Chinese international students are prevalent on all of our campuses. There are over 300,000 Chinese international students studying in the US this year, nearly double the number from just four years ago. They’re the most represented nation among international students in the US, outnumbering the second through fifth most represented nations combined.
Many Chinese students come with no religious background, but with deep spiritual thirst and openness. For many, their time spent on campus in the US is their first opportunity to explore who Jesus is. Many Chinese international students are making decisions to follow Jesus in our chapters.
At Urbana, several of us in Graduate & Faculty Ministries (GFM) met with some of our Chinese counterparts doing campus ministry in China. We wanted to sit at their feet and learn from them, receiving their direction on how we can best disciple Chinese students so that when they return home they will flourish in the faith, and be a blessing to the church and student movement in China.
Here are a few of the lessons we learned from them.
Chinese International Students Are Not McDonald’s Hamburgers
We asked our Chinese counterparts for their feedback on how we disciple students in the US. Half-jokingly, we said that Americans are very concerned about the end-product. “Yes. McDonald’s hamburgers,” one of our counterparts joked back.
More seriously, we said, “When you receive returnees in China, you receive the product of our discipleship. What advice or feedback would you offer us?”
Among their responses, one leader said that it’s important to remember that Chinese students can’t be McDonald’s hamburgers. No matter when or where you order it, a McDonald’s hamburger will always be the same. Chinese students cannot be that uniform. The context to which they return in China will vary greatly depending on what region they return to, whether they return to an urban or rural environment, etc. That should influence how we disciple them.
If you’re like me, thinking about this for too long leads you to think you need to become an expert on every region of China and the cultural differences that exist between them. That can feel overwhelming. Much like studying Scripture effectively, though, discipling cross-culturally doesn’t require expert knowledge of the other culture. It requires asking the right questions. Be curious with your Chinese students. Ask them about home, and get them thinking about how they’ll live out their faith when they return. Challenge them to read Scripture in Chinese and pray in their dialect. Even if you don't understand them, their doing so will prepare them for their return home.
Prepare Them for a Cross-Cultural Experience in Their Home Country
One of the greatest challenges Chinese converts face when returning home is finding and joining a church.
If a returnee’s only exposure to church and Christian community has been in the US, then joining a church in China is going to be a surprisingly cross-cultural experience for them. Our colleagues stressed that approaches to spiritual formation and leadership development are vastly different in China than in the US, and in ways that can only be appreciated and understood once in China. Chinese churches are also concerned about security. It may take time to build trust before a returnee enjoys the same depth of participation they had in their American fellowship or church.
If they flourished in the US, then they likely already have developed basic cross-cultural skills. They may be surprised, though, to know that they’ll need to use those skills when they get home.
Don’t Develop Them into Spiritual Consumers
We in the US are privileged with an abundance of spiritual resources. We have books, videos, and audio recordings to help us interpret the Scriptures and discern the Spirit’s work in our lives and world. Christian conferences abound with the opportunity to experience spiritual highs. We all live in close proximity to a diversity of churches, allowing us to find the one that best fits our preferences.
Our Chinese counterparts were adamant that this degree of resource abundance and choice doesn’t exist in China. They urged us to do all we can to prevent Chinese international students from developing a consumer mindset. At one point, one of our counterparts told us that the best thing we could for a Chinese student is, “Tell them to do something, and then make them do it.”
Don't Instill a Savior Complex
Towards the end of our conversation, one of the more seasoned leaders from China told us a parable:
"There was once a poor family whose daughter was adopted by a wealthy family. As a member of the wealthy family, the daughter enjoyed a life with less hardship. She still loved her original family, though, and wanted to help them. The wealthy family, well-meaning as they were, taught their adopted daughter to pity her poor family. So she returned to her first family, assuming that her newly-found wealth would surely be the salvation for her poor family. She wanted to help her poor family out of poverty, but she failed to treat them with dignity."
Our Chinese counterpart told us that this is often how it feels when Chinese students return home from the US. They assume that what their experience of American Christianity contains the solution to all of the challenges that the church in China faces. And so they come back with a savior complex that ignores the gifts and the dignity of the Chinese church.
One of the best things we can do to prepare Chinese international students to return home is to help them to love home, to know and appreciate where they came from, and to treat and speak of the Chinese church with dignity.
