China-Korea Church Exchange Seminar Held in Shanghai Three Self Headquarter

According to China Christian Council/Three Self Patriotic Movement Protestant Church website, close to 50 representatives of different denominations from Korea visited the CCC/TSPM headquarters in Shanghai on July 1.

The National TSPM Presbyter Xian-Wei Fu, CCC President Gao Feng, and CCC General Secretary Pao-Ping Quan received the guests, and they held a seminar titled “China Korea Church Exchange Seminar.”

After mutual introductions and meeting each other, they’ve proceeded with the pre-arranged meeting agenda, where both parties had 10 representatives who each gave a 15 minute speech on several topics.

According to the report, both parties proceeded with an exchange on the “Principles of Three Self.” Elder Xian-Wei Fu spoke first with the topic of “The Purpose of Three Self Patriotic Movement Committee and the Principles of Three Self”, where he explained the principles of Three Self, and the TSPM’s fruits in five different aspects within the past numerous years.

Fu said that the church in China is still very young, is a growing church, but has vision and is filled with vitality; he hopes that overseas churches can respect China to independently manage and setup the churches and welcomes them to have a friendly exchange and sharing.

Addressing this point, Korea World Mission Association General Secretary Rev. Seung-Sam Kang, the report wrote, responded with the speech titled “China-Korea Christianity Exchange that Impacts Religious Policies”, where he said that the Korean churches support the Three Self Principles, and they are also following the principles.

Afterwards, Rev. Gao Feng spoke on the topic of “The Present Situation of China’s Church”, where he spoke of the relationship between CCC and TSPM, or lianghui, and the present development situation that China’s Protestant Churches face. In response, Chongshin University & Theological Seminary Dr. Jungwoo Kim delivered the speech titled “Present Situation of Christianity in Korea and Future Hopes.”

Then, Rev. Pao-Ping Quan spoke on the topic of “China-Korea Church Relations”, where he expressed that China’s church is developing rapidly and the development space is very good. Even though China and Korea are neighbors and as the idiom says that “Close Neighbors is Better than Distant Relatives”, the current Three Self Principles has not been understood by some church coworkers in Korea, said Quan, so he hopes that through exchanges the future friendly relations and partnership of both country’s churches can be build on a solid foundation. Rev. Jeong-Ho Oh responded correspondingly.

Continuing on with other topics of discussion, National TSPM Vice Presbyter and Jiangsu Province Christian Council President each spoke the topics of “Ministering of City Churches” and “Church Serving the Society”, and two representative from Korea’s side each gave a response.