The Internet

Dear Praying Friends:

As the world sinks into recession, perhaps even depression, some types of Christian ministry become too expensive to continue. Not so the Internet! All over the world, including China, people can access the Internet either free or almost so. Even with the “Great Chinese Firewall” in place, not all sites are blocked, and determined people can find ways to access almost any site. We have maintained a presence on the Web for some time now, and have recently updated and expanded our offerings on all three sites:

China Institute

The most explicitly “religious” of our three sites, it features both English and Chinese pages, though the former is far more extensive. On it you will find a variety of material, including:

  • Devotional messages, many on Matthew’s Gospel
  • Reviews of books about China, Christianity in China, and Christianity in general
  • Articles about various subjects, including Chinese history and culture; missions theory and practice; theology; Christian living; Chinese Christianity; and more.
  • Links to a number of other sites with a wide range of information, including Chinese-language resources.
  • Archives of the “Reaching Chinese Worldwide” newsletters, which are becoming a small compendium of ways to share the Gospel with Chinese people
  • Suggested readings and other resources.

Global China Center

This is our more “academic” page, containing many of the book reviews and articles to be found on the China Institute site, but much more as well, such as:

  • Insightful and creative “Pathways” essays by China expert Dr. Carol Lee Hamrin.
  • Analyses of Chinese history and culture, Chinese society and politics, and Christianity in China by various writers, including our advisors and associates. If you missed the special issue of Christian History & Biography on China, you can read our essays in it here.
  • Suggested readings, resources, and links to other Web sites and sources of information about China.

Articles from the GCC Web site have been featured as the lead story by ZGBriefs, a leading China news bulletin, four times in the past year. Readers tell us that they are accustomed to visit this page regularly for up-to-date analysis.

The Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Christianity

First launched in 2006, this online repository of brief biographies of Western and Chinese Christians has just been re-designed and greatly expanded. The English section has almost 400 stories of heroes and heroines of the faith who have made an impact on the spread of the Gospel in China. The Chinese page, which was published only a few weeks ago, will soon contain more than 100 original stories by our Managing Director, Dr. Yading Li, with the assistance of his wife, Dr. Cui’an Peng. Available now in traditional Chinese characters, this page will later be published in simplified characters also. Our Webmaster, Jason Truell, now a student at China Evangelical Seminary in Taiwan, has (with the help of his wife Kristie) done a beautiful job of creating a database that can be searched in a variety of ways. You can find stories according to time period, organizational affiliation, region, author, and last name. Each of these three sites also contains information on how you can support us. That brings me to

Your Vital Part

  • Please visit all three of these sites today, and come back often! You’ll be glad you did.
  • Pray for God to guide us as we write; to send more writers to us; to use these sites greatly to build His church among the Chinese and to encourage the rest of us.
  • Pass on the news to others by forwarding this letter to your friends.

Your fellow-worker in the Lord’s harvest field, Wright