their gifts and time to bless the disabled through offering rehabilitation services, advocating for handicap accessibility and providing much needed relief for caregivers. Bennett calls on the Chinese church to examine whether they are more inclusive than the world around them, and willing to enter into the lives of those afflicted with diseases such HIV/AIDS, fighting stigmas, and educating the culture at large about the dignity of all people.
Part III: Impacting Chinese House Churches
In chapter seven, Allen Yeh argues that “a complete rethink is needed of the purposes and structure of theological education,” to grow deeper Biblical roots in Chinese soil. The goal with the West is still partnership, but with mutual sharing rather than historical paternalism. Yeh acknowledges that the “formation of theological ideas still is in Western form, and it will continue to remain with the West as long as the money, publishing houses and seminaries remain in the West” (83). Chinese house churches have worked hard to move towards self-governance, self-propagation, and self-sustenance. The call is now to put efforts toward self-theology!
Westerners might give money to build theological centers in the “Majority World” where believers can think and teach in their own cultural contexts. Yeh calls native Chinese to pursue publishing opportunities and the requisite PhD’s (both in theology and other subjects) needed to have teaching opportunities within their own seminaries and churches, and to stay in China to minister to their fellow brethren. He gives an important challenge to both Chinese and foreigners to teach transferrable frameworks, not just the all-too-common “content downloading” that can inhibit believers from growing into theologians themselves.
Chapter eight addresses current institutional needs among seminaries, and how missionaries might come alongside them as they develop. Chinese seminaries need support in contextualization (identifying and overcoming Marxist-Communist cultural narratives that are the default worldview), sustainability (greater resources feeding into the life of the seminary, such as their own businesses, bookstores or coffee shops, and oversight boards with pastors from local churches), partnership (missionaries who are linguistically and culturally competent and can work directly with churches willing to undertake the risk of receiving their ministry involvement) and finally, accreditation (indigenous ownership, foreign input, and overseas agency guidance to formalize seminaries).
Chapter nine is a refreshingly pastoral and personal perspective from Wright Doyle, a former missionary to Taiwan and director of China Institute, on how God’s servants among the Chinese might themselves stay rooted in Gospel humility. Doyle writes about the primary need of Biblical repentance and worship among both laborers and congregants, who must always start with God and His ways. Missionaries must be specific about how God defines sin, and call their audience (and again, themselves!) to turn from idolatry that is both personal and corporate, such as worship of Chinese culture or tradition.
Doyle encourages laborers to focus on teaching the whole of biblical counsel: the nature of God the Father, the person of Christ and his atoning work, and the presence and role of the Holy Spirit. Teachers must not skirt around the Old Testament passages, and would benefit the Chinese by drawing out a Biblical vision of marriage and family relationships, and of both suffering and the future hope of those who follow Christ. Finally, Doyle offers specific encouragement to messengers of the Gospel to keep fellowship meetings smaller in size to enhance discipleship, to focus on investing in male members and leaders in the church that their numbers in the church might increase, and to patiently value quality over quantity in the process of ministry methods.
Part IV: Other Key Components
As the Chinese church develops inwardly and outwardly, seeking to bless the world beyond it in the name of Christ, it will need to grapple with both internal missions challenges – such as a managerial rather than theological approach to missions, and a lack of structure and cross-cultural training – and external factors, such as government authorities maintaining careful surveillance of the church’s outreach efforts. Chapter 10 encourages all messengers of the Gospel to look to Jesus as the humble servant role model of all missions, as the only one who perfectly gave up his privilege and power. Writer Chen Jing warns of the need to separate China’s economic and global growth from any rising missions efforts among the church, which is to seek godly motivations for its good works. Jing offers several helpful heart-check questions to both Chinese and North Americans, concerning “our orientation and identity.”
Chapter 11 is a call to continue mobilizing missionaries and Chinese churches to reach out to western China, unreached people groups (UPGs) and the world beyond its borders. Barnabas Roland suggests a multi-faceted approach that does not neglect “unengaged” groups or those already reached. Roland defines “UPGs” and calls for the establishment of healthy, reproducing churches among them. Among their top needs are evangelism, leadership training and heart language access to the Bible. Local churches and messengers might improve upon the quality of witnessing to contextualize the gospel in a shame-honor culture, and present it as Good News that speaks to all of life. Roland points out that emerging leaders must be developed by interactive trainings with problem solving approaches, rather than content dumping, as well as hermeneutical workshops for Bible teaching skills that are transferrable. Heart-language efforts might look like greater “Bible-story-ing” and songs that will connect to unreached groups.
This section of the book also distinguishes UPG’s from UUPGs (Unengaged, Unreached People Groups) and identifies the first steps that might be taken to reach them, including specific prayer profiles and naming ethnic groups accurately. Roland circles back to one of the fundamental questions posed by the book: the continued role of foreign workers. He encourages them to remain present and help indigenous, catalytic structures developed among Reached People Groups (RPGs). There is still a great need to encourage the Chinese in channeling their evangelistic fervor into effective witness, to teach the Bible (especially as it pertains to marriage and family relationships) to RPG churches and to equip Chinese believers to be sent out. Specifically, Western missionaries might assist in training Chinese missionaries with incremental cross-cultural adaptation through reflection times and debriefing. They might also encourage, from their own experiences, house churches to give time for the Han missionaries they send to learn the minority languages of UPGs.
Editor Tabor Laughlin closes the book with a subject near to his heart and ministry experience: focused efforts on reaching the strategic northwest region of China with the Gospel. The Chinese government has begun implementing the “Yi Dai Lu” (“One Belt, One Road”) policy in the northwest part of the country to strengthen trade between China and Central Asia, the Middle East and Eastern Europe. It also dovetails with the decades old “10/40” missions movement, which seeks to reach spiritually dark areas between Africa and East Asia with the gospel. The government initiative involves great amounts of economic and infrastructure development such as more roads, high-speed trains and power plants in the northwestern parts of China. Laughlin explains in Chapter 12 that with such plans come the opportunities for even more legitimate jobs for missionaries.
House churches in the northwest, which may be comprised of either minority groups or Han people that reside there, are in need of discipleship development and a vision to cross ethnic lines with the Gospel. Though Laughlin affirms that locals may be better culturally versed to minister to Uyghur and Muslim groups in the surrounding areas, foreign missionaries might help with the establishment of more theological training centers for such mobilization.
Concluding Remarks
The “Great Commission baton” is gradually being passed within China, but still has both Eastern and Western hands grasping it. China’s Harvest Fields seeks to help the team of foreign missionaries and Chinese brothers and sisters continue to run the race of faith better together. The contributors have obviously gleaned from their own experiences and observations within the culture, and especially the social, theological, and historical developments of the past few decades. The various voices repeat themes such as the much-needed development of leaders, avoiding the compartmentalization of faith and work/family life, and intentionally seeking to serve those whom Chinese society typically shuns. Some classic mantras like “pray, give, go” still hold for Westerners, but the book offers more nuanced and specific methods that all believers – with continued humility, creativity, and patience - might employ to continue to bring the light and love of Christ to China.
Upon finishing the book, I longed to sit at a round table discussion of it between Chinese house church leaders, businessmen, foreign missionaries, and laypeople to see if they would echo the advice and action points given. It would be useful to have it translated into Mandarin, which editor Laughlin informed me has not yet happened.
Just as Jesus always worked through a small and unassuming group of people to bring great love and truth to bear on the lives of those around them, local churches, with the support of foreign presence and resources, can indeed continue harvesting the ripe fields of China.