“Is Christianity still growing in China, or has it begun to decline or even shrink?”
This has been one of the most talked-about topics at home and abroad over the past decade. Before that, when Christianity was at its prime, the hot topic was: how many Christians are there in China?
However, in 2023, Pew Research Center, one of the most authoritative religious think tanks in the world, made a comprehensive assessment of China’s religious beliefs, including Christianity, and came to the conclusion that since 2010, the development of Christianity in the country has stabilized and even started to stagnate.
In recent years, many Chinese pastors have a common feeling that, compared with the era from the 1980s to the 2010s, the growth of the church and the fervor of the followers are really not as good as before. In 2022, I heard a domestic scholar who shared that various data in the past few years show that the number growth of Christians in China is not as good as that of some other religions such as Buddhism, and Christianity is actually in a low state.
After two revivals, have the churches in China come to a bottleneck period or a trough period?
Looking back on the development history of Christianity in China since the reform and opening-up, the most striking thing was the two historical periods: the rural revival from the late 1970s to the 1990s and the rise of urban churches in the last decade around 2000. The background of the former was the re-implementation of the policy of religious freedom and the fact that most of China’s population was still distributed in rural areas, while the background of the latter was closely related to the vigorous urbanization process that China started with its entry into the WTO.
Although these two historical periods took place in different geographical locations, they both showed vitality. The common features were the establishment of many churches and the growth of many believers. According to an analysis of Christianity's rapid growth following reform and opening up in China in Renmin University's Report on Religious Investigation in China (2015), "Among the five major religions, Christianity is the one that adapts best to the social environment of contemporary China, which may be the fundamental reason for the rapid development of Christianity in the past 30 years."
It can be said that compared with the revival of Christianity in China mentioned above, it is true that the current decade are an obvious trough, and the situation may continue in the next few years because the current urban churches are obviously growing weaker. It is not uncommon for pastors to give up. Many pastors conclude that the current state of churches in China is the “bottleneck period”.
How can the church revive and continue its vitality?
Of course, everything will go through different stages, such as novice, growth, climax, maturity, stability, and decline. Can vitality succeed after the primitive growth of Christianity in China seen in the past decades? Or how can vitality be renewed and sustained in the new era? This is the core issue that churches in China need to address urgently.
At present, how to develop and mature the church in China more healthily is the focus of many pastors, thus, different people hold different perspectives. For instance, some people point out that we should attach importance to the construction of the church system; others devote themselves to local theological research and education; some emphasize that joining in universal missionary work can be the driving force; and some begin to train and teach laymen. Some researchers think that the revival of rural and urban churches in China is closely related to the large population flow. Therefore, the population of China begins to flow back to new small and medium-sized cities or other urban areas. Others think that since the community population is increasingly condensed, whether a new round of community revival and the establishment of community-based churches are needed in the future should be considered.
However, I think that the urbanization process in China is still going on, but it is only after the period of rapid development that it begins to enter the period of adjustment and optimization, and the population of China will still flow and continue to increase in the cities for a long time to come. Therefore, how to continue the energetic planting and expansion in the urban agglomeration in the process of modernization is one of the core tasks of Christianity in China at present.
Judging from the development of Christianity in many Asian countries and regions, it often happens in the process of urbanization. If it is not cultivated and developed well during this period, the situation will basically solidify when the urbanization process ends in the future.
For example, from 1972 to 1986, the proportion of Christians increased from 10% to 25% in the process of urbanization in South Korea, while the increase in the proportion of Christians has not changed much in the following 40 years. In addition, although Christianity is not a traditional and mainstream religion in Singapore in Southeast Asia, it showed a rapid growth trend in the 30 years from 1980 to 2010, with the proportion reaching 20.1% from 10.9% (6.3% for Protestantism and 4.6% for Catholicism), while among the nearly 570,000 Christians in 2010, 470,000 were Chinese.
