EMQ » April – July 2025 » Volume 61 Issue 2

Topic: New Models of Mission 

Keywords: China, Chinese missions, indigenous missions, China mission movement

Summary: Hundreds of Mainland Chinese Christians serve as missionaries around the world and thousands more minister among China’s unreached people groups. Chinese church leaders have a goal of sending out 20,000 cross-cultural workers by 2030. Traditional Western sending structures and methods may not suit China’s context. Despite many challenges, Chinese leaders are committed to collaborative missiological learning to fulfil the Great Commission.

By Brent Fulton

In a 2014 EMQ article, Dr. Kevin Yao of Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary observed that, despite much talk about the Great Commission in China’s churches, “… major Chinese contributions to the international missionary movement are still a far cry from reality.” Among the reasons for this gap, Yao pointed to a lack of coordination, the absence of education in missiology and related fields, and one-way ticket mission ventures with no plans for sustainability or missionary care.[1]

Five years later, Tabor Laughlin wrote that most of those sent from China had returned after two to three years or had stayed on the field out of a sense of shame, focusing on ministry to other Chinese. “Most Mainland Chinese sent out have not flourished long-term nor seen fruit among the locals,” Laughlin concluded.[2]

Today hundreds of Mainland Chinese Christians serve long-term in Southeast and Central Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and elsewhere. Thousands more minister among China’s many unreached people groups. By 2022, an estimated 50 indigenous Chinese sending agencies had been formed.[3] In the words of one mission leader in China, despite growing domestic pressure,

The contemporary Chinese church missionary movement has emerged and is spreading like wildfire. At the same time, it has also begun to attract great attention from the universal church, which has begun to think about how to cooperate with the Chinese church and meet the needs of the missionary movement. How the contemporary Chinese church missionary movement can establish its foundation, how it can operate stably, how it can develop healthily, how it can be standardized and mature, etc., all require our long-term attention and thinking.[4]

This hopeful shift is not the result of any one factor; rather a confluence of developments, contextual as well as internal to the church itself, have combined to move China’s mission movement from mere vision toward a lived reality. These changes have brought new possibilities as well as new challenges. The following discussion examines these developments, drawing upon current literature, observations from the field, and interviews with several individuals who have served alongside mission leaders in China for the past two decades.

Roots of the Current Movement

The movement’s history extends back nearly a hundred years to the 1930s, when Jesus Family, an indigenous Christian movement based in Northeast China, sent workers to minorities in Gansu and Inner Mongolia. In the 1940s the Northwest Spiritual Band sent missionaries to Xinjiang, and Chinese Christian Mission in Shanghai also pursued outreach to Uyghurs in Northwest China. Perhaps the most well-known group, however, was the “Preaching the Gospel Everywhere Band” led by Mark Ma of the China Inland Mission Bible School in Shaanxi. Later dubbed the “Back to Jerusalem Band” by American missionary Helen Bailey, Ma and his fellow missionaries reached Urumqi and Kashgar before the Communist victory brought their project to an end in 1949.[5]

“Back to Jerusalem” emerged as a rallying cry within China’s rural house church movement in the 1990s. The ensuing years saw fledgling efforts to send workers out of China, often aided by overseas churches and organizations eager to encourage the church’s rekindled mission vision. As noted by Laughlin, above, most of these initial forays did not end well. Meanwhile, interest in missions was growing among China’s emerging unregistered urban churches, technically illegal yet flourishing outside the bounds of the officially sanctioned Three-Self Patriotic Movement.

At a 2013 Lausanne-sponsored event in Seoul, urban church leaders, along with representatives of some of the older rural movements, announced the launch of Mission China 2030, with the goal of fielding 20,000 cross-cultural workers (ostensibly matching the number of foreign missionaries sent to China in the previous 200 years) by the year 2030.[6] Drawing on leadership from churches across China, Mission China hosted annual conferences in Asian cities from 2015 to 2018, where hundreds of Mainland Chinese made commitments to serve in missions. In 2019, multiple conferences were held in China and abroad. With the onset of the Covid pandemic in 2020, the movement moved online, with various prayer meetings that eventually drew participants from around the world.[7] In 2022, pastors and mission leaders joined together in founding the Journal of Chinese Mission to promote missiological scholarship and reflection.[8]

Redrawing the Landscape

Among the factors contributing to the rapid growth and maturation of China’s mission movement has been the country’s herculean modernization effort. Consider that less than 40 years ago, most of China’s people lived in the countryside, prevented by strict hukou, or residency, requirements from leaving their ancestral homes. Private telephones were a rare luxury. Email and the world wide web had yet to be invented. Air travel was severely limited, and traveling in China usually meant spending several days on an antiquated train. In the decades since, the world’s most massive urban migration, universal smartphone penetration, huge investments in airports and superhighways, and the world’s longest highspeed rail system have redrawn China’s social landscape.

