RCMI Newsletter Jan 2020
RCMI ministry report from pastor dennis balcombe
Revival Christian Church’s 50th Anniversary:
On October 12, 2019, we celebrated our 50th Anniversary with a banquet of over 1,000 guests, many from China and overseas visitors. This was followed with a Revival Chinese Training Conference with our pastors from Shiloh Church in California as special speakers.
The largest of our three Hong Kong congregations is Kwai Fong Revival Christian Church (kf.rcchk.org).We purchased a large movie theatre in 1997, and now have two packed Sunday services. The vast majority of the 1,300 Protestant churches are now open to the Pentecostal/Charismatic message, are growing, and approximately 500,000 Protestants make up 14.8% of Hong Kong’s population. When I arrived here in 1969 there were just a few hundred small churches.
Revival Church has produced a 120-page color pictorial booklet in English and Chinese with many photos and articles relating to our 50 years of history and that of the China ministry. If you send us a message to rcmihkg@rcchk.org we will be glad to send you a copy free of charge. Otherwise you can download the PDF file at http://media.rcchk.org/50th/RCC50.pdf (the file size for “50th anniversary publication" is 80MB, please take look when downloading.)
Bibles for the Chinese Church:
RCMI began as our “China Ministry” in 1979 by delivery of Bibles to China. We called the ministry “Donkeys for Jesus”, and literally tens of thousands of foreign Christians came to deliver countless millions of Bibles into China. You may have been one of those ‘donkeys’, or you have financially supported this ministry, and I want to thank you. There is a still great demand throughout China for Bibles and good Biblical teaching and training materials
Now Bibles are available to purchase in China in official Three-Self Church bookstores. Through contacts of leaders in this official church, and with the provision of funds from overseas donors, we have purchased several thousand officially printed Bibles that are distributed to both house church and official church believers. We will continue this ministry.
Approximately 50 million ethnic Chinese (3.7% of the world’s population) live outside China. Ministries we work with have provided us a large supply of regular Bibles, Study Bibles and teaching materials like “Shepherd’s Staff”. We are providing these free of charge to many Chinese churches in various nations to be used both to meet the needs of their believers, and to evangelize the many non-Christian Chinese living in or visiting their nation. Some of these are churches in Asia (Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, etc.) North America and even several European nations.
Leadership Training:
For close to 20 years, our Chinese branch of Shiloh Bible College trained young ministerial students in several cities in China, and close to 1,000 students graduated and are now in ministry. We can no longer legally do this, thus, we use other non-traditional ways to train leaders. 1) Conducting systematic training conferences in Hong Kong, other Asian nations and Europe. Since 2003 countless thousands of mainland leaders have thus received leadership training. 2) The whole Bible College curriculum with teaching notes and videos has been put on portable media (hard disks) and is being distributed to many house church leaders. Bible School graduates and local pastors can thus travel to different locations, and use these materials to train the next generation of leaders.
Ministry to Minorities:
Many people in China are not Han Chinese. In China 8.49% of the people (117 million) belong to the ethnic minority groups. Many of these are in Yunnan, and for many years we have had an active ministry to believers in the rural mountain regions. We have financed higher education to young people including Bible College training, thus lifting village people out of poverty. We have also provided Bibles and teaching materials, and conduct training to the ethnic Christian leaders.
Demonstrations and Riots in Hong Kong
Events in Hong Kong have made news worldwide starting from June 2019. There have been major demonstrations of hundreds of thousands (some claimed millions) of people, mostly young people protesting a proposed extradition law that has since been withdrawn.
This social movement has resulted in much division between people: children and their parents, policemen and the public; and divisions have even been caused in some churches. However, the demonstrations have done very little to advance the demand for universal suffrage (one of the demonstrators' "Five Demands"). But we understand that this is not about freedom and democracy; rather, it is about reconciliation and healing. It is an opportunity to advance the gospel in Hong Kong. As Jesus said, "In any case, I must press on today and tomorrow and the next day..." (Luke 13:33). And we know that many of you overseas are praying for us. Thank you!
A personal note:
Kathy and I turned the position of senior pastor over to our daughter and son-in-law, Sharon and Samuel Lau in 2005, and I am now a full time missionary for the church travelling to many nations and director of RCMI. Kathy is in HK most of the time and still a pastor to our people.
Our son Michael is still living in Florida and single. We have two grandchildren. Kady graduated from Berklee College of Music in 2019 and is engaged to get married this August in Portland, Oregon. Our grandson Benjamin has joined YWAM in Australia for DTS, and then later go to college in Denver, Colorado.
Thank you again for your prayers and support of this ministry.
Pastors Dennis, Kathy Balcombe
Samuel and May Cheng, the Senior Pastors of Abundant Grace Revival Church, has been pastoring the same church for 25 years. Pastor Cheng is also in charge of the Bible School and teaching ministry in RCMI, and travelling from time to time to visit and run training programmers among local churches.
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