Invitation to World Missions: A Trinitarian Missiology for the Twenty-first Century (Invitation to Theological Studies Series) by Dr Timothy Tennent

Author:Dr Timothy Tennent
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-08-04T00:39:00+00:00

Back to Jerusalem Movement

Peter Wagner predicted that "by the year 2025 China will be sending out more foreign missionaries to other countries than any other nation."81 This bold prediction was based on two realities: first, the dramatic growth of the Chinese church; and, second, a growing conviction of tens of thousands of Chinese Christians that God has sovereignly called them to play a central role in global evangelization. This development surprisingly contrasts to other parts of the world, where any manner of a missionary vision lagged behind the initial phase of evangelism and church planting for generations.

This missionary movement among Chinese Christians is known informally as the "Back to Jerusalem Movement" (BTJM). The origins of the BTJM have been traced to a movement of God in 1942-1943 at the Northwest Bible Institute in Shaanxi Province.82 Mark Ma, the vice principal of the institute, and several students began to be burdened for the Muslim people groups who are located in the province of Xinjiang in northwest China. Soon Mark Ma and the other students began to sense that Xinjiang was not only a mission field but also a potential training ground for a major missionary initiative back across the ancient Silk Route, directly into the heart of the Islamic countries of central Asia. The Chinese province of Xinjiang borders the central Asian Islamic countries of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. After prayer and fasting, Mark Ma received a direct call from God to "bring to completion the commission to preach the gospel to all the world."" Ma understood that the broad sweep of the missionary movement had moved from Jerusalem to Antioch to Western Europe to North America and eventually arrived in China at port cities like Shanghai, Macau, and Guangzhou on the eastern and southern coast of China. The Lord impressed upon Ma and the others that, to complete the circle, the gospel should continue into northwestern China, across central Asia, and on to Jerusalem, where the Great Commission was first given. A contemporary Chinese leader expressed this vision as follows:

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