Against this backdrop of modernization has emerged a church that is comparatively well-connected and well-resourced. The Mission China leaders, most of whom have advanced degrees and considerable global experience, are strategic in their orientation, committed to missiological reflection and to learning from and with the global church. The younger generation of prospective missionaries they are cultivating tends to take a more holistic view of mission compared to earlier generations that focused almost exclusively on evangelism. Many bring professional skills and considerable cultural awareness.[9] Unlike the traditional rural networks, which were often hampered by rigid structure and top-down leadership, standalone urban congregations have more flexibility in deciding who to partner with and how, allowing for the formation of movements such as Mission China as well as regional and denominational sending structures.

China’s mission leaders have identified six areas for development, namely, research, mobilization, training, sending agencies, sending bases, and field leadership. The emerging infrastructure they envision includes new platforms for interaction, mission conferences, mission schools and training centers, publications, and forums. According to one leader, realizing Mission China’s goal of fielding 20,000 workers will require the formation of 200 sending agencies.[10]

Although China’s modernization theoretically creates the conditions for developing such a missions infrastructure, the tendency toward emulating the West in its modernist Enlightenment paradigm of mission may not fit the realities of today’s China, which, despite the reform and opening of the past five decades, remains rooted in a Leninist structure and Marxist ideology.[11] In contrast to most Western and many Asian sending nations, China remains a closed country, and many of the countries to which Chinese workers are being sent are also closed to traditional missionary activity. Traditional structures and methods developed in open contexts may not be tenable in China’s increasingly restrictive environment. In the area of missionary care, for example, most of the existing literature is written for workers from open countries who are sent either to other open countries or to closed countries. Due to government restrictions, Chinese churches and agencies cannot fully support workers using traditional means, such as field visits, providing consistent services and material resources, and publicizing the work of the missionaries to churches back home.[12]

China Goes Global

China’s expanding global footprint has in many respects paved the way for Chinese believers to go to the nations. China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has provided scores of countries with needed infrastructure development, contributing to China’s global prestige. Waves of emigration from China and the cultural affinity that comes with a history of shared victimization by the West have sparked a growing interest in Chinese language and culture.[13]

Christians from Wenzhou, a city of Eastern China often referred to as “China’s Jerusalem” due to its high proportion of believers, provide a particularly striking example of how China’s global presence can advance the Gospel, as well as some of the potential pitfalls. Known for their business acumen, Wenzhou “boss Christians” have literally gone around the world to invest, launch factories, run hotels, and plant churches. The “Wenzhou model” combines entrepreneurship with evangelistic zeal, a system for sharing pastoral and teaching resources, and a pioneering spirit. Wenzhou believers bridge the sacred-secular divide, with their business presence providing a natural connection to their neighbors.

The resulting communities, however, tend to be Wenzhou culture- and language-centric. Although willing to live almost anywhere, Wenzhou Christians may lack the zeal to reach cross-culturally with the gospel. Since their ability to stay on the field is tied to their business success, they may not be able to sustain a viable long-term witness.[14]

This weakness is not unique among Wenzhou Christians; other cross-cultural workers from China who rely on business platforms to stay on the field face a similar dilemma. Unlike the Wenzhou believers, however, many from other parts of China have no prior business experience. They may end up spending most of their time and resources just trying to keep alive ill-advised business ventures that are not viable. One longtime global business consultant has recommended replacing the current BAM (Business as Mission) model with “Businesses Accelerating Mission,” a more collaborative approach that leverages resources broadly to build businesses that make sense on the ground and provide natural opportunities for witness.

