I believe this is the largest Adventist Church in the world.

[Stan]

When the men would not stand up the women stepped and grew this Church.

[rudywoofs (Pam)]

is that the one in Shenyang?

[Stan]

am not sure Pam.

[GoLions]

Stan, sly move putting your W.O. opinion in there like that...

 

I've heard Mark Finley talk about this church, I don't remember all the details, but there prayer ministry is awesome and needs to be repeated.  (if I remember correctly).

[aka]

18 May 2009, Shenyang, China

Bill Knott/ANN Staff

 

Adventist world church President Jan Paulsen speaks to a congregation of 1,000 that meets at the Beishi Protestant Church. Paulsen's visit to China was his first since he became world church president 10 years ago.

 

Two Seventh-day Adventist congregations in the Northeast Chinese city of Shenyang illustrate the dynamics of the church in China, where local churches often serve as both ministry and administrative hubs for smaller congregations.

 

The Beiguan Church, with nearly 3,000 members, worships in a building situated in a modern neighborhood and is often visited by government-sponsored tour groups. Four miles away, the Beishi congregation shares an aging, overcrowded structure with another Protestant church amid a densely-packed tangle of shops and homes. Church leadership at both locations is responsible for dozens of area church plants.

 

On the fourth day of a weeklong trip to the People's Republic of China, world church president Jan Paulsen and a team from the church's world headquarters and Northern Asia-Pacific region worshipped with both congregations in the city of 7 million.

 

Overflow crowds of 2,500 at the Beiguan Church and 1,200 at the Beishi congregation greeted Paulsen as he made his first visit to China since becoming world church president 10 years ago and the first by any Adventist world church president to mainland China in more than 60 years.

 

Hao Ya Jie, 46, pastor of the Beiguan Seventh-day Adventist Church in Shenyang, China. More than half of Adventist pastors in China are women.

 

During an afternoon service on May 16, 500 church members crowded the sanctuary at Beishi as Paulsen spoke on the final counsel Jesus gave his disciples on the night they celebrated Passover together in the Upper Room.

 

In a literal upper room two stories above, another 500 Adventists jammed an overflow chapel, watching the service below on a single 26-inch TV screen. Two hundred more worshippers lined every hallway and stairway, listening to the music and words that drifted down the corridors from bullhorn-style speakers.

 

"Half of us are here, half are two stories up and 10 percent are sitting in the stairs," Paulsen told the audience. "And maybe there are some out there who say, 'I wish I were there, but there's no room today.' ... I want to honor you for your faithfulness, for your trust in God and for your devotion."

 

Both the Beiguan and the Beishi congregations are historic churches in China, responsible for planting and nurturing dozens of smaller Adventist congregations across this industrial city about 100 miles from the North Korean border. More than 100 congregations serving a total of 7,000 Adventists are coordinated by the Beiguan church, which acts much like a local conference does in typical church administrative structure. Likewise, the Beishi church oversees the ministry for 70 smaller churches and "meeting points."

 

Church planter Zu Xiu Hua, who started 380 congregations in the northeastern province of Jilin, spoke with Paulsen through an interpreter during his visit. Her congregations, now attended by more than 20,000 members in the province's mostly rural region, are served by dozens of volunteer women whom she trains to conduct Bible studies, preach, and offer spiritual care.

 

More than half of Adventist pastors in China are women, and a majority of the members are also female.

 

Other local church leaders, some from as far as a three-hour train ride away, gathered at the two main churches to meet their world church president. At the Beiguan Church, Pastor Hao Ya Jie described for the church leaders the ministries and outreach services she and her fellow leaders coordinate, including literacy classes, ministerial training, lay preacher training and wedding services. Up to five Shenyang couples are married in the church per week, which is often their first exposure to Adventism.

 

"You have managed to make this church what we hope Seventh-day Adventist churches everywhere would be," said Paulsen after he learned of the church's community-based ministries. "It is a center for worship, a center for ministerial training, a center open to the community."

 

Pastor Shi Wei of the Beishi Church doesn't have the opportunity to run such a full-fledged ministry program because the congregation doesn't own the building it meets in for Sabbath services. Training events and prayer meetings are usually scattered among dozens of smaller congregations and meeting points that have sprung up around the ministry of the Beishi Church when Christian churches began to reopen in China in the 1980s. During the Cultural Revolution, a dozen turbulent years that marked the greatest difficulties for religion in modern China, all Christian churches were closed, pastors forced to take up other work, and Bibles burned.

