MINISTRY//How do you eat an elephant?
How do you eat an elephant?
316NOW is wrestling with that question. Our elephant is 10% of the 50 million Chinese nationals that are scattered around the globe.
Why 10%? Because about 10% of Chinese are Christian. So if the demographics of these 50 million expatriates are the same, some 5,000,000 of them are believers.
Training Christian leaders
Our goal is to invite the church leaders among those 5,000,000 Chinese to attend our online Bible institute.
Why is that important to 316NOW?
Because inviting the Chinese Christian leaders who live outside China to take classes with our online Bible institute will face fewer barriers than reaching Chinese Christians living inside China.
Because China is continuing to impose stricter regulations on believers inside its borders.
Because China is making it harder for Christians who are not Chinese to share the gospel within its borders.
Starting small
How do we eat this elephant? Ten percent of 50 million Chinese is a lot of people. How do we invite millions of Chinese Christian leaders who live outside of China to learn more about the Bible, to shepherd other believers, to share the gospel with people who aren't believers?
The answer: One bite at a time.*
316NOW is in the process of developing a strategy to recruit expatriate Chinese Christians for our Bible institute. Some of the advice we have received from a professional marketing expert was to start with small bites. She told us:
Identify a handful of these Christians. Start with Chinese Christians who are in the U.S.
Invite them to be your consultants. Ask for their advice.
Find out how they communicate within their networks.
Explore the role of social media, email, texts.
Next: expand the pool to other countries.
One bite at a time.
Launching in April
Our goal is to have a clear, scalable strategy in place by April. We will begin with one bite of this elephant. Then another bite. Then another. Eventually -- and with the Spirit's guidance -- we look to mount a worldwide program that will prepare thousands of Chinese Christian leaders to return home as well-trained shepherds and evangelists.
One bite at a time.
What you can do: Ask the Lord of the Church to continue to help us find resource people who will guide us in developing our "elephant-eating" strategy. Pray that 316NOW can train thousands of expatriate Chinese Christians as Confessional Lutheran leaders.
* There is only one way to eat an elephant: a bite at a time (Desmond Tutu).