Today an increasingly restrictive social environment under President Xi Jinping is pushing a new wave of emigration from China. Many Christians are also riding this wave, seeking a more secure future for their families.[15] If they are willing to move beyond simply joining or planting traditional immigrant churches and instead seek to be missional, this growing Mainland Chinese diaspora could strengthen the overall mission effort. On the other hand, the increasing numbers of believers leaving China for disparate reasons could potentially dilute the movement.

Growing Pains

Much of the growth in China’s mission movement is the result of generational change. Those sent out in the 1990s and early 2000s typically lacked training and a clear sense of direction. Some managed to stay on the field, receiving help and advice from overseas Chinese or other foreign groups. Later workers were more likely to have received some language and cross-cultural training in China or on the field. Over the past decade, advances in field-based training and in mobilization and recruiting within China, including the popularization of the Perspectives course, have given rise to more well-developed, systematic, and sustainable efforts. Along the way, difficult experiences, including early failures among those sent and the martyrdom of two young workers in Pakistan in 2017, have revealed weaknesses and provided the impetus for change.[16] One indigenous agency reported an initial attrition rate of 80 percent. Today more than 80 percent of their people are staying on the field long-term.

The emergence of indigenous agencies helps sending churches and missionaries navigate issues including denominational and doctrinal differences, member care, consistent financial support, communication to and from the field, and church expectations concerning strategy or church involvement.[17] Some of these are independent entities founded by an individual church or by a denominational or regional network of churches, while others comprise multiple churches and fellowships or are formed in collaboration with overseas organizations.[18]

In the move toward institutionalization there is a need to preserve the movement’s enthusiasm while becoming wiser in the use of resources. Many Chinese agencies are lacking in structure, administration, and clear roles and responsibilities. Some accuse agency leaders of directing missionaries by remote control, resulting in unhealthy relationships with the field.[19] Older leaders in China who lack field experience believe two years for language and culture learning is too long. Observers note a gap between the urgency to send and the readiness of workers to be sent. Screening remains a weak point; many still go out of a sense of obligation but lack a clear calling or any cross-cultural understanding. The availability of training offerings (often subsidized by overseas entities) has increased exponentially, but in many cases the training only feeds a desire for more knowledge but does not translate into practice.

Despite an increased willingness on the part of the church to support missions, finances remain a challenge. Workers sent by agencies tend to have consistent support, but those sent directly by churches can face difficulties due to misunderstandings or a lack of information about what is required to live on the field. Missions giving may be sporadic as government pressure hinders churches from gathering regularly. Missionaries find it hard to approach multiple churches for support due to security concerns. Transferring funds overseas is risky and costly due to government currency controls. While agencies generally provide health and emergency insurance, churches often don’t see the need for these or cannot afford it. Similarly, agencies usually budget for children’s education, but churches may not see the need since it is not an issue for their own leadership, thus causing tension within the church.[20]

It is not uncommon to find church leaders who expend considerable time and resources mobilizing, yet who have no mission experience and never take their churches further in sending and supporting workers.[21] Recognizing this gap, mission leaders see missional pastors in missional churches as foundational to the future of the movement. They encourage seminaries to make missions a required course of study to prepare such pastors.[22] In the long run there is a need for solid and deep missiological thinking to counter questionable rhetoric and practices including ethnocentrism, paternalism, and nationalistic thinking surrounding the mission movement.[23]

On the field, the concern for security that comes naturally to Chinese believers can translate into a fear of getting involved with local people and learning the language. Other obstacles include inadequate options for missionary children’s education, the biggest single factor in missionary families departing the field prematurely. Once they leave China’s rigid state-run education system, there is no going back. Yet international schools can be prohibitively expensive, and local schools may not be an option, for example in Muslim contexts. Care for missionary parents poses a unique challenge, as many workers have no siblings due to China’s decades-long family planning policy. Cultural norms dictate that they should care for their parents in their old age, resulting in shame and emotional pressure. While sending churches and agencies are becoming increasingly aware of the importance of missionary care, workers complain that it is crisis-oriented and is often either too professional and impersonal or not professional enough.[24]

An Evolving Partnership

Future mission leadership in China ideally requires people with more than ten years’ field experience to head up research, mobilization, training, and sending.[25] Since there are only a few such leaders today, the movement continues to rely heavily on foreign assistance for funding, training opportunities and resources, guidance in setting up mission structures, and mentoring for leaders and those on the field. Their significant participation has helped propel the movement forward, but it has also raised questions about how much and what kind of assistance is truly helpful.

