Transplanting with native soil

-Church Planting Model in North American Chinese Mainlanders

Since my salvation in 1995, my church life and ministry revolves around one thing - to plant churches among North American Mainland people. This article is a life summary of my experience planting churches in North American Chinese Mainlanders.

By Liu TongSu

Church - an environment for spiritual growth

Church planting is to build a church from nothing to something. The body of Christ (church) is the carrier of Christ's life and (positive) environment. No one can rely on oneself alone to receive the life of Christ.

How can a life be lived outside of body? Who can be in touch with Christ's life if not through Christ's body? Without the church's inheritance and connection, a limited man many not receive the unlimited life of Christ; without the protection of the church ( an organized, substantive spiritual entity) no one will be able to withstand the world's (an organized, substantive sinful entity) attacks.

Church planting is to build an environment for spiritual growth. On the one hand, the individual is influenced by the environment:

1. The singular individual cannot overcome the overall power of the environment. The more one is immature, the more his life relies on his environment.

2. Whether intellectually or spiritually, any influence is empty unless it becomes a perceptual power that touches the individual.

To an individual, the combination of all practical touching is the environment. Therefore the purpose of church planting is not to build up one individual after another, rather to build up a group that constitutes an environment favorable to spiritual growth.

The form of church planting is not just talk or empty prayers, but the full interaction of lives. "Word becomes flesh" indicates to us that Christ did not just present empty talks or hid in heaven and pray, but became a person in order to bring the gospel to the world. Perceptual practical living is where "word" and "spirit" can have an effect on life.

On the other hand, environment is not composed of individuals. The individual in an environment is part of the environment. Build up individuals is to build up the environment. Here building up individual is not building in isolation many individuals, and then put them together to be a church. Rather, it is like Ephesians 4:12 "for the perfecting of the saints, unto the work of ministering, unto the building up of the body of Christ", to build an environment where spiritual life can flourish.

"Building up individuals" is not to build up independent individuals, but to build up saints who can function and fulfill the needs required by the environment. Before the spiritual environment is completed, the individual must be built up using the desired environment as a blueprint.

From these we see that church planting is a combination of building up a spiritual environment and providing personal spiritual growth. While the individual is influenced by his environment, he also influences the environment. Managing the interaction between the two is key to successful church planting.

For example, one can setup a structure and ministry compatible with the individual's spiritual condition. Or put suitable requirements on individuals consistent with the general spiritual level of the church. Do not plan certain ministry without a suitably mature individuals to be in charge, and do not put demand on an individual while the church as a whole cannot support.

Structure and core - important elements of the environment

Structure belongs to the purpose for which the organism lives, and it also dictates the organism's survival and development. The internal structure of a church is to promote spiritual growth. However, there is not purely Christ's life in the church. All who enters the church were sinners, although they may be sinners saved by grace. The constituents of the church have Christ's life due to grace, yet they also possess residual sinful nature.

Thus the church has an element of antagonism. On growth, it has elements that suppress self-development. As an environment, it has both positive and negative influences.

The nature of church structure is a uni-directional gate: a gate that maintains and accelerates the flow of Christ's life, while it prevents and reduces the flow of sinful nature. Through the increasing strengthening of this structure the internal suppression is reduced. When this structure is built up and practiced in church life, the church is considered built up.

The church structure ensures that the spiritual high ground flows to spiritual low ground. The realization of church structure depends on the existence of church high ground. If the church is a spiritual swamp, then there will not be any anointing no matter what structure is in place. In other words, the structure is empty.

We usually call this spiritual high ground the core group. Whether a church can stand up depends on whether the core group is large enough to motivate the entire church.

Church planting is like rolling snowballs on an inclined snow plane. No matter how large the external force is, the snowball cannot be rolled without a snow core. If the snow core is too small, the snowball may stop when the external force ceases due to resistance. It is only when the snow core gets to a critical mass that it would maintain a forward movement due to inertia when the external force ceases, grows bigger with time, and accelerates the forward speed.

A church is just the same. If the external force is ceased before a critical mass is attained, the church may die out. When the core group attains and exceeds this critical mass, the church will grow itself through this virtuous cycle.

In the case of North America, the critical quantity of the core group is usually ten families, or 25 committed members. Of course, this quantity must have quality. Here 'quality' refers to spiritual maturity. Whether ten families or 25 members, they must all be bona fide Christians. When this core group is built up, the church provides an environment for spiritual growth.