Japan's case is the opposite. In the process of post-WWII reconstruction, the population of Christians in Japan increased greatly during the five years from 1947 to 1952, and the number of believers reached 420,000, accounting for 0.5% of the 80 million populations at the time. Subsequently, with the rapid economic take-off and urbanization, Japan became rich rapidly, but the churches were not established in proportion, which has made Japan the first country in Asia to achieve modernization but with the smallest proportion of Christians in the world.
Over the years, I have learned from pastors in different parts of China that they all hold one common opinion: evangelism now is much more difficult than it was more than 10 or 20 years ago. One of the crucial reasons is that it will be more difficult for people to accept the gospel in a rich modern society.
Although now is a bottleneck or trough period, Chinese churches need to continue to tirelessly plant new and lively urban churches and make expansions in at least five to ten years in the future.
In fact, not only in China but also in Europe, where urbanization has been completed and secularism is prevalent, the local evangelical churches still believe that their primary task at present is to plant churches.
Why is it so important to plant churches in cities?
I recently read the book Center Church: Doing Balanced, Gospel-Centered Ministry in Your City, which is regarded as Timothy Keller’s masterpiece. The book talks about the urban church planting movement, which seems enlightening to me. From various angles, Keller elaborates on the multiple and far-reaching significance of urban planting.
Different from the current situation in China, the main situation in Europe and America is that there are many existing churches, but most of them are old and declining, and the pews are getting emptier. Therefore, many people think that the urgent task is not to build new churches but to “strengthen existing churches, fill them first, and then go out to explore more”. However, Keller’s response to these views is: “The main way to increase the number of believers in a city is not through church revival.”
Keller mentions that after World War I, especially in the mainstream Protestant churches, the number of churches planted dropped sharply. The old churches strongly resisted the invasion of the original community by any new churches. However, in the first one or two decades of its establishment, the new church achieved remarkable results in evangelizing, and their scale reached its peak before they started to be even or slowly declining. The competition that the new church brought at this time made the old church uneasy, which became the biggest obstacle to the development of the new church in the community. As a result, the mainstream church has obviously declined in the past twenty or thirty years.
A similar situation is actually happening in some cities in the old evangelical areas of China. I once visited a city in the south where the gospel began to flourish in the late 1970s. Some existing traditional churches in the area have a history of about 40 years. Not only was the overall environment prosperous, but new churches were born every ten or five years. Many new models and experiments were tried, which was seldom the case in many cities. However, a local pastor said in a helpless manner and regretted that the real situation is that at least 70% to 80% of churches are idle. Especially traditional churches of mid-aged membership are unable to attract young people and declined badly. Many local churches that used to accommodate thousands of people often embraces less than 78% attendance on Sundays. Thankfully, at least a wave of new church trends can stimulate traditional churches.
How do you meet the needs of your city?
“How many churches does your city need?” Keller asks in the book. His answer is that because many churches are declining or losing their vitality, at least one moderate church planting growth is needed to keep the Christian body in a city from declining continuously, and if the Christian body in the whole city is to keep growing, there must be an active church planting movement—every existing church needs to establish 10 to 20 new churches.
Moreover, the core is how we meet the needs of people around us. Pastor Timothy Keller and Rick Warren are both outstanding in the practice of urban church planting in this era. Both church planters mention that the most important people to attract when planting churches and establishing new churches in cities are the young generation and new residents, which is also consistent with the reality of the process of urbanization in China.
In the process of church planting, the key matter is that church planters themselves need to change their mentality—get rid of the conception of turf, clique, internal fight, sectarian strife, or taking the gospel as a tool for “my own use only”. A vision of God’s kingdom is needed.
In this process, it is natural to encounter such realities and needs, or the church has to continue to explore transformations while planting. Whether it is the trend of healthy churches rising in the past 10 years or the discussion of the missional church that just sprouted on the mainland of China, these are all manifestations.
