Rev. John Ong Bee Chung, president of Malaysia Baptist Seminary, challenged the Chinese church leaders to take up the challenge of leading the race of world missions and cross-cultural missions.

“Coworkers and believers of the Chinese churches around the world: how much have we taken up on world missions? Will we continue to be absent in the cross-cultural missions?” asked Ong

at the Chinese Mission Conference held in Philadelphia from Dec. 26-30, 2010.

Having devoted himself to theological education ministries, Ong has also pushed for work in world missions and training. Through Hua Xia Mission Partnership Mobilization, a theological education institute that he founded, many locals in the mission field were raised to become spiritual leaders, ministering churches, devoting to missions, and responding to the needs of the generation.

With the message titled “The Mission Challenge of Church of China and Overseas Chinese Churches Today”, Ong exhorted Chinese Christians around the world to life up the Great Commission of Jesus, becoming the main strength for world missions.

During the conference, Ong brought out statistics and charts to point out the enormous amount of influence that China has in politics, economics, culture, and other fields in the 21st century, which points China in the direction of becoming the most powerful nation in the world.

Ong, however, believes that if China truly wants to become the leader of the world, then she must also have spiritual influence by becoming a large country of the gospel and missions.

Despite China has awoken, she is still a small country in terms of mission. Oong discovered that while made in China products can be found almost everywhere, but it is very difficult to find indigenous missionaries from China. He dreams that soon China will also be awaken in the field of missions, so that Chinese missionaries can be found in all parts of the world, raising the torch of the gospel and leading the race back to Jerusalem.

He said that the gospel has entered China for 200 years now, and the nation has received enormous blessings from God, so it is now time for the gospel to go out from China.

China’s church must return the debt of the gospel, urged Ong, so that the nation can become the passage way of God’s blessing, through which all nations on earth will be blessed.

In addition, Ong encouraged overseas Chinese churches to partner with the church in China in the fight of world mission, welcoming its challenges. Churches in China are greatly in need of ministers, so overseas Chinese churches can support by providing discipleship training.

As overseas Chinese Christians have resided for a long time in a multi-cultural setting, they have an advantage in cross-cultural mission. Ong urged the believers in this generation to quickly grab hold of this opportunity and take actions to respond to God’s calling, reviving the cross-cultural mission of the Chinese churches.

[Editor's note: reporter Luke Leung translated the article.]