How the internet has transformed China in the past 30 years, and vice versa (April 23, 2024, South China Morning Post)
Since China officially connected to the internet in April 1994, its economy has grown explosively, along with the popularity of domestic web services. While Beijing’s efforts to tame the internet were initially ridiculed, it has pushed ahead with its own model of internet governance.
South Korean international students turn away from China (April 22, 2024, East Asia Forum)
This decline aligns with a major trend of decreasing South Korean international students overall, aggravated by population decline and diminished value of overseas degrees in the local labour market. This drop in outbound students to China likely to persist under the current conservative government in South Korea.
Southern China is inundated by floods – video report (April 22, 2024, The Guardian)
Floods have swamped a number of cities in the densely populated Pearl River delta after record-breaking rains. Precipitation records for April have already been broken in many parts of Guangdong, leaving large areas of the province underwater. State media have released footage showing rescue and cleanup operations under way. Further footage shows a car getting swept away by rushing water and a bridge in Guangdong province collapsing
Filling the Need to Care for Workers: Training Member Care Providers for Chinese Missionaries (April 24, 2024, ChinaSource Blog)
We believe that member care is an integral part of missions sending and we want to see Chinese senders better equipped in this area… The sent and the senders will fulfill the Great Commission together.
Jingjiao—Not Nestorian (April 23, 2024, ChinaSource Blog)
In AD 635 Christian missionaries whose worship language was Syriac traveled thousands of miles down the Silk Road to plant a church in China. The imperial officials examined their teaching and issued a decree (preserved in the stele) allowing the church to be established.
A New Round of Restrictions Further Constrains Religious Practice in Xinjiang (April 19, 2024, China File)
Authorities in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region rang in 2024 by announcing an update to the region’s strictures on religious practice. Changes include new rules to ensure that sites of religious worship, like mosques, look adequately “Chinese,” and to mandate the cultivation of “patriotic” religious leaders.
China’s City, Wenzhou, Has More Christians Than Any Other – How it Happened Will Surprise You! (March 25, 2024, Back to Jerusalem)
With the continuing growth of Christianity in China, it seems that it will soon be home to the world’s largest Christian population, but of all the major cities in China, one stands out for having more believers than any other – Wenzhou. The incredible testimony how the metropolitan city of Wenzhou became synonymous with Christianity in China is due to God using a man with only one leg!
Herders on front line of India’s Himalayan dispute with China say they’re losing grazing land – and a way of life (April 16, 2024, CNN)
High in the Himalayas, the people of a remote northern Indian territory fear their way of life is under threat from the changing climate, looming development – and border tensions with China. At stake, they believe, is the future of Ladakh, one of the world’s highest elevation regions, where indigenous tribes maintain nomadic traditions on sprawling plains hemmed in by mountains punctuated by Buddhist monasteries.
The Chinese émigrés leaving the pressures of home for laid back Chiang Mai (April 13, 2024, The Guardian)
Chiang Mai, a tourist hotspot popular with backpackers and nature-lovers, has become an unlikely second home for thousands of new Chinese émigrés. More than 110,000 Chinese nationals applied for long-term visas in Thailand between January and September in 2022, nearly the total number for 2019.
The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind and Chinese Christianity (April 16, 2024, ChinaSource Blog)
Given the significant influence of American evangelicalism on the development of contemporary Chinese Christianity, how should Chinese Christians critically study and integrate evangelical theology into our practices?
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Joann Pittman
Joann Pittman is Vice President of Partnership and China Engagement and editor of ZGBriefs. Prior to joining ChinaSource, Joann spent 28 years working in China, as an English teacher, language student, program director, and cross-cultural trainer for organizations and businesses engaged in China. She has also taught Chinese at the University …View Full Bio
Blessing Asia
In October-2022 more than 500 Christian leaders from across Asia gathered in Thailand for the Asia 2022 Congress, sponsored by the Lausanne Movement and various partnering organizations. I had the opportunity to participate in the Congress virtually and was mightily blessed. From Bible exposition to K-pop worship, and through seminars and workshops, the participants were encouraged by the stories of what God is doing in countries all over Asia. Clearly, God is on the move.
A beautiful vision was portrayed in a video of the popular worship song The Blessing, featuring singers from all over Asia. Here it is:
Many of the sessions have already been posted on their website and to their YouTube channel.
One that I found particularly helpful considering all that is going on in China was a presentation titled Church and State Relationship in Asia Today. You can see the video here.
I encourage you to spend some time on their website; there are fantastic resources for understanding God’s work in Asia today.
Original link: https://www.chinasource.org/resource-library/blog-entries/blessing-asia/
Image credit: Andrea Brucker, via Unsplash
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