In the past few days, all of us pastoral colleagues went to the south, at Ashburnham Place close to Hastings, to participate in a three-day, two-night retreat camp with pastors and missionaries from the Chinese Alliance Churches Union. The theme of this camp was ‘An Embracing Alliance’, with Reverend Gordon Siu sharing messages among us.
Reflecting on the history of the mission and the development of local and overseas missions, I deeply appreciate that embracing is a great virtue of our denomination Dr. Simpson, the founder of the C&MA, actively promoted worldwide missionary work. In order to unite believers and missionaries from different faith traditions and denominations to participate together, he sought to emphasize similarities while respecting differences. As a result, the mission dispatched numerous missionaries overseas in its early days, serving in over 70 countries to this day.
In the process of the church’s development, C&MA warmly welcomes churches with similar objectives and faith statements to join as members. The most famous example is the Hebrew Church in Hong Kong, which was originally established by missionaries from the Hebron Mission and joined C&MA in the 1960s. In the UK, the Chinese Christian Church in Brighton received pastoral care and development with the assistance of missionaries from Hong Kong Alliance Mission, thus joining as a member church named as Brighton Alliance Church.
In recent years, with the changes brought by waves of immigration, many Christian organisations and theological colleges have begun to pay attention to the needs of the UK, and the CACU has also started to cooperate with overseas missions in church planting, missions, theological education, and other areas of ministry. In addition, we also cooperate with non-Alliance organisations to spread the gospel, build believers, and help them find their calling.
MAC suddenly welcomed many believers from different denominational backgrounds, including Alliance churches, Baptist churches, Free Evangelical churches, and Chinese Christian churches in Hong Kong participating in our services. Due to the differences in worship styles, spiritual traditions, and pastoral concepts among various churches, brothers and sisters strive to adapt to our practices. At the same time, MAC also continuously adjusts as needed, aiming to provide the most appropriate pastoral care to the congregation.
In a city like Manchester, which encompasses multiculturalism and multiethnicity, cross-cultural missions are not distant. As a denomination promoting missions, we are also simultaneously developing international ministry in different languages. Since the Annual General Meeting approved the merging with the Manchester Alliance Mandarin Fellowship. MAC’s services are now conducted in Cantonese, English, and Mandarin, with congregation including Spanish-speaking believers and friends from the Middle East.
All of the above-mentioned cooperation and ministry developments at different levels and aspects perfectly reflect that C&MA is a vibrant denomination. While striving to emphasize similarities while respecting differences, it still adheres to the spirit passed down from Dr. Simpson and other mission predecessors: “Not I, but Christ”, and “Great is Embracing!”
Rev Chiu