- Translated by Charlie Li
“基督教在中国是仍旧在保持增长的状态，还是已经开始衰落甚至萎缩？”
这是大约近十年来，海内外关注中国教会时最多讨论的话题之一。在此之前，谈起呈现活力增长的中国基督教，最被广泛讨论的话题之一就是：中国基督徒人数到底有多少？
但是，2023年国际上最具权威之一的宗教智库皮尤研究中心（Pew Research Center）对中国的宗教信仰包括基督教的状况进行综合评估后给出的一个结论是：2010年以来，基督教在中国的发展趋于平稳甚至开始出现停滞不前。
近年来，中国教会内部不少教牧同工一个共同的感受是，这十年和1980-2010年间相比，教会的增长和信徒的火热的确大不如从前。笔者2022年曾听过有国内的学者分享说，认为过去几年各种数据显示其实中国基督徒的数字增长不如佛教等其他一些宗教，其实处于低谷状态。
中国教会经历两次复兴后，来到瓶颈期还是低谷期？
回顾改革开放至今中国基督教的发展历史，它最引人注目的是两段历史：1970年代末至1990年代的农村大复兴，和随后2000年前后开始的近十年的城市教会兴起。前者的时代背景是宗教自由政策重新落实和中国人口大部分仍分布在乡土，后者的时代背景则和中国伴随着入世后开始的轰轰烈烈的城市化进程息息相关。
这两段历史虽然发生在不同的地理位置，但都曾呈现出蓬勃的活力，共同的特点就是教会多多的建立和信徒多多的增长。2015年中国人民大学发布的《中国宗教调查报告（2015）》关于基督教在改革开放后发展迅速的原因，给出的一个分析是：“在五大宗教中，基督教是与当代中国社会环境适应得最好的宗教，这可能是基督教近30年来取得长足发展的根本原因。”
可以说，和前二段的中国基督教经历的复兴相比，的确当下这10多年是明显的低谷期，未来几年可能这样的情况仍旧会延续，因为当下城市教会呈现明显的乏力和疲软的情况，牧者躺平的现象也并不少见，有不少牧者以“瓶颈期”概括当前中国教会的状态。
中国教会如何更新和延续活力？
当然，任何事物都会经历萌芽、成长、高潮、成熟、平稳和衰落等不同的阶段。中国基督教在呈现了过去数十年的原始增长后，其蓬勃的活力是否仍然能够持续？或者说，活力如何在新的阶段更新和延续？这是当下中国教会亟需讨论的核心话题。
当下，关于中国教会如何更健康的发展和成熟，是许多教牧同工的关注和探索的焦点，不同的人给出不同角度的实践。比如，有的人提出要重视教会体制建设，也有人致力于本土神学研究和教育，有的强调投身普世宣教才能成为推动力，还有的开始着手平信徒的培养和门训等。也有研究者认为之前中国的农村和城市教会复兴都是和人口的大流动有密切的关系，因此当下中国的人口开始回流到新的中小城市或者城镇化之中，也有的人认为人口越来越多的集中在社区之中，未来是否需要新一轮的社区复兴和社区型教会的建立。
但是，笔者在此提出，中国的城市化进程仍旧在进行，只不过是高速发展期后开始步入调整优化期，并且中国的人口未来很大一段时间仍然会流动和持续集中到城市，因此，我们如何在现代化进程的城市群中继续推进充满活力的植堂和拓展是当下中国基督教最核心的任务之一。
从亚洲许多国家和地区的基督教发展来看，基督教的发展很多时候发生在城市化进程之中，若此段时期未很好的耕耘和开发，未来城市化进程结束时，局面基本会固化下来。
比如，韩国在1972年到1986年的城市化进程中，基督徒人数比例从10%达到25%，而自此之后的40年间的人数比例增长并未有太多改变；另外基督教在位于东南亚的新加坡并不是传统和主流宗教，但在1980-2010的30年间呈现快速增长趋势，基督徒人数比例从10.9%（新教占6.3%，天主教占4.6%）达到20.1%（2010年共近57万的基督徒中，其中47万是华人）。
