A Strategy For Building A Spiritual Foundation In Believers For Love Truth Chinese Mennonite Church

The goal of this study is to explore cultural influences on the spiritual life of Chinese believers, to employ biblical truths to show the spiritual life that God desires for his church to be spiritually healthy, and to set up a practical strategy for building spiritual formation in the congregation. Chinese immigrants share the American experience with many other immigrant groups, and have to work out their own processes of cultural assimilation, language learning, and living in ghettos. Chinese people like to commune with each other to maintain their own heritage and customs, thus fortifying themselves from the differences of language and habits of the new culture. Love Truth Chinese Mennonite Church was planted among the first generation of Chinese immigrants. However, unaware of the influences by some major Western cultural trends, Love Truth believers unwittingly face faith crises and conflicts in their spiritual growth. Because he is an immigrant believer, the pastor of Love Truth did not realize that his spiritual struggle and those of his members are related to cultural changes and encounters. Because he realizes that the Mennonite church embraces Anabaptist beliefs, his desire is for Love Truth to rediscover her rich ecclesiological heritage and theological perspective for building up her believers' spirituality. During the process of the study, the pastor has found that cultural differences are not against God's will but exhibit the wisdom of God. Also, only an Anabaptist pastor can build an Anabaptist spiritual foundation among the believers; thus, the pastor of Love Truth has to transform his spirituality prior to carrying out spiritual reconstruction for the congregation. Finally, the essential part of the implementation strategy is that the cultural issues of the congegation be resolved. The paper also presents possible methods of evaluation for measuring the spiritual growth in believers.