Transplanting with native soil - the transplantation of the core

Transplanting with native soil is an experience when I was a traveling preacher in Canada in 2000 observing how the Cantonese churches there help developing the Mandarin churches. It is also consistent with my own church planting experience. The point is to take a piece of improved and matured soil (mature Christian) that can connect with others, together with a life sprout (Christ's life), and bring them to the black slab (to be planted). At that time I was in New York trying to plant harvest on black slab (create a group of co-workers from nothing). But after a few years of experimentation, I discovered that this effort is futile.

As I mentioned before, there are several cycles in a church. One is a virtuous cycle, like the interaction of Christ's life; the other is a vicious cycle, like the influence of sin on each other.

In a healthy church the virtuous cycle would definitely overcome the vicious cycle. If the vicious cycle significantly interferes with the virtuous cycle, the church would be problematic. If the vicious cycle cancels out, or even suppress the virtuous cycle, the church would have a survival crisis.

Among the Chinese Mainlanders in North America, the difficulty in church planting is in the lack of resources for this virtuous cycle. Church planting is to collect from nowhere (spiritually speaking), or to build up Christ's body among sinners. Without the advantage of an average church, or established spiritual environment exerting influence on sinners, this needs to be built up for church planting.

The good news is that the church being planted is not a closed system; it interacts openly with the entire body of Christ. Other church often supply qualified Christians for church planting. Maybe the planting process is to link up with local Christians, whose spiritual life has been cultivated in an established spiritual environment. Thus the planted church is not a product of self growth, but a result out of grace.

An important question in transplanting with soil is what kind of boundary condition would reap the best efficiency? In other words, how many qualified Christians are required to create an atmosphere for spiritual growth, so that a church may survive and flourish?

From certain aspects all church plantings are like cultivating harvest on black slabs. Yet there are different methods in this approach. In the nineties, most American Chinese churches used the approach of throwing some seeds (one or two pastors or co-workers) at the black slab (sinners), and some loose soil (immature Mainland Christians). This style of church planting have a small soil improvement effect, but is insufficient to cultivate an environment where life can receive stable growth. The main reason is that the number of people with Christ's life did not approach a critical quantity for virtuous cycle, and thus the negative impact of sin became the primary force for moving forward.

Real life examples demonstrate:

1. In this style of church planting, the work of the one or two mature Christians whose example and ministry were not supported and rewarded was to a large degree corrupted by the negative effect of sin, and could not generate a positive cycle of spiritual life. At the same time, because they put out for a long period of time without having replenished, they would sooner or later be burned out due to exhaustion. A great many pastors who have planted churches among Mainlanders in this fashion (whether from China or Taiwan) are planning to leave the churches they helped to plant; this is an undeniable fact.

2. Some Christians took part in this kind of church planting due to their cultural background but not their spiritual level. Because of the immaturity of their spiritual life, they gradually provided more output from their sinful nature rather than from life, and the negative effect surpasses the positive effect. Therefore they become a fake core group; while a core group in surface they could not support a spiritual environment in reality. When the core group is but a false image, it is not possible for the church not to have a crisis.

That serious issues arise with these Christians that cause survival crisis in churches, has become a necessary outcome of this type of church planting. One cannot simply blame it upon their sinful nature, and fail to notice that this church planting style places them in a position where their sinful nature can more easily grow and expand.

3. In this type of churches the core group has a spiritual level lower than that of qualified Christians, and newly baptized Christians may use them as their yardstick. Thus their spiritual growth was inherently limited at a level below that of qualified Christians.

As a sinner saved by grace, when Christian lives interact at a low level, it does not imply that their sinfulness also interact at a low level. Just the opposite, without the constraint coming from Christ's life, the sinfulness can manifest unbridled.

Under this condition, an increase in quantity would only magnify the negative effect of church growth. The result of such church planting often goes counter to the original purpose of church planting. Church planting is to edify a group with Christ's life, to change the life of the sinners entering the group. But the end result of this style of planting is to promote sinfulness to develop into an influential environment. This group not only prevented the spiritual growth of new entrants, but it even dissipated the strength of the few mature Christians.