相反的例子是日本。在二战后重建过程中，日本基督徒人口1947年至1952年这五年间大幅增长，信徒人数达到42万，这时的全日本人口为8000多万，占0.5%。随后迅速的经济腾飞与城市化进程，日本急速富裕起来，而这时的教会未成比例地建立起，这使得日本虽然是亚洲第一个成就现代化的国家，但也是世界上基督徒比例最小的国家。
近年来，笔者与中国不同地区的牧者同工交流时，他们都不约而同地提到一个共同点：最近这几年传福音比十多年前、二十年前相比困难很多。其中有一个原因不可忽视：在富裕起来的现代社会，人心将会更难接受福音。
虽然处于瓶颈期或者低谷期，但中国教会在当下和未来至少5-10年都需要持续地关注和孜孜不倦地展开新的、活泼的城市植堂和拓展。
事实上，不仅仅当下的中国，即使在已经城市化完成和世俗主义盛行的欧洲，当地的福音派教会仍旧认为他们当下的首要任务是：植堂。
为何活泼的城市植堂如此重要？
笔者日前阅读被誉为是提摩太·凯勒集大成之作的《21世纪教会成长学》其中所谈到活泼的城市植堂运动，颇有醍醐灌顶之感。他从多个角度出发回答了城市植堂多重而深远的意义。
和中国目前情况不一样的是，欧美面临的当下最主要的现状是现有的教会很多，但是大多陈旧、衰落，连人都坐不满了，所以很多人认为当务之急是不要再建立新的教会，而是“加强现有的教会，先坐满人，再出去开拓教会”，但凯勒对这些观点的回应是：“要增加一个城市中信徒的人数，主要的方式不是透过教会复兴，而是透过建立教会。”
凯勒提到，一次世界大战之后，特别是在主流的新教教会，植堂数锐减。老教会强烈抵抗新教会入侵原有的社区。而新的教会通常在成立的头一、二十年中，向新人传福音成效十分卓著，规模达到巅峰，但随后就只能持平或者缓慢下降。在这段期间，老教会对于新建教会带来的竞争感到不安，就变成了拦阻新教会在社区中发展最大的阻力。结果导致主流教会在过去二、三十年间异常明显的衰退。
类似的情况其实在中国一些福音老区的城市也有。笔者曾经到访过南方一个福音自1970年代末就开始兴旺的城市，当地现存的一些传统教会有40年左右的历史了，不仅整体生态较为繁荣并且也有每十年、五年就有新型的教会诞生，尝试很多新模式新经验，这在很多城市是很难见到的。但当地一位牧者以无奈和遗憾的口气介绍说，其实真实的情况其实是至少七八成的教会是躺平状态，尤其是传统式的教会，比如30-40年的老教会无法吸引年轻人，并且衰落得厉害，当地有不少可以承载上千人的教堂往往主日只有不到七八分之一的上座率，而感谢的是，至少一波波兴起的新的教会潮流可以对传统教会产生刺激的作用，并且对整体这所城市的教会带来更新作用。
如何满足你所在城市的福音需要？
“你所在的城市需要多少间教会?”凯勒如此问到。他的答案是，因为不少教会是衰落或者失去活力的，所以至少要有一个缓和的植堂增长才能保持一个城市的基督身体不至于持续衰减，而如果要整个城市的基督身体保持增长，则必须有积极的植堂运动——意思是：每一间现有教会，需要建立十到二十间新教会。
而最核心的就是我们如何满足身边人群的需要？不管是凯勒牧师还是华理克牧师，他们都是这个时代实践城市植堂中的佼佼者，这些植堂者都提到在城市之中植堂和建立新的教会最重要需要吸引的人群就是年轻的世代、新来的居民等，这也非常契合当下中国城市化进程中的现实。
在这样的植堂过程中，最重要的还是植堂者自己需要改变心态，其中核心就是我们需要丢掉现在弥漫和充斥不少中国教会的山头主义、小团体主义、搞小圈子、结党和内斗、门派之争、把福音当做“唯我所用”的工具等等，拥有国度的视野。
而在此过程中，这些现实和需要自然而然或者说教会不得不在拓植的同时需要继续探索转型。无论是近十年来兴起的健康教会潮流，还是刚刚在中国内地萌芽的使命教会（missional church）的探讨等等，都是这些体现。
角声| 中国教会当下最大的任务之一：继续展开活泼的城市植堂
“Is Christianity still growing in China, or has it begun to decline or even shrink?”