For a church with no prior mission experience, foreign partners provide an example to follow, and for those steeped in a culture and political system that does not promote critical thinking or a sense of agency, a mentor can help shift their mindset and help them get started. Missiologists from outside China have challenged cultural assumptions. Agency personnel have accompanied new workers to the field, made introductions, and trained mobilizers within China. They have helped provide guidance to Chinese senders grappling with financial development, member care, candidate selection, and other issues.

This partnership may involve placing Chinese recruits in international teams on the field or experienced foreign workers in nascent Mainland agencies. Yet embedding Chinese workers in international teams creates the challenge of double cross-cultural adjustment, with no safe place where they can simply be themselves. Expecting Chinese workers to adopt Western practices can create dissonance as the new missionaries attempt to take what they are learning back into the Chinese church. It could also produce an unhealthy reliance on Western methodology and presuppositions.

Addressing this tension, one seasoned worker from China remarked, “They all want to help, but it’s overwhelming. Not a lot of them understand the situation of the Chinese field workers. They just want to get the job done.”[26]

Experience over time has shown that Chinese who have served with Western organizations eventually start to do things differently in line with the unique needs and culture of China’s missionary church.

A decade ago, Yi Du Kam warned, “Expatriates must resist the temptation of financing the IMM [Indigenous Mission Movement] from China with outside money. Dependency will kill IMM from China.”[27] A thorough treatment of this problem is beyond the scope of the present article; suffice it to say that foreign organizations struggle to partner wisely in a manner that will encourage the movement to flourish.

Learning from China’s Missionary Church

China’s mission movement is rooted in pious devotion and love for God. Chinese Christians understand that following Christ means suffering for his sake.[xxviii] In the face of opposition, they have shown remarkable resiliency and innovation. The movement is unprecedented in the history of the church, yet what they are experiencing is as old as the church itself, calling to mind what the early church faced when the believers were scattered because of persecution. In this time of creativity and experimentation, there are few precedents for China’s Christians to rely on. While the global church may offer helpful advice, strategies, and resources, God is clearly doing something new in China. May we learn well together as he continues to extend his mission in and through China’s church.

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[1] Kevin Xiyi Yao, ““The Chinese Church: The Next Superpower in World Missions?” ?” Evangelical Missions Quarterly 50, no. 3 (July 2014):, 299–-302, https://missionexus.org/the-chinese-church-the-next-superpower-in-world-mission/.

[2] Tabor Laughlin, “The Influence of Ethnocentrism, Nationalism, and Monoculturalism on Chinese Missionaries,” Evangelical Missions Quarterly 55, no. 3 (April-June 2019):, 11, https://missionexus.org/the-influence-of-ethnocentrism-nationalism-and-mono-culturalism-on-chinese-missionaries/.

[3] TT and Julie Ma, “An Interview with a Mission Leader in China (1),” ChinaSource, December 12, 2022, https://www.chinasource.org/resource-library/blog-entries/an-interview-with-a-missions-leader-in-china-1/.

[4] Ming Xuan, “Dangdai Zhongguo Jiaohui Xuanjiao Yundong Fazhan Luxiang” [The Direction of Development in the Contemporary Mission Movement of China’s Church], Journal of Chinese Mission 1 (November 2022):, 33, https://synergycn.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/中国宣教学刊-第一期.pdf.

[5] Steven Michael Benedict, “The Understanding and Practice of Chinese Missionaries Today: An Exploratory Study of Selected Mainland Chinese House Church University Graduates Doing Mission in Cross-Cultural Contexts” (mMaster’s of Theology Tthesis, Regent College, 2024), 28––29.

[6] David Ro, “The Rising Missions Movement in China (The World’s New Number 1 Economy) and How to Support It,” Lausanne Global Analysis, (May 2015), https://lausanne.org/global-analysis/the-rising-missions-movement-in-china-the-worlds-new-number-1-economy-and-how-to-support-it.

[7] Daniel Li, “Xuanjiao Zhongguo Yundong yu Lingdaoli Fazhan” [The Mission China Movement and Leadership Development] Journal of Chinese Mission 1 (November 2022),: 45––47, https://synergycn.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/中国宣教学刊-第一期.pdf.