 

While some Chinese pastors have earned formal degrees through seminaries sponsored by the China Christian Council, the umbrella organization that coordinates the affairs of the nation's estimated 20 million Christians, an increasing number are emerging from training centers established by local congregations.

 

In meetings with both the national and regional branches of the Christian Council, Paulsen expressed the Adventist Church's interest in assisting both established seminaries and training centers in preparing larger numbers of pastors equipped to serve the distinctive needs of Adventists in the country.

 

Nearly 400,000 Adventists are believed to worship at thousands of locations across the nation.

[aka]

 

(pics of  woman leader Hao Ya Jie http://spectrummagazine.org/node/2329)

 

One of the primary purposes for our visit to China was to learn about the role and influence of women in the expansive growth of Adventism there. The picture began to form rather quickly. We learned about Hao Ya Jie (pictured, left), an ordained Seventh-day Adventist woman pastor, who leads the largest Adventist congregation in China. The Beiguan Church in Shenyang, with about 5,000 members, is “mother church” to about eighty other congregations with total membership of over 10,000! In Beijing we enjoyed dinner with Lilly, who is one of hundreds of ordained women elders who function as pastors in many of China’s approximately 4,000 congregations.

 

Communion service on Sabbath at Shanghai’s 1,500-member elegant Mu’en Church was led by its two senior co-pastors, Pastor Dheng and Pastor Lu. Pastor Lu had been offered ordination by the official Three Self Patriotic Movement, but she chose instead to be ordained within the Seventh-day Adventist Church. In Chengdu we spent a day in the company of Pastor Qin Zheng-Yi. Ordained to the gospel ministry in 2002, Pastor Qin is reported to have been responsible for planting numerous congregations in this largest province in China, and providing apostolic oversight to the approximately 400 churches. Of the five ordained pastors serving the over 10,000 Adventists in Sichuan Province, four are women.

 

That women—and ordained women pastors—play a major role in the life and mission of the church in China is incontrovertible. Accepting women in leadership and pastoral roles is normative to the over 400,000 Adventists in China. Gender equality, and the ordination of both women and men as pastors and elders are seen as part of the divine order, and not as a political, ecclesiastical or cultural oddity. The leaders of the China Union Mission (based in Hong Kong) that we visited with readily acknowledged that they recognize and affirm the presence of ordained women pastors in mainland China and the prominent role they play in the life of the Church. Their acknowledgment gave voice to my own feelings that “this is the Lord’s doing, and it is wonderful to see.”  Psalm 118:23.

 

In the seven cities we visited during our two-week itinerary, we met some incredible people of faith and enjoyed their inspiring stories. They explained how, during China’s so-called Cultural Revolution of 1966-1976, Adventism in China survived eradication. Although the government expelled all foreign missionaries in 1949, Chinese Adventists continued to establish and nurture the faith in Chinese soil. In the absence of denominational voices from abroad to help guide, instruct and shape them, they developed a deep reliance on Scripture and the Holy Spirit. Like the churches in early New Testament times, these congregational communities learned to live out their faith in ways that are rooted in their culture. Despite the diversity among them—in beliefs and practices—they found unity in the Lordship of Jesus Christ and the blessed hope of His soon return. Individuals who emerged as leaders because of their spiritual gifts took on the role of “apostles” to give guidance and counsel to congregations.

 

The stories of the brothers and sisters we met—more broadly, the story of Adventism in China—is ultimately a triumphant tale of a vibrant church, thriving against all odds. It is a tribute to China’s valiant shepherds of faith who proved that a religious, political or social system cannot control or eradicate what’s in people’s hearts. That lesson alone made my journey to this intriguing land a life-changing experience. And it is a lesson that merits the attention of Adventists in North America.

 

Source: Adventist News Network

[Joe_in_RP]

I don't know how many seats are there. Iligan city Philippines, on the island of Mindanao, seats 3000 people. Not far from there is one of our colleges, Mountain View College that easily seats 5000 in an open air amphitheater style. It can swell to 10,000 if there is a prominent leader speaking.

