Guidelines for Pastoral Care in Urban Churches

Zhang Yuanlai

As the process of urbanization has deepened in China, we can see in the interior parts of the country many places where churches in the city are flourishing while churches in the countryside are gradually declining. Where the economy is developing well, the church is often also growing. Perhaps instead of lamenting the decline of rural churches, however, we should think about how to do pastoral work better in urban churches in order to let the benefits spread out to rural churches.

Church meeting point: Pastoral care by members of the clergy and lay workers

In the past it was often difficult for rural churches to build sanctuaries because of financial constraints, but today many urban churches, and especially those situated in larger cities, often have an even more difficult time than rural churches in building sanctuaries because of required permits, real estate prices, and financial limitations, among other things. In China, the number of Christians always grows faster than the number of buildings to seat new believers. So, in regards to the vast majority of churches, a more reasonable approach is "church meeting points"; in other words, connecting meeting points to a centrally located church. In this model, worship meeting points are established with the permission of the local Protestant TSPM/CCC and the appropriate government office according to developing needs of a particular district or community, and are then supervised by clergy or lay workers from the establishing church.

Urban churches rely on teams that combine professional members of the clergy and lay workers to carry out the church's ministry of pastoral care. The church needs different kinds of gifts and abilities, but no matter how hard any given pastor works or what kind of background and training he or she might have, it is very difficult to satisfy the ever-increasing demands of ministry today. It is more sensible to establish strong pastoral teams that combine professional clergy and lay workers as a ministry foundation and then let the team to share the church's pastoral work. Teams should take the work of the church and divide it up into parts such as pastoral care or administration and let members of the team with specialized training manage these specific areas.

Pastoral care serves as the foundation for the administrative work of the TSPM/CCC

One of the important mandates of the national TSPM/CCC is to serve as the link between the church and the government. Thus, local branches of the TSPM/CCC must put pastoral work at the center, keeping in good contact with the churches under their care, doing a good job of administration and management according to the nature of such an association; that is, administrative work needs to be established according to the needs of pastoral work in the church. In order to promote positive development, the church needs to strive to bring together resources and make a success of its management and pay attention to the supervision and pastoral assignment work.

The community church internet pastoral care

In the process of urbanization, more and more large communities are springing up in China, with some communities having permanent residents of upwards of 100,000 people. Many of these larger communities are self-contained urban units with their own institutions including local internet servers, web forums, community schools providing kindergarten through high school education, hospitals, supermarkets, banks, play areas, and so on. Though these communities are often comparable in size to European cities, they do not have churches. This writer believes that the religious life is a basic need for believers. If there is no church in a community, people are quick to start a fellowship and worship in their home or in a club, and after that take the next step and form a church. Under good supervision and pastoral care, groups like this might become viable churches; without good pastoral care, however, they may be easily be led astray by heretical sects and cults, and be "tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes" (Eph. 4:14). In the opinion of this author, the church should regularly meet with the Christians in a community and provide them with pastoral care. This will aid the Christians in these groups after a period of time to take the next step and become an organized church. At the same time, as the internet becomes more and more widespread, churches meeting the right conditions should not be prevented from having their own pastoral care network, their own instant messaging groups, blog spots, and other means of developing internet community and pastoral care.

Pastoral care and follow up for migrants

As the result of China's household registration system, migrants to the cities, even if they already have a job, feel a sense of alienation. These migrants need to be able to establish their own community support groups. The fellowship that the Christian church provides perfectly meets this need for developing community, and accounts for the "Christianity fever" that has developed in many cities. Unlike in the past when Christian growth depended on the miraculous, compassion, and Western styles of worship, the Christianity fever in today's urbanizing churches is sounder and deeper. This means that the church should be more intentional in launching group activities for migrants as well as fellowships for people using regional dialects. Regional churches should even survey the situation of migrants in their area and from this data form fellowships according to the needs of the Christians in their city. At the same time, the church should set up regular pastoral care for these migrants and work hard to maintain contact with them no matter what direction they are heading. Although migrants are extremely prone to transience, if the church provides them with ample nurture and pastoral care, it can help them grow into mature Christians.

Establishing fellowships for business people and professionals

It is obvious to all that the present social situation has had a huge impact on Christians in business. The same thing is true in the church as well. If the pastoral structure of a church does not include a special fellowship for those in business or in the professions, it needs to strengthen this area of its ministry. Business people and professionals not only have greater financial resources, but they also have greater social resources and management experience. It is essential that churches use up-to-date management techniques and practices to organize and run fellowships for business people and professionals. Christians who are successful in business will often have mature personalities, ample resources, rich management training, and practical experience, and adding their economic and social capacity to the church will have a positive role in the development of the church.

