Developing Chinese International Students as Evangelists

An Australian Case Study

Abstract

While developing local evangelists is broadly identified as a missional priority, particularly within "Church planting movement" and "Disciple making movement" literature, there is little evidence-based study on doing so amongst Chinese international students (CIS). Successful development of CIS evangelists in an Australian university campus fellowship, Joy in Jesus Fellowship (JJF), was investigated through a combination of 10 semi-structured interviews (4 CIS evangelists, 4 evangelism trainers, and other involved parties) and documentary evidence,  while considering the question, "How may CIS best be equipped and motivated to effectively share the gospel with other CIS?" CIS became evangelists within a group featuring a pervasive focus on evangelism, formation of a leadership group committed to personal evangelism, and support for CIS in caring relationships. These factors appeared to integrate well with the high-context communication and collectivistic tendencies of Chinese culture. Consistently teaching clear and easily-accessible steps in evangelism also aided CIS to engage in gospel sharing. CIS’ effective adoption of a "Western" gospel presentation challenges the necessity of specifically contextualized evangelism content, indicating that other factors were more significant in CIS’s evangelistic development.  JJF’s evangelists’ use of invitation as an initial step also challenges the dichotomy between "missional" and "attractional" evangelism. Further research is recommended involving similar cases of developing evangelists, and longer-term studies including post-graduation maintenance of CIS evangelists.