Equipping Leaders for Discipling Public-School Adolescents in Chinese House Churches: A Mixed Methods Study

Abstract

Chinese adolescents who attend house churches play a vital role in growing the body of Christ and leading the church to flourish. Hence, the church must assist them to establish identities in Christ and achieve spiritual prosperity so that they will be able to grow unto Christlikeness. However, they are facing multiple challenges during the faith developmental process. One of the most prominent factors is Chinese public school education. Due to national educational law in China, students have little opportunity to avoid secular and anti-Christian teachings throughout their educational journey. Meanwhile, Chinese adolescents are experiencing identity crises under the impacts and challenges of social culture changes, technological development, and globalization. These factors urge educational leaders to provide proper guidance for adolescents’ psychological development and spiritual growth. However, because Chinese house church leaders lack professional training in the area of Christian education, they do not find themselves confident in discipling adolescents in the church who go to public schools. The purpose of this sequential transformative mixed-method study is to develop a means of equipping Chinese Christian educational leaders so that they will be able to assist public-school adolescents to grow in wisdom and stature for the kingdom of Christ. To be more specific, this mixed methods study includes significant factors associated with Christian educational leadership development focusing on discipling adolescents who go to Chinese public schools, while overlaying sequential procedures to develop a valid curriculum model for training Chinese urban house church leaders. The study involves a multi-phase process. In the first phase, a three-round Delphi study will be utilized to better discover the potential consensus among thirteen experts. The second phase will allow the expert panel to assess and provide feedback for the curriculum model through a survey. This curriculum should not only aggregate educational resources for churches but also serve as a resource for delivering professional training to educational ministry leaders.