| Impressive as these numbers are,
they don't tell the whole story. In addition to these relatively
mature and recognized schools, China also has many local training
centers, some of which will probably develop to the point where
they are added to lists above. This summer, Wei Hong visited one
such school, and below we offer a quick sketch of its story and
growth.
Guizhou province is one of China's most beautiful, but also poorest.
There are approximately 230,000 Protestant Christians in the province,
but most are from minority (non-Han Chinese) people groups and
live in poor mountain communities. As of the early 1990s, very
few of the church workers in these communities had any theological
training. Concerned about this problem, in early 1993 the Reverend
Tang Rongtao and Christian colleagues set up the Liu Pan Shui
Theology Course in the rural prefecture of Liu Pan Shui. The students
were mainly from very poor backgrounds, so the school did not
charge tuition and even subsidized living cost. At first the "school"
itself only consisted of one 12-square-meter classroom with some
borrowed pews as desks, but by the end of the year it was possible
to buy a building and improve the conditions of the program. Funding
came primarily from the proceeds of a medical clinic run by Rev.
Tang, as well as from contributions from Christians both in Guizhou
and beyond.
Through the 1990s the school continued to develop and grow, and
even received favorable attention from the national church magazine
Tian Feng (“Heavenly Wind”). In 1996 the
school was officially "promoted" and became the Guizhou
Christian Theology Course.
By the beginning of the next decade, further changes were in
the offing. In 2003, the school moved to the provincial capital,
Guiyang, in order to be more accessible to and from the entire
province, and it now occupies two floors of a multi-story building
there. At present the school has nine full-time faculty members,
all graduates of seminaries elsewhere in China, and offers a three-year
training program with approximately 70 students in the program.
Courses include: Reading through the Bible; Overview of the Bible;
Historical Books of the OT; Pentateuch; Wisdom Books; Prophets;
Life of Christ; Gospel of John; Letters in the NT; Revelations;
Bible Geography; History of the Hebrew People; Preaching; Pastoral
Care; Bible Interpretation; Church History; Systematic Theology;
Chinese; Politics; English; Music; Medicine; Calligraphy; Physical
Education, and Three-Self Principles. The students are still mainly
from poor rural backgrounds, and the majority (80 percent) are
from non-Han Chinese minority people groups such as the Miao,
Yi, Bai, Tujia, Gelao, and Buyi.
Recently, the school purchased land for a new campus in Guiyang
and is in the process of applying for building permits. The new
school is to be built in stages as funds allow. School leaders
hope to finish the first stage (classroom building, chapel, dining
hall, and hopefully dormitory) by summer 2005. The school has
also applied for yet another "promotion," this time
for approval to become Guizhou Bible School.
The point of this newsletter is not so much to predict that the
school in Guizhou will become number nineteen on China's list
of seminaries and Bible schools. Rather, it’s one more reminder
that the growth which the church in China has experienced over
the last two decades goes on. We continue to live amidst a church
that is being blessed by God in many powerful ways.
God's peace,
Don and Wei Hong Snow
The 2004 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p.
86 |