This has been one of the most talked-about topics at home and abroad over the past decade. Before that, when Christianity was at its prime, the hot topic was: how many Christians are there in China?
However, in 2023, Pew Research Center, one of the most authoritative religious think tanks in the world, made a comprehensive assessment of China’s religious beliefs, including Christianity, and came to the conclusion that since 2010, the development of Christianity in the country has stabilized and even started to stagnate.
In recent years, many Chinese pastors have a common feeling that, compared with the era from the 1980s to the 2010s, the growth of the church and the fervor of the followers are really not as good as before. In 2022, I heard a domestic scholar who shared that various data in the past few years show that the number growth of Christians in China is not as good as that of some other religions such as Buddhism, and Christianity is actually in a low state.
After two revivals, have the churches in China come to a bottleneck period or a trough period?
Looking back on the development history of Christianity in China since the reform and opening-up, the most striking thing was the two historical periods: the rural revival from the late 1970s to the 1990s and the rise of urban churches in the last decade around 2000. The background of the former was the re-implementation of the policy of religious freedom and the fact that most of China’s population was still distributed in rural areas, while the background of the latter was closely related to the vigorous urbanization process that China started with its entry into the WTO.
Although these two historical periods took place in different geographical locations, they both showed vitality. The common features were the establishment of many churches and the growth of many believers. According to an analysis of Christianity's rapid growth following reform and opening up in China in Renmin University's Report on Religious Investigation in China (2015), "Among the five major religions, Christianity is the one that adapts best to the social environment of contemporary China, which may be the fundamental reason for the rapid development of Christianity in the past 30 years."
It can be said that compared with the revival of Christianity in China mentioned above, it is true that the current decade are an obvious trough, and the situation may continue in the next few years because the current urban churches are obviously growing weaker. It is not uncommon for pastors to give up. Many pastors conclude that the current state of churches in China is the “bottleneck period”.
How can the church revive and continue its vitality?
Of course, everything will go through different stages, such as novice, growth, climax, maturity, stability, and decline. Can vitality succeed after the primitive growth of Christianity in China seen in the past decades? Or how can vitality be renewed and sustained in the new era? This is the core issue that churches in China need to address urgently.
At present, how to develop and mature the church in China more healthily is the focus of many pastors, thus, different people hold different perspectives. For instance, some people point out that we should attach importance to the construction of the church system; others devote themselves to local theological research and education; some emphasize that joining in universal missionary work can be the driving force; and some begin to train and teach laymen. Some researchers think that the revival of rural and urban churches in China is closely related to the large population flow. Therefore, the population of China begins to flow back to new small and medium-sized cities or other urban areas. Others think that since the community population is increasingly condensed, whether a new round of community revival and the establishment of community-based churches are needed in the future should be considered.
However, I think that the urbanization process in China is still going on, but it is only after the period of rapid development that it begins to enter the period of adjustment and optimization, and the population of China will still flow and continue to increase in the cities for a long time to come. Therefore, how to continue the energetic planting and expansion in the urban agglomeration in the process of modernization is one of the core tasks of Christianity in China at present.
Judging from the development of Christianity in many Asian countries and regions, it often happens in the process of urbanization. If it is not cultivated and developed well during this period, the situation will basically solidify when the urbanization process ends in the future.
For example, from 1972 to 1986, the proportion of Christians increased from 10% to 25% in the process of urbanization in South Korea, while the increase in the proportion of Christians has not changed much in the following 40 years. In addition, although Christianity is not a traditional and mainstream religion in Singapore in Southeast Asia, it showed a rapid growth trend in the 30 years from 1980 to 2010, with the proportion reaching 20.1% from 10.9% (6.3% for Protestantism and 4.6% for Catholicism), while among the nearly 570,000 Christians in 2010, 470,000 were Chinese.
