Newly elected president of the North American Continental Church Mission and the Chinese Pastors' Fellowship, Rev. Zhigang Zhang recently talked about the challenges North American Chinese churches are facing after the pandemic and the dire need for transformation. He believes that the churches urgently need to change from a “reserved” to an “outreach” model.
Rev. Zhigang came to the United States in 1992, and since 1993 has been serving in the church. 30 years later, he resigned his pastoral posts and became a whistleblower. According to him, “The church has now been pushed to a corner by God, we need to grab hold of the opportunities God is laying ahead of us and change from a reserved to an outreach church model, from being ‘ministry oriented’ to ‘vision oriented’.”
Rev. Zhigang believes the traditional “reserved” church model is mainly reflected by its focus on the church’s own congregation. Because of this, the church gradually detached itself from mainstream society, becoming practically invisible. He believes this is because 50% of American society comprises the middle class, which also comprises the main group of churchgoers. These people live comfortable lives and focus heavily on their own security.
Other than the resistance posed by the church’s middle-class congregation, there are also cultural barriers that encumber attempts at change. For example, the internal culture of the traditional churches may lead to a lack of response and reaction to calls for reform.
These conservative and conventional mindsets put great barriers in the church’s way to reformation. So how can the church grow with this trend? According to Rev. Zhigang’s observation, traditional North American Chinese churches “expand” mainly because of “church splits”. For example, there are unresolved disagreements among the church administration, such as elders, deacons, and senior pastors, leading to the church splitting.
“Instead of waiting passively for churches to split, we should take initiative and pioneer new churches.” Rev. Zhigang proposes, “We need a group of pastors to lead the way in church transformation, to shift the church’s focus onto outreach and evangelism.” If the focus of the church doesn’t shift outward, the church will become “spiritually too dense”, evolving from “self-centered” to “self-consumed” to “self-fighting (infights)”.
So how can a reserved, crisis-filled church transform into an outreach church? Rev. Zhigang believes that the unity between the founding elders of the church and the lead pastors is very important. The elders should not see the pastors as “hired hands”, but rather affirm the direction they are leading within the Lord. The two sides should be united in Jesus Christ. The church also needs to make sure to put the Great Commission at its core, ensure that messages have an evangelical core, invite more believers to join in church planting strategy making, and continue to branch out with new cell groups.
