Editor’s note: Fuzhou pastors say that the past several years have been difficult. They compare local churches to people trying to survive a difficult economy: everyone is focused on just getting by, and there’s not much energy for growth or innovation.
China Partnership: How has your city changed in the last five years? What changes have occurred in your church?
No More Student Ministry
Gao Yile: The economic downturn has been quite severe. Some brothers and sisters in our church work in state-owned enterprises. Those companies have had significant layoffs – some of them, companies with about a thousand employees, laid off 300 or 400 workers. There have also been pay cuts, and more overtime.
As there are fewer students, it’s not easy for those students who are referred to us to stay. When there are only one or two university students, it’s tough for them to stay in the church.
Someone else in our church works in real estate, renting out apartments. They said that, in recent years, many young people are renting, then leaving Fuzhou. They can’t survive here, so they just terminate their leases and go back to their hometowns. Usually, new university graduates start renting apartments by May or June. But this year, fewer and fewer grads are renting. It’s not easy to find a job, and the employment rate is really not good.
As for our church, our student ministry in the university has almost disappeared over the past five years. Before the pandemic, we had a ministry. At one point, we went to the university every week to share the gospel. But after the pandemic, we couldn’t even enter the universities. It’s still very hard now to get in; you have to scan your face or use a card. Because of this, our church finds it very difficult to do student ministry.
As there are fewer students, it’s not easy for those students who are referred to us to stay. When there are only one or two university students, it’s tough for them to stay in the church. After Covid, our student ministry has basically stopped.
The churches are a little like the current economy: we are all just trying to survive.
On the other hand, we have slowly had more and more professionals and families. During recent years, I’ve also gotten to know more churches here in Fuzhou. Another change in that time is that our church and some brother churches have begun to move in the direction of becoming a Reformed Presbyterian church.
A Bottleneck in Gospel Outreach
Preacher Yu: It’s true: in recent years, it’s been very difficult to carry on with student ministry. A lot of churches that originally began with a focus on student ministry have now stopped – not just my own church, but other churches around me.
Many public servants who work in government agencies are not allowed to attend worship gatherings. I used to attend a Three-Self church which, at the time, had about 10,000 people. Now, there are fewer than 2,000. The number has dropped very sharply.
In my opinion, one of the biggest difficulties is that a lot of churches have hit a bottleneck in their gospel outreach in recent years. Of course, some churches are still doing okay and growing, but most churches are not growing much. The churches are a little like the current economy: we are all just trying to survive.
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Local churches are complacent, and not humble enough. Overall, very few churches are continuing to grow, while many are stagnating.
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As for my own church, a change in recent years is that we can’t come together. We started as one church, that turned into two churches, and then each of the two churches had four or five meeting points. But now we are drifting further and further apart. It’s very, very hard to bring everyone together. At most, the co-workers who share preaching responsibilities are able to get together for a meal every three months or so. Any more unity is too difficult. There is no cohesion; everyone is scattered; and spiritual power cannot be exerted.
Even worse is when churches have internal conflicts. Once the fighting starts, the whole church immediately begins to go into serious decline. There are a lot of churches like this. I think this happens because there is not enough understanding of truth, and also because there are not governance systems. Instead, churches here do everything based on personal experience. Some pastors do fumble around for 20 or 30 years and gain experience based on trial and error – but by then they are old, and it’s time to step down. So, the churches here do not have mature governance.
Local churches are complacent, and not humble enough. Overall, very few churches are continuing to grow, while many are stagnating.
Gao Yile and Preacher Yu are pseudonyms for house church pastors in Fuzhou.
Pray for Fuzhou churches to mature and grow in the current environment, instead of just trying to simply survive.