Japan's case is the opposite. In the process of post-WWII reconstruction, the population of Christians in Japan increased greatly during the five years from 1947 to 1952, and the number of believers reached 420,000, accounting for 0.5% of the 80 million populations at the time. Subsequently, with the rapid economic take-off and urbanization, Japan became rich rapidly, but the churches were not established in proportion, which has made Japan the first country in Asia to achieve modernization but with the smallest proportion of Christians in the world.
Over the years, I have learned from pastors in different parts of China that they all hold one common opinion: evangelism now is much more difficult than it was more than 10 or 20 years ago. One of the crucial reasons is that it will be more difficult for people to accept the gospel in a rich modern society.
Although now is a bottleneck or trough period, Chinese churches need to continue to tirelessly plant new and lively urban churches and make expansions in at least five to ten years in the future.
In fact, not only in China but also in Europe, where urbanization has been completed and secularism is prevalent, the local evangelical churches still believe that their primary task at present is to plant churches.
Why is it so important to plant churches in cities?
I recently read the book Center Church: Doing Balanced, Gospel-Centered Ministry in Your City, which is regarded as Timothy Keller’s masterpiece. The book talks about the urban church planting movement, which seems enlightening to me. From various angles, Keller elaborates on the multiple and far-reaching significance of urban planting.
Different from the current situation in China, the main situation in Europe and America is that there are many existing churches, but most of them are old and declining, and the pews are getting emptier. Therefore, many people think that the urgent task is not to build new churches but to “strengthen existing churches, fill them first, and then go out to explore more”. However, Keller’s response to these views is: “The main way to increase the number of believers in a city is not through church revival.”
Keller mentions that after World War I, especially in the mainstream Protestant churches, the number of churches planted dropped sharply. The old churches strongly resisted the invasion of the original community by any new churches. However, in the first one or two decades of its establishment, the new church achieved remarkable results in evangelizing, and their scale reached its peak before they started to be even or slowly declining. The competition that the new church brought at this time made the old church uneasy, which became the biggest obstacle to the development of the new church in the community. As a result, the mainstream church has obviously declined in the past twenty or thirty years.
A similar situation is actually happening in some cities in the old evangelical areas of China. I once visited a city in the south where the gospel began to flourish in the late 1970s. Some existing traditional churches in the area have a history of about 40 years. Not only was the overall environment prosperous, but new churches were born every ten or five years. Many new models and experiments were tried, which was seldom the case in many cities. However, a local pastor said in a helpless manner and regretted that the real situation is that at least 70% to 80% of churches are idle. Especially traditional churches of mid-aged membership are unable to attract young people and declined badly. Many local churches that used to accommodate thousands of people often embraces less than 78% attendance on Sundays. Thankfully, at least a wave of new church trends can stimulate traditional churches.
How do you meet the needs of your city?
“How many churches does your city need?” Keller asks in the book. His answer is that because many churches are declining or losing their vitality, at least one moderate church planting growth is needed to keep the Christian body in a city from declining continuously, and if the Christian body in the whole city is to keep growing, there must be an active church planting movement—every existing church needs to establish 10 to 20 new churches.
Moreover, the core is how we meet the needs of people around us. Pastor Timothy Keller and Rick Warren are both outstanding in the practice of urban church planting in this era. Both church planters mention that the most important people to attract when planting churches and establishing new churches in cities are the young generation and new residents, which is also consistent with the reality of the process of urbanization in China.
In the process of church planting, the key matter is that church planters themselves need to change their mentality—get rid of the conception of turf, clique, internal fight, sectarian strife, or taking the gospel as a tool for “my own use only”. A vision of God’s kingdom is needed.
In this process, it is natural to encounter such realities and needs, or the church has to continue to explore transformations while planting. Whether it is the trend of healthy churches rising in the past 10 years or the discussion of the missional church that just sprouted on the mainland of China, these are all manifestations.
- Translated by Charlie Li
Voice: Chinese Churches Should Continue Vibrant Urban Church Planting
