Rev Dr Eric S. Y. SO
2 The Christian mission in the community
Preaching the Gospel and Serving the Community is the basic strategy of the mission and evangelism policy of HKCCCC. Preaching means through telling the gospel of Christ, to call men and women to repent from their sins and to confess Christ as their Lord and Savior so that they may have eternal life. Serving means through actions of love and care, people can receive God’s mercy and blessing so that the poor will have good news, the captives released, the blind recovering their sight, the oppressed their freedom, and the year of the Lord’s favor for all be promised.
In the mission statements issued on 1968, 1995 and 1998, HKCCCC had declared that the Church should follow the incarnation model of Christ. Through a ministry of services, charity and healing, the church could engage the underprivileged and marginal communities with care and love as Jesus did. (Mat. 9: 35-36) In 1981, the late Rev Dr Peter Wong, GS of HKCCCC, had proposed the Mission to the Poor as a permanent strategy of church mission for HKCCCC. Rev Wong’s proposal articulated that the church should always recognize the need of the poor as mission priority because they were being marginalized as well.
A few years ago WCC recommended the initiative of From Mission to the Margins to Mission from the Margins. This initiative of WCC relevantly echoes to the Mission to the Poor strategy which has been implementing by many HKCCCC churches for decades. In the coming years I look forward not only to the continuation of mission in the community but also a close collaboration of all HKCCCC members for mission from the margins being continued to be developed.
3 Relationship with Mainland China
CCC was founded as a result of the 20th Century Christian ecumenical movement in China. As a Church body, CCC had exercised its government by a structure through national, provincial, district and local levels across and beyond Mainland China for over thirty years (1927 to1958). During that period, the CCC churches in Hong Kong and Macao despite politically being in the colonies, not only recognized themselves as members of the Sixth District of the Guangdong Provincial Synod, but also were actively involved in all the CCC mission programs as one church. Even though in 1958 HKCCCC was registered as a constituent entity in Hong Kong, all its members still acknowledged the sharing of a common heritage with China.
Hong Kong has returned to its mother country China and is now a Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China. Because of the continuing common Chinese heritage and the new national status of Hong Kong, I have the following thoughts offer to the leaders of HKCCCC on which to reflect: 1) How can the new national status of Hong Kong actuate HKCCCC to develop new relationship with the churches in Mainland China? 2) How can the Chinese heritage and the Chinese Christian indigenous reflection deepen and widen the theological formation of the HKCCCC? 3) How can HKCCCC and the Chinese churches mutually share each others’ insights in mission and the spirituality of ministries in order to continue mobilizing a more effective Christian mission in both
Hong Kong and on the Mainland?
The 4th reflection will be shared in July.