PHOENIX – Pastors
and deacons from Chinese churches across the United
States and Canada
discussed a goal of planting 800 Chinese churches by 2020 during a June 14
meeting in Phoenix.
The Chinese Baptist Fellowship, which recently celebrated its 30th anniversary,
has 260 member churches, said Peter Leong, president and interim executive
director of the fellowship.
“If every state planted one church a year, then we can do it,” said Leong, who
has served 23 years as pastor of Southwest
Chinese Baptist Church
in Houston.
“I know this is a very big and difficult challenge, but we are relying on
prayer,” Leong told two dozen leaders in attendance, including several state
convention and North American and International mission board staff members.
“God has all the personnel and resources. And the best part is that we have a
very good friend in the North American Mission Board and the International
Mission Board,” Leong said.
Leong noted that the effort coincides with NAMB’s new strategy, Send North
America, which focuses on mobilizing missionaries and churches to plant
churches across the United States
and Canada.
Jeremy Sin, the North American Mission Board’s multiethnic team coordinator for
Asian people groups, noted that the Chinese population in North
America has increased dramatically. In 1980, there were 1 million
Chinese in the U.S.,
compared to the 4 million who now reside within the U.S.
Prior to 1985, most Chinese immigrated from Hong Kong and
Taiwan. Now,
most come from mainland China,
Sin noted.
Church-planter Arnold Wong, who ministers among the Chinese in Canada,
asked participants to send mission teams from their churches to assist in
outreach.
Jon Sapp, evangelism director for the Kansas-Nebraska Convention of Southern
Baptists, attended the gathering because of his interest in the growing number
of ethnic groups in the Midwest.
Sapp, who also is responsible for the convention’s collegiate ministry,
indicated a desire to support a house-church movement among internationals on
college campuses.
To help facilitate the new church growth, the Chinese fellowship plans to
conduct church-planting seminars in Chicago; Dallas/Fort Worth; Edison, N.J.;
Honolulu; Houston; Los Angeles; New York City; and Oklahoma City.
The fellowship, which also seeks to assist Chinese churches with pastoral care,
women’s ministry and second-generation ministry, will hold its next meeting in
September 2012 at the First Chinese Baptist Church of Los Angeles.
(EDITOR’S NOTE – Shannon Baker is a national correspondent for BaptistLIFE,
newsjournal of the Baptist Convention of Maryland/Delaware. To learn more about
the Chinese Baptist Fellowship, visit www.cbfusacanada.org.)