[Joe_in_RP]

The Chinese church is very similar inside to City Temple Adventist church in Detroit. I like the clock. Maybe we should have a clock on more of our churches.

[Tom Wetmore]

Joe, I think the size comparison identified in the topic title is referring to membership and not the building or seating capacity. The articles posted illuminate that fact about the church in China. That church lead by women pastors has membership of over 5,000. And the way in which they are organized, with satellite congregations meeting elsewhere, but still connected to the leadership of the "mother" church the membership is over 10,000. The other church mentioned, also lead by women pastors, is over 7,000 if you include the satellite churches connected to it. Those large churches in China are the size of many local conferences, and larger than some, really. And functionally they are very much like local conferences. The obvious thing to note is that since they are under the leadership of women pastors, is that Sandra Roberts here in the US is effectively not the only local conference president that is a woman. While not all woman pastors in China are ordained, I believe that the senior pastors of these two mega churches in China are ordained.

[Lauralea]

I first realized that God was using women to grow the church so markedly in China when the current and former presidents of an Adventist university in the Far Eastern Division came to Pacific Health Education Center and showed PowerPoint slides of churches like these in China run by women and for me it also influenced me to be more open to the idea of Women's Ordination. To me it is like Peter when the ein Acts Gentiles showed evidence of having the Holy Spirit. SInce they had the Holy Spirit, how could he not baptize them? So if this work is of God, who are we to stand against it,

[Joe_in_RP]

Thank you Tom for pointing that out. I wonder with the membership is a Loma Linda? I suspect it's as high as that.

 

I think it's a little too early to draw conclusions about Seventh-day Adventists in China. This is a fairly new phenomenon. New in comparison to the history of our church.

 

Also as someone who lives in Asia, I would caution people about comparing themselves to Asians. The biggest mistake I made when I moved here is underestimating the difference in cultures between Asia and the West.

 

I don't think we know very much about the Adventist church in China. We can't assume It's the same church culture as North America. I suspect it's contextual.

 

So what works in that culture,  may not work in other cultures. In fact I could almost certainly say, that what works in China, would not work in most of the world.

 

There are many other concerns I have about these reports from China that contain very little information. However I don't think the Internet is a place to share them.

[aka]

 

According to an independent survey carried out in 2010, there are around 30 million Christians in China.

 

Immediately I asked myself just which organisation owns those huge Chinese SDA churches?

Where did the money come from?             Communist China or GC Maryland?
 

Chinese men work under obligation 6 days a week. That is part of why we aren’t seeing men in leadership. They have families to provide for and it may be illegal to take off a Saturday for church service.
 

The governing communistic mentality is still pushing the China populous to  pledge the support of
citizens for anti-imperialism, anti-feudalism, and anti-capitalism efforts. I wouldn’t be surprise if many weasels of spies are in the congregation's meetings. They have their own methods of collecting data to use against individuals when persecution breaks out.
 

The movement of Christianity increasing at such a rate in a Buddhist country, must have many critics watching, I’m sure. So the government will try everything to infiltrate, subvert, and control much of organized Christianity.
 

I don’t think we can imagine fully what a legalistic beaurocratic machinery is behind the scenes as  a hindrance to what is going on behind the doors of many private Christian groups. I think strongly that the politics of China is monitoring closely the impact of Christianity on China.

 

Wise is the comment made that we ought not be discussing to deeply this subject online.

 

[Gerr]

Thank you Tom for pointing that out. I wonder with the membership is a Loma Linda? I suspect it's as high as that.

 

I think it's a little too early to draw conclusions about Seventh-day Adventists in China. This is a fairly new phenomenon. New in comparison to the history of our church.

 

Also as someone who lives in Asia, I would caution people about comparing themselves to Asians. The biggest mistake I made when I moved here is underestimating the difference in cultures between Asia and the West.

 

I don't think we know very much about the Adventist church in China. We can't assume It's the same church culture as North America. I suspect it's contextual.

 

So what works in that culture,  may not work in other cultures. In fact I could almost certainly say, that what works in China, would not work in most of the world.

 

There are many other concerns I have about these reports from China that contain very little information. However I don't think the Internet is a place to share them.

That may very well be true, nevertheless  I venture to say that there is a common thread somewhere, like prayer, mission emphasis, intense labor, etc.