[8] Zhongguo Xuanjiao Xuekan [Journal of Chinese Mission] 1 (November 2022), https://synergycn.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/中国宣教学刊-第一期.pdf.

[9] Benedict, “The Understanding and Practice of Chinese Missionaries Today,” 139.

[10] Li, “Xuanjiao Zhongguo Yundong yu Lingdaoli Fazhan,”  50, 54.

[11] See for example Ken Anderson, “Crossing Cultures: Enlightenment and the Middle Kingdom,” ChinaSource, November 19, 2024, https://www.chinasource.org/resource-library/blog-entries/crossing-cultures-enlightenment-and-the-middle-kingdom/.

[12] Zhang Anqi, “Jiankang yu Tejiu Xuanjiaoshi Guangu: Ruhe Yi Hezuo Moshi Fushi Zhongguo Jiaohui Kua Wenhua Xuanjiaoshi” [Healthy and Lasting Missionary Care: Collaboratively Serving the China Church’s Cross-Cultural Missionaries], Journal of Chinese Mission 5 (November 2024),: 78––79, https://synergycn.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Journal-of-Chinese-Mission-05-中国宣教学刊-第5期.pdf.

[13] Yao, “The Chinese Church,” 300.

[14] Brent Fulton, “The ‘Wenzhou Model’ and Missions from China,” ChinaSource Quarterly 22, no. 1 (Summer 2020), https://www.chinasource.org/resource-library/articles/the-wenzhou-model-and-missions-from-china/.

[15] Jeanne Wu, “The Global Chinese Diaspora Today: Overview and Mission Trends,” ChinaSource Quarterly 26, no. 1 (Spring 2024), https://www.chinasource.org/resource-library/articles/the-global-chinese-diaspora-today/.

[16] Martin Wang, “Questions Remain About Chinese Missionaries Killed in Pakistan, China Christian Daily, June 14, 2017, https://chinachristiandaily.com/news/china/2017-06-14/questions-remain-about-chinese-missionaries-killed-in-pakistan-4964.

[17] Si Shi and G.J., “Difficulties with Church-Based Models in Chinese Missionary Sending: Understanding the Need for Mission-Sending-Organizational Development in China,” ChinaSource, July 20, 2017, https://www.chinasource.org/resource-library/articles/difficulties-with-church-based-models-in-chinese-missionary-sending/.

[18] Xuan, “Dangdai Zhongguo Jiaohui Xuanjiao Yundong Fazhan Luxiang,” 21.

[19] Xuan, “Dangdai Zhongguo Jiaohui Xuanjiao Yundong Fazhan Luxiang,” 21.

[20] Anqi, “Jiankang yu Tejiu Xuanjiaoshi Guangu,” 74––78.

[21] Xuan, “Dangdai Zhongguo Jiaohui Xuanjiao Yundong Fazhan Luxiang, ”19.

[22] Li, “Xuanjiao Zhongguo Yundong yu Lingdaoli Fazhan,”  50,” 50.

[23] Yao, “The Chinese Church,” 301––302.

[24] Journal of Chinese Mission Editorial Committee, “Jiankang Xuanjiao Moshi Diaocha Wenjuan Fenxi Baogao” [Healthy Mission Models Survey Analytical Report], Journal of Chinese Mission, 5 (November 2024),: 225, https://synergycn.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Journal-of-Chinese-Mission-05-中国宣教学刊-第5期.pdf.

[25] Li, “Xuanjiao Zhongguo Yundong yu Lingdaoli Fazhan,”  49,” 49.

[26] Brent Fulton, “Just Listen,” ChinaSource, February 28, 2024.

[27] Yi Du Kam, “The Indigenous Mission Movement from China (1): A Current Assessment,” ChinaSource Quarterly 15, no. 1(Spring 2013), https://www.chinasource.org/resource-library/articles/the-indigenous-mission-movement-from-china-1/.

[xxviii] Benedict, “The Understanding and Practice of Chinese Missionaries Today,” 134.

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EMQ, Volume 61, Issue 2. Copyright © 2025 by Missio Nexus. All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced or copied in any form without written permission from Missio Nexus. Email: EMQ@MissioNexus.org.