From Bangkok to Bishkek, Budapest to Bogotá. Kenneth D. MacHarg
today but the local government and a wealthy Christian rebuilt it and it is used for weddings, music concerts, etc. The government allowed it to be used for services but local Chinese Christians opposed opening another church (because attendance has fallen in the other churches on the islet, largely due to its isolation from Xiamen Island).
The government spent about 4 million Yuan in helping to renovate it. Gulangyu was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site status in 2017, and Union Church is an important part of that heritage.3
We also visited two churches that fall into the third stream of ICs which have been planted in recent decades by the new American evangelical movement. Those were the large International Christian Assembly (ICA) in Hong Kong which was started by the Assemblies of God and the Guanghou International Christian Fellowship in China itself. This new congregation fills a large hotel ballroom each Sunday with worshippers from around the world.
The Guanghou church describes itself this way: GICF is a group of expatriate Christians living in Guangzhou who meet together regularly. Our mission is to serve English-speaking expatriates by providing a stable environment for fellowship, worship, Bible teaching, mutual encouragement, and personal spiritual nourishment and growth. We also provide people with an opportunity to contribute to the community and help each other live effectively as foreigners in China.
(http://www.gicf.net/mission-statement)
Similarly, ICA in Hong Kong provides this description: We are a Glocal Church. We act locally and impact globally. Yes, it’s a new kind of Church.
We are A CHURCH THAT CARES to embrace all people, regardless of age, gender, class, countries, cultures and creed because JESUS loves all people. We choose each other as friends and family and we strive to love Jesus more perfectly as a Community.
We are a House with many rooms. People from different places worshiping in their language. People of different age and life stages with different worship styles growing and serving together. Even though we are many nations and generations yet we are ONE Church. (http://www.icahk.org/our-vision)
Visiting these churches took us through an historic sweep of 400 years, demonstrating the impact and influence that these churches have had around the world and the importance of their ministries. We will explore how these came about and developed in the rest of this history.
A brief note: Writing a history of any kind is daunting when the author is neither an historian nor an academic. In fact, I am a practitioner more than anything. As a pastor, a missionary, a teacher, I have been involved with ministering to congregations and individuals, helping churches to grow and care for people. Knowing how to write a history is beyond my scope.
I trust that in telling the story of ICs as I have known them will help others to catch the vision of what they are about and to appreciate how they have not only been centers of ministry to expat and third-culture communities, but have also been facilitators, trainers, teachers and evangelists, sending people back to their home countries in all parts of the world as better trained, experienced evangelists and pastors.
1 A more recent accounting puts the total number of international, English-speaking congregations at more than 3,000.
2 While this book focuses on the various Protestant international churches around the world, it should be noted that hundreds if not thousands of English-language Roman Catholic masses are held regularly in local vernacular churches, seminaries or other Catholic institutions in all parts of the inhabited world. The location of these congregations and other Roman Catholic organizations and institutions can be found at https://www.catholicdirectory.com/maps.
3 Much of the above information came in a personal letter to the author from Dr. Brown. Rev. John Abraham Otte was a Dutch missionary and medical doctor. The Island was the site of 13 foreign consulates, thus an ideal place to form an international Union Church.
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.