Women -- the Strength of the Church
Christianity in China has grown immensely since the end of the Clutural Revolution as seen in the rapid reopening of churches in the 1980s up to the present day. Any church congregation in China today would be incomplete without the participation of women. Although the church has experienced phenomenal growth in recent decades, it has not been able to train and ordain enough qualified clergy to meet its growing needs. With the tremendous shortage of clergy, lay people, especially lay women, play a central role in upholding the day-to-day life of the parish. Women have become the pilars in the life and work of the church. They are involved in leading weekday women's meetings, prayer meetings, literacy classes using the Bible as text, youth work, choir, preparing the bread and wine for Holy Communion, visitation, ushering, cleaning and decorating the church for worship. Numerically speaking, there is only one pastor for every 10,000 Christians in China. The vast majority of Christians in rural China worship in meeting points led by men and women lay leaders. The very effective work of spreading the gospel in the coutryside is done mostly by women evangelists with great enthusiasm. They take charge of the meeting points which have been flourishing in recent decades, and carry out pastoral work in these congregations. This is true not only in the rural areas, but also in large cities. For example, in the municipality of Beijing there are more than 200 meeting points scattered here and there. More than 95 percent of them are in the care of lay women workers trained for this work. They are the ones who keep the congregations alive and functioning well. Generally speaking, women ministers and lay women evangelists are popular among the people. Without the labor or these women, it would be impossible to have a church at all.The Ordination of Women
Before 1949 there were only a few women ministers in China. The Rev. Lee Tim Oi, ordained during World War II by Bishop Ronald O. Hall, was the very first Anglican woman clergy in the world. There were of course women church workers commissioned as "Bible women." In comparison to their male counterparts these women were much less educated, paid a much lower salary, working in the background with low visibility, and had no part in the major decision-making process of the church. Since 1949, however, the position of women in the church has greatly improved. Many women ministers began appearing, especially since the reopening of churches after the "Cultural Reviolution." In 1981 two women were ordained in Northeast China -- Rev. Lu Zhibin and Rev. Wu Ai-en (the latter being a Korean minority person). From then on more and more women have been ordained in various parts of China. In the past 20 years there has been an increasing rate of women being ordained. A dramatic example can be seen in the following statistics. In 1992 there were 172 ordinations, of which 70 were women. By the end of 1999 the church in China had ordained 378 women pastors. Of these, 223 were ordained in the year 1994. At the moment one out of five people being ordained in the church in China is a woman. In all of the 18 theological seminaries in China, women students make up more than 50 percent of the student body. Most of the women students in our seminaries expect to be ordained into the Christian ministry. Also, among the full-time faculty members in the seminaries, approximately half are women. Women's liberation in the church in China is part of their liberation in Chinese society, rather than a result of theological development or ecclesiastical decision.The Commission on Women's Work
While women form the very backbone of church life in China, their voices have not been adequately heard and their concerns as women are not taken seriously enough. The national Commission on Women's Work of the China Christian Council was established in 1993 by the initiative of women. It was a breakthrough in contemporary Chinese church history. Some of the goals of the commission are:1) To assist the women of the church to be better organized as they work together. At the moment 24 provincial Christian councils have set up women's committees.Although women volunteers are enthusiastic in evangelistic work, their lack of educational background is a cause for concern, because it results in inadequate quality of preaching the gospel. Part of the task of the women's Commission is to see that training centers are established, particularly in rural China, to bring the lay women up to educational and theological standards. Yunnan province in southwest China is an example of a region with such needs. The province has a total population of 41 million which represents 26 ethnic groups (including the Han majority). Seventy-five procent of the Christians in Yunnan are of ethnic minority background, living in extremely poor, remote mountainous areas. Their becoming Christians dates back to pre-liberation (i.e. pre-1949, ed.) when foreign missionaries ventured into these remote places to bring them the gospel. In the last 20 years the number of Christian believers in Yunnan has increased from 200,000 to 800,000 and 65 percent of them are women. The Women's' Committee in Yunnan proposed to provide training courses during the slack agricultural season for women who are identified as natural leaders in various regions. These women are chosen from, and committed to go back to, their communities to train other women. The training courses aimed at raising women's capabilities in leadership on the grassroots level. The courses consist or 1) basic Bible studies; 2) Christian truths to combat heresies; 3) church administration; 4) the Three-Self Principle of self governance, self support and self propagation; 5) outreach and ministy to women; 6) knowledge of the law and regulations regarding government policy of religious freedom. The women who participate in the training pay 60 yuan RMB (approximately US $7.50) a month for their living expenses. They themselves contribute 40 pounds of grain or flour a month as tuition. Sometimes students would bring food in place of money which they cannot raise. To date the number of women trained by the provincial women's committee has reached 3,000. This concerted effort has proven effective in improving the quality of church life. Twenty years ago there were no women pastors in Yunnan, while today there are 14 who have been ordained after the training program. Together they shepherd more than 500,000 Christians in Yunnan province. Last year the national Commission on Women's Work held a significant symposium and a seminar. These two events were designed primarily for professional women chuch workers to explore the Bible from women's perspectives, to raise their consciousness as women, and to examine their special role as women in the church. In that same year for the very first time the subject of feminist studies was brought up on the agenda of the national seminar of the church. In spite of the critical remarks from male colleagues, the women were not discouraged, as their voices have been heard and women's concerns have surfaced in the church. This is only the beginning of a very long journey, yet the women have taken the (first) step forward.
2) To encourage and support women to participate in all aspects of church life, especially in the decision-making process.
3) To assist local women's committees to train women lay workers
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