The reason why churches in China are now suffering from a serious shortage of young staff is related to money, a young pastor claimed.
A few days ago, the Christian Times, an online Chinese Christian newspaper, interviewed Brother W, a young pastor in East China. W believes that money is at play in both the difficulty of recruiting seminary students and the replacement of old church workers.
He said he knows of many seminaries across the country that have had difficulty recruiting in recent years, with seminaries generally struggling to fill their seats.
The direct cause of this phenomenon is that after many seminary students graduate, no church is willing to recruit them. Many of the local churches in the hometowns of the seminary students are not willing to accept them. Even if some churches are willing to accept them, every time there is a special situation, like when the pandemic is serious, and the church is closed, the livelihood of these young seminary graduates would become a big issue. Then the church got people together to raise money for them. "Well, how do you get these young people to serve full-time? There is no basic life security for them," he confessed.
Brother W believes that the reason why many churches are reluctant to recruit recent seminarians is complicated. "The capability of seminarians is usually not strong enough. They can often talk fluently but they cannot practice what they say well. What they learn is all from books and they have few practical operations. So the churches do not like to recruit them. At the same time, there are some old preachers in the church who do not want to give the altars to the young people. I think this is a big problem for the churches in China," he added.
One important reason why they are reluctant to retire is that older workers are not well guaranteed in terms of retirement benefits. For example, if a worker is on the job, he can get five or six thousand yuan every month, which is still much. But if he quits, he can only get about 1,000 yuan a month. Some churches do not pay pensions at all, and some pay very little. So some of the older workers keep on working and are unwilling to retire.
Brother W insists that there is another important reason that prevents young preachers from serving full-time in the church lies in the stagnant development of the church. "If the church could keep developing, and more and more churches could be built up, more intern workers would naturally be needed," he urged.
"In my opinion, the church should establish and improve the salary security system for church workers, especially the pension system. However, it seems that many churches are busy with other affairs and do not pay enough attention to this aspect. Until now, no corresponding system has been established and perfected. So that stops a lot of young people from going to seminaries. There are a lot of seminary graduates who are not willing to work in the churches or there is no church that wants them. After they graduate, they still need to look for other jobs, which is quite a waste of the educational resources in the seminaries," he concluded.
- Translated by Nicolas Cao
现在中国教会的青黄不接现象非常严重。究竟因何造成了如今的青黄不接现象？
日前，基督时报采访了华东某地一青年牧者W弟兄。W弟兄分享了他对这个问题的看见与思考。W弟兄认为无论是神学院招生难还是教会工人更新换代问题的背后，都有金钱在作怪。
他说，据他所知，最近几年，全国各地很多神学院的招生工作遇到了很多困难，神学院校普遍难以做到满额招收。
而导致这种现象的直接原因是很多神学生毕业回去之后没有教会愿意接收，连合适的工场都没有，很多神学生的家乡当地教会并不太欢迎他们。而且就算教会愿意接收他们，每次遇到特殊情况，比如疫情比较严重的时候，教会关门，停止开放，这个时候这些年轻神学生的生计就成了很大的问题。然后教会就组织信徒给他们募捐，“像这样的话，你怎么叫这些年轻人全职服事？生活根本没有基本的保障，说不管就不管了。”
很多教会之所以不太愿意用刚毕业的神学生，W弟兄认为这不是单方的问题，而是各方都有责任。“作为神学生来说，水平或者说能力不够，而且往往能说却不能行，学的那些东西都是书本上的，没有实际的一些操作，所以教会不太喜欢用。同时教会里面存在着一些老的传道人不愿意下来的情况，我认为这是现在中国教会很大的问题。”
他们之所以不愿意下去，有一个很重要的原因就是老的工人在退休待遇方面没有得到很好的保障。比如一个工人在职的话，每个月能够拿到五六千块钱，这还是很可以的了。可是如果退下去了的话，每个月就只能够拿到1000多块钱。甚至有些地方干脆根本就没有给教会工人交养老金，而有一些教会虽然交了但是也交的很少。所以有些老的工人就这样继续做下去，不愿意退下来。
W弟兄认为阻碍年轻传道人到教会全职服事的还有一个很重要的原因，那就是教会发展与否。“咱这么说，教会你发展也行，教会一个一个的建起来，那自然就需要有更多的实习工人进来。”
“在我看来，教会应该建立、健全教会工人的薪资保障制度尤其是退休之后的退休工资制度（==当summary），但是好像很多教会都在忙着其他的事务，没有充分的重视这个方面，直到现在都没有建立健全相应的制度。所以才导致了很多年轻人不愿意读神学，而就算读了神学也是‘白读’的状况——有很多的神学生毕业之后不愿意来教会或者教会不愿意接收他们，所以他们读了神学，可是依然重新回到世界上，像其他人一样找社会上的工作，非常令人可惜。”
专访|从神学院招生难谈教会工人的更新换代问题
The reason why churches in China are now suffering from a serious shortage of young staff is related to money, a young pastor claimed.
A few days ago, the Christian Times, an online Chinese Christian newspaper, interviewed Brother W, a young pastor in East China. W believes that money is at play in both the difficulty of recruiting seminary students and the replacement of old church workers.
He said he knows of many seminaries across the country that have had difficulty recruiting in recent years, with seminaries generally struggling to fill their seats.
The direct cause of this phenomenon is that after many seminary students graduate, no church is willing to recruit them. Many of the local churches in the hometowns of the seminary students are not willing to accept them. Even if some churches are willing to accept them, every time there is a special situation, like when the pandemic is serious, and the church is closed, the livelihood of these young seminary graduates would become a big issue. Then the church got people together to raise money for them. "Well, how do you get these young people to serve full-time? There is no basic life security for them," he confessed.
Brother W believes that the reason why many churches are reluctant to recruit recent seminarians is complicated. "The capability of seminarians is usually not strong enough. They can often talk fluently but they cannot practice what they say well. What they learn is all from books and they have few practical operations. So the churches do not like to recruit them. At the same time, there are some old preachers in the church who do not want to give the altars to the young people. I think this is a big problem for the churches in China," he added.
One important reason why they are reluctant to retire is that older workers are not well guaranteed in terms of retirement benefits. For example, if a worker is on the job, he can get five or six thousand yuan every month, which is still much. But if he quits, he can only get about 1,000 yuan a month. Some churches do not pay pensions at all, and some pay very little. So some of the older workers keep on working and are unwilling to retire.
Brother W insists that there is another important reason that prevents young preachers from serving full-time in the church lies in the stagnant development of the church. "If the church could keep developing, and more and more churches could be built up, more intern workers would naturally be needed," he urged.
"In my opinion, the church should establish and improve the salary security system for church workers, especially the pension system. However, it seems that many churches are busy with other affairs and do not pay enough attention to this aspect. Until now, no corresponding system has been established and perfected. So that stops a lot of young people from going to seminaries. There are a lot of seminary graduates who are not willing to work in the churches or there is no church that wants them. After they graduate, they still need to look for other jobs, which is quite a waste of the educational resources in the seminaries," he concluded.
- Translated by Nicolas Cao
Interview: Shortage of Young Church Workers Is Much Related to Money
