In this chapter of the book, I really had two purposes in writing the chapter. The story about the Togolese of course was a fictional story, but I hope it made you think about what it would be like for Christians from another culture to come into our world here in the West and treat us like we often times treat the Chinese. I’m hoping to hear from many of you in this blog of what you thought about that exercise and what feelings it induced. Increasingly, I’m talking to Chinese pastors who are having very mixed feelings about short-term teams from the West coming to China. On one hand, they want to be very accommodating to their Western brothers and sisters in Christ. On the other hand, these pastors are crazy busy with their work in ministry and they feel that the short-term teams add little benefit to their ministry. I hope the story of the Togolese also will help foster conversations in the West about how we can most effectively engage with Chinese Christians, coming to China not assuming our way is best.
Secondly, I hope that the rest of the chapter gives you all many more ‘pieces of the puzzle.’ These pieces deal both with current changes in China and how we see them (like the development of rule of law), and how we as Westerners engage in China. I certainly hope that it was beneficial to bounce these ideas around, both in your own mind and with others that you may be reading the book with.
Comments, questions or concerns about this chapter are welcome in this space. Looking forward to hearing from you!
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