During the 2013 Asia Leadership Forum, a leader of the Chinese church’s missionary movement proposed the vision of “Mission China 2030.” This vision aims for the Chinese church to enter a missionary era by sending 20,000 overseas missionaries by the year 2030. This goal has inspired many leaders within the Chinese church to actively promote the “Mission China 2030” movement. Even before 2013, leaders of village-based team churches had proposed the ambitious goal of sending 100,000 missionaries and collectively promoting the “Back to Jerusalem” movement. However, there are also cautionary voices warning against a “Great Leap Forward” style of missionary work, suggesting that even sending 1,000 missionaries would be a significant achievement for the Chinese church. Indeed, while the missionary movement within the Chinese church has seen significant growth over the past decade, it continues to face numerous challenges and has developed several unhealthy elements.

1. Challenges Faced

The missionary movement of the Chinese church faces multiple challenges, including policy constraints, internal church issues, and difficulties in the mission fields.

1) Challenges from Restrictive Religious Policy

In recent years, the Chinese government has developed and implemented comprehensive regulations on religious affairs. Besides the State Council’s “Regulations on Religious Affairs” (2018), it has issued several others: “Measures for the Administration of Religious Groups” (2019), “Measures for the Administration of Religious Personnel” (2021), “Measures for the Administration of Religious Colleges” (2021), “Measures for the Administration of Internet Religious Information” (2021), and “Measures for the Financial Management of Religious Activity Sites” (2022). Provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities have also formulated local “Regulations on Religious Affairs.” The Chinese government views religious issues as related to national security and sees a “contest of ideologies” between religion and socialism. Within this policy environment, the development of the Chinese church is generally restricted, making the missionary movement even more difficult. Challenges such as the inability to register missionary organizations formally and the lack of official channels for financial support due to an atheistic regime create significant obstacles.

2) Internal Challenges within Domestic Churches

Under restrictive policy environments, formal congregations have transitioned into small groups or meeting points to increase the survival capability of churches. However, this leads to resource dispersion, a lack of workers, and widespread spiritual stagnation among believers. Due to these dispersed resources, support for missionary work has naturally weakened, with many churches cutting their missionary budgets due to survival challenges. During the pandemic, the increase in online missionary meetings and courses somewhat revived and enlightened missionary efforts. However, in the post-pandemic era, as churches struggle to recover and develop robustly, attention and support for missionary efforts have significantly diminished.

3) Challenges on the Mission Field

Chinese missionaries face dual pressures in mission fields: one from the non-Christian environment of the mission field and another from the atheistic regime back home. Chinese missionaries not only receive inquiries from local public security departments about their activities abroad, but are also monitored and face continuous resistance to overseas missionary activities by the Chinese government. China’s unique religious policies and legal environment pose restrictions on church development and missionary activities, extending even into overseas mission fields and creating persistent pressure and challenges.

2. Unhealthy Elements

With the increasing number of missionaries, several unhealthy factors in missionary work have become more apparent. If these issues are not timely rectified, they could negatively impact the overall effectiveness of missionary efforts.

1) Lack of Missionary Strategy

The missionary efforts of the Chinese church show a lack of strategic thinking and planning. Many missionary teams arbitrarily choose their destinations instead of being guided by systematic research and comprehensive strategic planning. This lack of direction results in many missionaries clustering in popular regions, which leads to resource duplication and waste, ultimately achieving less effective outcomes. Meanwhile, many unreached people groups still await attention.

2) Misplaced Missional Passion

Historically, many traditional missionaries, such as early China Inland Mission (CIM) missionaries, entered the mission field with genuine love and a strong sense of mission. However, in modern missionary work, this devotion seems to be replaced by a more superficial “passion.” While passion has its value, lacking deep love and enduring commitment diminishes the effectiveness of many missionary activities. Missionary work should be driven by God’s calling and a wakeful sense of mission rather than transient personal enthusiasm and excitement.

3) Inadequate Financial Management

Due to the inability to manage finances through formally registered missionary organizations, financial management among Chinese missionaries often lacks transparency and supervision. Some missionaries have abundant resources, even receiving redundant support from multiple sources, while others face resource scarcity and survival challenges. Initially, when missionaries don’t engage in extensive ministry, sufficient living expenses may suffice, but as mission efforts expand, financial needs grow. A lack of robust management mechanisms can easily lead to financial issues.

4) Insufficient Language Learning

A common issue among Chinese missionaries is the neglect of language learning. Effective and enduring missionary work often follows an incarnational mission model, making language proficiency a vital early challenge. Many Western and Korean missionary agencies require missionaries to focus mainly on language learning for the first two years, considering it a critical starting point for long-term missions. However, many Chinese missionaries rush into mission work without dedicating adequate time to learn the local language, thereby failing to attain good language proficiency even after five or ten years.

3. Future Directions for the Chinese Missionary Movement

Addressing numerous challenges and unhealthy factors necessitates seeking a future path for the Chinese church’s missionary movement.

1) Enhancing Strategic Planning and Research

Future missionary efforts need to focus more on strategic planning and research. Missionary organizations should develop well-grounded missionary strategies based on systematic research to avoid resource wastage and duplication. Establishing specialized research institutions to analyze global missionary trends will enable more precise judgments and arrangements.

2) Cultivating Enduring Missional Commitment

Churches need to strengthen the cultivation of missional commitment among missionaries, ensuring they possess not just short-term enthusiasm but also long-term dedication. Through missionary training courses, studying missionary figures, and exploring missionary history, missionaries’ understanding and steadfastness toward their mission can be enhanced.

3) Improving Financial Management Mechanisms

Establishing and implementing transparent and fair financial management systems is an essential step in solving financial management issues. Drawing on international experiences, setting up robust financial supervision mechanisms will ensure that every financial investment is genuinely used for the missionaries and mission efforts’ needs.

4) Strengthening Language and Cultural Training

Future missionary training should emphasize language and cultural learning more thoroughly. Before engaging in formal missionary work, allocating around two years for missionaries to learn the local language and culture will ensure they can deeply understand and integrate into the local community, laying a solid foundation for long-term, effective missions.

5) Building International Cooperation Networks

The Chinese church needs to expand international cooperation further, establishing close ties with missionary organizations worldwide to share resources and experiences. Such collaboration can reduce burdens on individual churches and elevate the missionary influence of the Chinese church through global cooperation.

4. Conclusion

In summary, despite the many challenges and unhealthy factors, the future of the Chinese church’s missionary movement holds great potential through enhancing strategic planning, cultivating enduring missional commitment, improving financial management systems, strengthening language and cultural training, and building international cooperation networks. To achieve the “Mission China 2030” goal, churches need comprehensive upgrades across various facets, joining hands to overcome difficulties and embrace new opportunities and challenges.

The path of the missionary movement is long and arduous; but with God guiding and leading as the true commander, we must run swiftly, following Him closely, for the Great Commission will surely be accomplished.