If the dissipated strength is more than the strength of improving the soil, the loose soil will drift away and the seed will wither. Black slab remains black slab - and mat be worse. After immunization with spirituality, the black slab may be coated with a protective layer of false knowledge, and real life may be difficult to germinate among them.

Transplanting with soil is to take a piece of well improved soil, which may be linked to other soil, together with the sprout of life, and transplant together onto a black slab. This piece of mature soil must be large enough to be self-sustainable and recyclable, so that it can be self-congregating ( the good soil will not wash away) and possess an internal drive to develop (turn slab into good soil). It is important to note that the soil does not have to be so large that it becomes self-sufficient; it is just a core that needs to expand outward to complete its mission.

Quality-wise, the soil must be mature, or qualified Christians. Some churches push problematic people towards church planting, or people who has the desire but spiritually immature to this mission; both are unwise decisions. One who cannot grow in well-established environments, or one who still needs time for maturity, when sent out to establish an environment, will not only reap no reward but may for sure lose what one already has. To send someone to plant a church is not to give away surplus or what the church does not need, but to give of the best in our lives.

Concerning quantity, ten families or 25 members are the best core dimensions. Less than this number efficiency will drop along with the number, until it is below self-sustenance, and the life's motivation cannot overcome the resistance from sinfulness; more than these numbers efficiency will also be reduced relative to the size. If that number is greater than certain boundary condition, the church may lose its outward tension due to self-sufficiency. Therefore, transplanting with soil refers to how to transplant quality and quantity in a core group to guarantee the continuous motivation required by church planting.

Stones from other mountains - necessary outside support

To plant a church among North American Mainland Chinese is to develop a group of first generation Christians in Asian culture, thus it is a cross culture mission ministry. This imply that there must be mature Christians from other Asian culture groups willing to pay a price for them. First generation Christians cannot edify themselves; they need others to provide an environment to assist in their growth, at least to be the core for building up this environment. As a group, North American Mainland Christians needs at least 10 to 20 years to mature to a point of leading. Life's growth needs time, furthermore, as first generation Christians the growth speed of Mainland Christian life will be slower than Christians in other Asian cultural groups (I believe that the legend of rapid growth of Mainland Christians in the nineties is inconsistent with the actual situation in churches). There are three reasons:

1. Premature birth

When I look back on the churches I have pastored, on Christians from Taiwan who grew faster, I found that before they are baptized God has work on them for a long time. Some may only have been baptized for two to three years, but they grow up in a devout Christian family, and have attended Sunday school since a few years old. Therefore they have already had 20 years' of church life when they are baptized.

Some of them have Christian relatives, friends, school mates, or co-workers. Before they were baptized they have been influenced by the good examples of Christian lives. Some have attended open fellowships in school campuses, and they attended fellowship as good kids for several years. Some have the habit of reading writings from Christian writers, as these writings have become part of culture.

Most first generation Mainland Christians lack such experience. They started their spiritual journey from a true emptiness.

2. Lack of practical life resource

The life resource mentioned here does not refer to exterior matters, but true contact with Christian life. First, a recently baptized person would have more contact with Christians from the same culture (but when they mature this situation may change).

In cultures where the Christian faith has a longer history, there would be more mature Christians due to accumulation. This provides a better interaction environment for new believers, as well as provided a higher standard for living. Like Christians from Hong Kong or Taiwan; as there are more mature Christians in their midst, those with a shallower life have those with a higher standard as examples.

As for first generation Mainlander Christians, when they compare their internal lives, they can only use a shallower standard. When one asks for their spiritual growth, one often hears the following excuse: "We are different from Hong Kong and Taiwan Christians." This demonstrates that as a group, the Mainland Christians have a lower spiritual standard compared with other Asian culture groups, and the reason is that there isn't sufficient mature Christians around to lift up the spiritual standard to a higher ground.

3. The immature early ministry

To build up first generation Christians in any culture involves a period of searching around, which is often characterized by mistakes and deficiencies. In the ministry of North American Mainland Christians, the first 10 years were dominated by intellectualism, and afterwards by post-modernist spiritualism; these phenomena demonstrate the immaturity of this ministry. An immature ministry cannot cultivate groups of mature Christians. While I was church planting in New Haven, Connecticut, I have ignored the fact that the church has about 15% of Christians who came from Taiwan, which was given to us by God's grace, due to my pride and immaturity. During that time these Christians were the main co-workers and core group who helped set the direction of the church. Due to my negligence, when I was church planting in New York City I intentionally attempted to build a pure Mainlander church (i.e. pastors, co-workers, Christians, seekers were all Mainlanders). After several years' of experimentation, that style brought only death. The key issue is that not only was there no core group, but it was very difficult to build up a core group.

