China’s cities are growing as people are moving from the rural areas into the main cities. Pray for more laborers to move into cities at this strategic time, when the cities are growing and people are in this season of change and adjusting to a new life.
Ministry in China
In a recent article on the Gospel in China blog, the missionary wrote that there are some discouraging trends in missions in China. One of which is the moving away from urban areas into rural areas. He is working in China and hears and sees much that is going on there. I may not see those trends about China but it seems there are rumblings of this same idea of getting away from cities and into villages.
Though for many Christians, the trend is to go into the villages but the trend of the world is that they are moving into the cities. You can check out this chart here that shows the forecasted growth of cities in the next 15 years. As of right now according to U.N. statistics, 180,000 people are moving into cities around the world each day. That’s 2 people moving into a city every second. Right now, there are 23 megacities in the world. (A megacity is a city with a population over 10 million.) By 2025, there will be 36 megacities in the world.
When it comes to China and city growth, China will add more people to its cities in the next 15 years than the entire population of the United States. China just recently announced that over half the population now lives in cities. By 2030, it is estimated there will be 1 billion city dwellers in China. This move to the rural areas is a move away from where people are going.
Though statistics can be helpful, they are not the Bible. What we see in the book of Acts is ministry in major cities. Though perhaps Paul may have gone to small villages, that is an argument from silence. Paul’s ministry was focused on cities.
Do villages need the Gospel? Most certainly. There is no way one can make the assertion that we should avoid going to more rural areas. But in the same way, we should not make the assertion that cities should be avoided. It seems as though God is moving them into the cities.
Source: Sino Project
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