China

Christianity is growing rapidly in China. There are currently 30 million Christians in China. Everyday six new church buildings are opened. One new church was built to hold 3000 members and when it opened its doors for the first service, 10,000 were waiting to worship. In China, Christians gather in more than 14,000 churches and 30,000 home meetings for worship, prayer, and Bible study. Since the closing of seminaries during the Culture Revolution of the 1960s and 70s, there are only over 2000 ordained ministers for 50,000 churches. The shortage of pastors is a serious problem for the church in China. CGMB has been supporting theological education and renewal.

Anhui Province is a rural, agricultural region dotted with small towns and villages located in mid-East China. It is a poor region, something like Appalachia, a region exploited economically and mismanaged governmentally. Two million Christians live in Anhui Province. This is the second largest concentration of Christians in the country. However, the growth and nurture of these many new Christians is hampered by the fact that there are only 50 pastors serving in the province. This means each pastor has 40,000 Christians to shepherd.

Anhui Seminary, located in Hefei, the capital of Anhui Province has stepped up to meet this challenge of training leaders to guide a growing church. In 1997, the seminary began building a new campus which includes a classroom building with a library, dormitory, and chapel. In summer 2001, the renewed seminary saw its first graduating class of forty students. The seminary has a total enrollment of 120 three-year students and trains over 180 lay people a year in short-term theological education. Anhui Seminary is one of only 18 seminaries in China with an annual budget of $20,000 dependent on one church-wide Sunday offering each year.

There are a number of ways to support the mission of Anhui Seminary to train church leaders:

 Theological Reference Books: The Oswald Goulter Library, named after an early Disciples of Christ missionary, needs additional reference books. Through an arrangement with the Chinese Christian Literature, Inc., a $1.00 contribution will buy $3.00 worth of Chinese language theological reference books needed for a students learning and preparation for ministry.

 Student Scholarships: $500.00 will pay for one student to attend Anhui Seminary for one school year. Local congregations often choose a gifted member to send for seminary education and those students return to their home congregations. Sometimes congregations can help pay some of the costs, but most students and congregations are poor with very limited resources.

 Bibles: $12.00 will provide a study Bible for a seminary student or Christian leader, and for $1.50 a Mandarin Chinese Bible can be printed and given to a Chinese Christian. The seminary has an arrangement with Amity Printing Press, a Bible printing factory founded by International Bible Society and China Christian Council. It maintains 30 distribution sites all over the country to get Bibles in the hands of Christians eager to read, study, and live out the Word. Almost 30 million Bibles have been printed by Amity Printing Press since the early 1980s.

Anhui Province was once an important Disciples/UCC mission field. Now the call to make disciples and spread the Good News is being heard and acted upon by a growing body of Chinese Christians with their source and center at Anhui Seminary.