Editor’s note: Like other Chinese cities, Fuzhou has been hit hard by the slowing economy. Most people are overworked, exhausted, and have little time or energy for church (or anything besides mere existence). Despite this, churches are still trying to build their communities and continue loving and serving their city.
China Partnership: How has your city changed in the last five years? What changes have occurred in your church?
Struggling Economy
Shi Heping: The impact on the economy after Covid has been very significant. There might have been an increase in jobs related to big data, artificial intelligence, and cloud computing – but the employment rate in traditional industries like textiles and shoemaking has dropped significantly. The demand for manufacturing engineers and technicians has increased, but there are fewer general assembly line positions.
In the service industry, there is more cultural tourism. Yantai Mountain has been turned into a tourism spot, and a lot of people have jobs there. Many migrant workers have shifted into nursing and food delivery; others have started driving for ride-hailing services. If we take a Didi [like Uber for China], drivers tell us prices are being pushed down over and over [and they earn less]. All the platforms are competing, and it’s very cheap.
In daily life, people use things like Meituan Youxuan, a special group buying app [people use Meituan to order groceries and daily goods in bulk at a discount, then pick them up from a neighborhood point].
People say each coming year will be worse than the year before. We are starting to see “street stall culture,” with many small stalls and night markets opening up to create more jobs. For a while, the “double reduction” policy banned tutoring [this was a 2021 policy aimed at reducing the “twin pressures” of homework and off-campus tutoring, which led to the closure of many tutoring companies]. But now, since many people are unemployed, tutoring is making a comeback.
The economy is in a terrible state. Everyone is in a “rat race.””
In the past few years some church members have been laid off, lost jobs, or even had to leave Fuzhou because so many branch offices were shut down. This has greatly affected our church.
Overworked and Overwhelmed
People used to be able to do things like attend in-person prayer meetings during the week. But in the last few years, middle-aged workers have started having to do more work for the same pay. After layoffs, sometimes one person is left doing all the work – with no change in salary! Their time is completely taken up.
Just last night, two church members said they got off work at 10:45 and 10:30. Another was still in a meeting! Even though some are department heads, the world has taken over all their time. They are still very zealous, but they have no time. One church member’s company makes them work all year, even during the May Day holiday!
The economy is in a terrible state. Everyone is in a “rat race,” [1] and wants a piece of the cake. Whoever works the hardest gets a little more. People in the church face more and more pressure to survive in the workplace.
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Housing prices have also dropped a lot. Pay cuts plus demotions has created many economic problems for the church.
This has also led to an issue of having lots of singles in the church. Even though our church is not large, there are more than a dozen singles who don’t want to get married. They don’t think there is any future in marriage, and they see no need to get married. Some are so busy they have no time for relationships. We try to hold singles’ camps to help them, but they don’t have any desire to get married.
We hope that, even in these difficult times, we can build a gospel community that can live and die together.
A few days ago, we were visiting some young brothers and sisters, one of whom was in his early 20s. He is lost, and completely hopeless about his career. Even though he just entered the workforce, he already feels that life and his career is hopeless. He’s just being kicked around.
There are massive issues with the employment employment situation and future challenges. The economy also affects church offerings. A lot of churches can’t pay for a place to meet, and are having difficulty paying the pastor’s salary. This is already a challenge.
Bringing Polity to the Church
I want to emphasize how our church is dealing with chaos in the church, including issues such as lack of polity. When there is no polity, the church is not presbyterian; it just becomes patriarchal, where one person has the final say. If he does not understand theological truth and is not spiritually mature, the church will have a lot of internal strife. Most churches I know have experienced many splits.
Because of this, in recent years our church has moved toward becoming a Reformed Baptist church. we are adopting congregationalism, and try to visit healthy churches that have been growing for ten or 20 years. We have visited churches all over, in Kunming, Wenzhou, Guilin, and Shanghai. We visit these churches because we are seeking breakthrough: we don’t want the problems in the local churches to keep us from biblically governing our church. We hope that, even in these difficult times, we can build a gospel community that can live and die together.
We will keep on moving toward this goal, despite the many difficulties. Since our church is one of the first Reformed churches in Fuzhou, traditional churches give us pressure. They say things like, “Everything was fine, why do you need to establish polity?” If we don’t succeed, they might laugh at us.
As we go through this process, we need to help the traditional churches understand why membership and church polity is important. But those churches are under pressure from their elders. They think that those who came before them didn’t see the need for these sorts of things, so they shouldn’t act. But because our church is independent, we dare to act. Sometimes, they might think we are rebellious and disobedient. We are very cautious to avoid causing more problems and creating rifts between churches because we are setting up this church organization.
We often think about what our church’s position in Fuzhou is, and how we can be a blessing to other Fuzhou churches.
In the past few years, we have tried our best to share our vision for church polity with other churches. We hope that, at the same time, we can have more contact with other churches and get along with them more. We want to share the good experiences God has led us through over the years, and seek unity among the churches.
Our church also does an evangelism ministry. We do training for this evangelism, plant churches with other churches, hold singles’ camps, train preachers, and organize book clubs. If we are invited to preach somewhere else, we are happy to go and share. We want to be more open.
First, the church itself needs to be internally built up. At the same time, we hope that a decade of walking this path, reading books, and meeting other people will help us to use the gifts of our church. We often think about what our church’s position in Fuzhou is, and how we can be a blessing to other Fuzhou churches.
[1] The word actually used here is “involution” or “to roll inward” (卷, juǎn). This is a common term in modern China, and describes the country’s hyper-competitive environment, where individuals feel they have to overwork — not to advance themselves or improve their situation, but just to keep up with their peers. This term reflects the widespread sense of exhaustion and anxiety in current-day Chinese society.
Shi Heping is a pseudonym for a house church pastor in Fuzhou.
Pray for Fuzhou churches to build gospel communities that “live and die together,” even in times of difficulty.
