House Church Seminaries in Mainland China: Mimicking the Western Model?
During the turn of the century, around 2000, there was a movement to church planting in urban settings as intellectuals became Christian. They were more hungry to learn. Some people went overseas; others were sent into China to start this training. A lot of theological trainings started to be held in the city. The intellectuals were more educated people, and so they thought of formal, theological education. They wanted to mimic what Westerners did.
However, as I mature and pastor and train and teach at different seminaries in the Asian context, I see that the purely Western model may not always be good.