In 2023, the Chinese Alliance World Fellowship (CAWF) held its triennial World Conference in Manchester, UK. That year, the UK was selected as one of the Executive Committee nations. As the then-President of the Chinese Alliance Churches Union UK (CACU), I became one of the Executive Committee members of CAWF. Each year, I represent CAWF in hosting pastors’ retreats in different regions and visiting local Chinese Alliance churches. Last year, we held a retreat in Manchester for pastors from Europe and the Middle East and also visited churches in Paris. In the past two weeks, we hosted a retreat for pastors from the Americas in Lima, Peru, and visited churches in São Paulo, Brazil.
You may not know or remember that last year, CACU received donations from the US and Hong Kong specifically to support church planting among Hong Kong BNO immigrants in the UK. From this fund, MAC allocated resources to support the start-up costs of the Cheadle Hulme and Wigan church plants. Furthermore, due to the growing need for church planting across the UK, CACU subsidized part of my salary, and MAC agreed to release me for half of my working time to serve as the part-time General Secretary of CACU for two years. The funding received also enabled the church to hire Pastor Alan Ip part-time to help share the workload.
The theme of the Americas Pastors’ Retreat was “Crisis and Opportunity in the Chinese Churches.” I was responsible for preaching at one of the evening sessions. I also preached at the Cantonese fellowship of Lima’s San Borja Church while participating in various church gatherings. I am truly grateful for the opportunity to serve pastors and believers outside the UK. It was an eye-opening experience, filled with valuable insights and learning.
I discovered that Chinese immigrant churches around the world face similar challenges and needs—particularly a shortage of pastors. This is especially true in Central and South America, but even churches in the US and Australia struggle to find experienced pastors to take on leadership roles. In contrast, the situation in the UK is relatively better. Among the immigrant population, many trained ministers have not yet entered pastoral ministry. Pastors from several countries asked me whether there are ministers willing to relocate and shepherd Chinese Alliance churches in their regions.
In addition, Chinese immigrant churches across the Americas face challenges such as multilingual ministry (two or three languages), as well as an urgent need to develop youth ministries. I believe that many of these churches—whether English-speaking, Spanish-speaking, or Portuguese-speaking—have already gained valuable experience, and our Chinese churches in the UK might benefit from learning from them.
Lastly, the most memorable part of the trip was visiting the Wheat Field Youth Gospel Centre in São Paulo, a ministry supported by the Chinese Alliance Church Association in the US. It is truly a place where young people—whether believers or not—can hang out and connect. The space is roughly the size of two Room 4s on the second floor of MAC. After school or during holidays, youth gather there to play board games, study, eat instant noodles, and more. More importantly, the staff shared moving testimonies about how they have built relationships with these youth. Some have come to faith and even joined in ministry. While we were in São Paulo, the center organized a faith Q&A session, where several of us pastors answered the youth’s questions. At the end of the gathering, Pastor Joe Kwok took the opportunity to invite the participants to respond to God’s calling. Bearing gospel fruit during this journey left us with precious and lasting memories.
Rev Wai Chor Chiu