Five important points concerning pastoral care

• Paying attention to specific needs: How pastoral care is done in the urban setting should be determined by looking at the needs of different believers and then organizing different small groups and fellowships according to these various needs. By basing pastoral care on the needs of different groups, the church enables believers to participate in appropriate ways, receive good pastoral care, dedicate themselves, and serve.
• Effective supervision: Today churches in some cities use the time-clock system to keep track of office hours for their pastoral staff. These churches require their clergy staff to work a certain number of hours each day of every week. In the final analysis, however, clergy are not telephone operators or receptionists; their job is to understand and respond to the important needs of the church and society. Consequently, clergy should be assigned to work suited to their training and skills and evaluated by their effectiveness in serving the congregation. Courses on management teach that the most effective people are not necessarily effective by keeping a supervised set of office hours. After all, supervision of the clergy is not merely for the sake supervision, but for the sake of creating effective pastoral care. According to scriptural principles, supervision is for people; people are not for supervision!
• Working in teams:One key difference between traditional principles of management and those of today is the emphasis on the importance of working in teams. Teams bring the different skills and abilities of each member into a group organized to work together to achieve a common goal. This should be a principle especially applicable to the church. In the Chinese cultural tradition, it is difficult to establish a sound church on one individual's authority. Rather, it is better to establish a church on the foundation of a strong team of clergy and lay workers who have appropriate talents and proper training. Whether it was Jesus or his disciples, whenever they did evangelism or were doing pastoral care in the church, the work was carried out through a team.
• Using professional skills: Because of the complicated structure of the church, it is very important to apply professional knowledge to its work. Consequently, the church should rely on those with professional training to do ministry. Obviously clergy and lay workers cannot know everything, but at the very least they should have competent training in their particular area of ministry and be able to work well as a team to carry out the church's work.
• Christ at the center: Regardless of how the work of the church develops, it must not veer from its essential truths--Christ and his cross, the importance of faith, and the standards of eternal truth--these are the essentials that the church must use to face the challenge of the secularized world.

Establishing a church culture

The church should not comment on the core values of society. Instead the topics that society wants the church to speak on should be the topics that the church addresses! What the church is able to communicate to society is the culture of the church. The culture of the church is its faith and practice for living the Christian life in society. Development of the culture of the church not only calls on Christians to adapt to the needs of society, but even more importantly it calls on the church to create a culture built on the Gospel that demonstrates Christian faith and ethics in practice.

Extending the scope of theological training

Today there are only about a dozen theological seminaries in China. Many of these schools are geared toward training students who have set aside time for full-time study and who will go on to serve the church vocationally as clergy. But it is equally important for the urban church to provide theological training for students who want to serve the church while remaining in another vocation. Wherever it is feasible, urban churches or the local TSPM/CCC should act as a work unit to establish theological training centers for Christians who have the gifts and desire to the serve the church while continuing to work in their profession. After completing their training, graduates from these centers will be able to participate in the pastoral care teams of the local church. For teachers, these training centers could draw on pastors from the local churches as well as guest seminary teachers and other special lecturers. As a matter of fact, these kinds of theological training centers are already within the means of many churches to carry out.

Care for society

Concern for society is not only a tradition and responsibility of the church, but it is also a kind of "advertisement." Concern for society is one important aspect of the church's ministry. Urban churches should establish long-term and effective mechanisms for demonstrating concern for the needs of society. They should also strengthen and expand existing benevolent ministries as well as create appropriate foundations and organizations that are able to focus on those in society with special needs and disabilities. God has given the urban church greater opportunities and resources to allow it to take on more responsibility. One important way that urban churches could take on more responsibility is by aiding rural churches. There are some urban churches in China today that have savings of more than ten million yuan (approximately USD 1.4 million). Some of these churches have no immediate plans for building a new sanctuary, for expanding the work of the gospel, for improving the lives of their evangelists, or for offering help to other needy churches. These churches truly have become tightfisted churches. In regions where urban churches are able, they should send members of their pastoral teams to do circuit preaching and pastoral care for churches in the countryside. This kind of service would not only expand the ministry opportunities of urban churches, but also have the positive effect of limiting the impact of sects and heresies on churches in the countryside. Moreover, by collecting surplus goods, such as used clothing, electronic goods, etc. and giving them to Christians in the countryside, urban churches express love and compassion and create fellowship between urban and rural Christians, not to mention the fact that they are being good stewards. These are efforts that only the urban church can carry out.

From this discussion, we can see that the decline of the rural church and the rapid growth of the urban church are the inevitable result of the rapid process of urbanization taking place in China today. As Christians, we need to look squarely at the decline of the rural church, but it is even more important that we do ministry well in the urban church in order to spread out the benefits of the urban church to the rural church. By doing this we demonstrate that the urban church and the rural church are two parts of the one church.

Translated by Kurt D. Selles from Tian Feng No. 359, November 2009.