I have attempted to build up core groups in three groups of Mainland Chinese Christians - among them here were some who were baptized for over 10 years - yet due to the factors mentioned above, there were significant discrepancies between their spiritual lives and years as Christians. In addition, each group has these typical problems:

The first group has obvious behavioral issues involving sinfulness, such as money craving (doing business in the church, emphasizing money making ahead of meetings and serving); sex (set foot in sexual locations, talking dirty in church); and gambling.

The second group is lacking in living out a Christian life, such as bible reading, praying and tithing.

The third group is only concerned with edifying themselves, but is unwilling to give to the church or others.

While they each has their own problems, these three groups have two common characteristics:

1. They are actively participating in superficial services, such as song leading in meetings and holding titled positions.

2. They do not respect or obey spiritual authority's leadership.

The participation and initiation of Mainland Christians in church planting is due to their false belief that church building is to perform superficial matters. The level of maturity of their life, and the depth of their involvement in church living, are insufficient for them to fully understand what is a church, and therefore what is required to build up a church. They utilized superficial work to create a false core group, and then based on this falsehood refused to give their true lives and to change. "Is it not true that we have supported the church? What else do you want us to do?" "Our lives are good enough for us to become co-workers. What further changes do you want?"

They do not know that the church is a collective body of lives, and it requires real and practical Christ's life to support. During my church planting years, I have put up the membership standards of my mother church and showed it to groups of Mainland Christians who requested to be co-workers. I found that nearly none of them has met the standard, yet they insisted to be co-workers.

When a group of immature people got together to form a church, one cannot help but use those who are unqualified to be co-workers. However, once they are used to serve superficially, and have accepted the shallow value coming from their serving, it is difficult to ask them to change their inside life in correspondence with their service.

If it is not planned by the mother church (planning should include God's calling, elder's selection and training), then the Mainland Christians who take the initiative to plant church often are unwilling or unable to meet in the mother church. If church planting relies on people who have problems with the current church, or even separated from the current church, the seeds of disobedience to spiritual authority would have been planted. Yet this is not the real cause of the problem. When the congregation consists entirely of people with a low spiritual life, it would promote such a phenomenon: all teachings from the pastor or his co-worker will be generally resisted. Spiritual teaching demands the brokenness of sinner's life, and everybody will be uncomfortable with this demand.

In a healthy spiritual environment, the broken individual will be influenced by examples in his surrounding and realize that the teaching of the truth and self-brokenness is correct, and thereby willing to obey God and be broken. But in the low spirituality situation described above, most will feel uncomfortable, and the feeling will be reinforced to become a group reaction, that the truth teaching is false and insist that the sinful reaction is correct. 'See, other than those two everyone else agrees with me'.

Under this situation the overall effect of the church as an environment is negative. This negativism is not random, but a necessary consequence of the church planting style.

Some practical suggestions

The above examples demonstrates the necessity to rely on other Asian culture Christian groups when church planting among North American Mainland Chinese. I have some practical suggestions:

1. Church planting from a denomination (such as Alliance , Baptist, etc) - the transplanting core group should come from the same denomination to guarantee the oneness of their vision.

2. The transplanting core group should be led by mature Christians from other Asian culture groups, but there should be a certain number of more mature Mainland Christians. This way the Mainland Christians have a chance to learn from their counterparts, and also allow them to become a center for self-duplication in the core group.

3. As a cross culture missionary, the transplanted core group should have good understanding of the culture and emotion of Mainland Chinese. More importantly, they should have a willingness to give up their own culture in order to serve Mainlanders (to Mainlanders be Mainlanders in order to get Mainlanders). The mother church should also provide suitable training.

4. Every brother or sister who is involved in church planting should pray for a long time before making the commitment. To build up a church for first generation Christians a higher price must be paid compared with other church planting. Without the keeping power of God, no one can persist to the end.

This is a recent report by the author submitted to American Alliance Church combined Chinese Congregations

The author came from Mainland China and is currently pastor of New Life Chinese Alliance Church, New York and Research Associate of Nyack Theological Seminary.