Page 95 - Preservation for the Documentation of Chinese Christianity

Retrospect and Prospect

In 1977, HKCC General Secretary urged me to come to the Council as its Education Secretary, and offered me an
opportunity to expand that ministry to a broader constituancy. I was given the time and the encouragement to dream and to
conduct experiments in the field of education.
One of the first things we did was to establish an Education Committee. Many of us were upset about the state of Hong

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Kong’educational system and the church’sometimes unseemly entanglement in it and support of it. At that time free and
compulsory (although unenforced) education was only available through Form III. A competitive system of examinations was in
place that forced some 60% of the children completing that Form out of the educational system at the age of 13. Operating most
of the private kindergartens, some 33% of all primary schools and over half of all secondary schools, the churches had a large
stake in this elitist system that subsidized their operations and encouraged them to aim at giving the best to the best to produce
the best.
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The Council’Education Committee worked to bring about the kinds of changes in that system that are taken for granted
today. It also worked out a philosophy of education from a Christian perspective and challenged the churches to re-evaluate
their educational pre-suppositions, goals and methods.
The Council also encouraged me to supply church-related secondary schools with a new religious education curriculum. In
1979, the HKCC encouraged me to seek to publish the results of my initial experiments and on the basis of them, to develop a five
year curriculum for use in secondary schools. The Faith & Life Series came into being over the next three years. Published by
Federal Publications, the series emphasized life-related learning that was Biblically rooted but relevant to the needs of young

people in the 1980’ Workshops were held for teachers showing them how to use the Teachers’Manuals that emphasized

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participatory learning methods. The series continues to be used in more than 60 schools by over 30,000 students today.
Educational challenges extended to the field of communications as well. In 1978, News & Views was born. In 1982, I was
asked to take on the task of re-building the Councirs Communications Centre. After two years of hard work by the staff, the
facilities, the equipment, the production capabilities and the financial base of the Centre had all been markedly improved. Video
production was begun; the film library was re-built, various communications workshops were held and staff morale was high.
Besides the encouragement which I received to develop the areas of ministry in which I was directly involved, the two
things that impressed me most about the Council were its efforts to bring Christians of all stripes together, and its desire to meet
the needs and to alleviate the concerns of the people of Hong Kong. There were disagreements to be sure, and there were
uncertainties as to precisely what approaches were best in terms of community outreach and service, but underneath lay a
deeper common commitment that held it all together.

It was exciting to see Christian of all kinds gather for the great periodic conferences on the Mission of the Church in Hong
Kong that set the Councils agenda and gave it direction for the foreseeable future. It was also exciting to participate in the first
exchanges with Christians from China hosted by the Council in the early 80 s. During those same years, the Sino-British
Declaration on the future of Hong Kong was negotiated. These events made it clear that the unity and purpose of the Council,
within the context of greater China, would become all the more urgent to maintain and to strengthen.

In the next decade, particularly in light of recent events in China, the HKCC has an unprecedented opportunity to pull
together and to strengthen its resolve to risk its collective life for the sake of the masses of needy people among whom God has
Placed it. The people of Hong Kong need a pastoral message to allay their fears. They need a Christian voice to articulate their
concerns. They need a priestly compassion to heal their wounds. They need a prophetic word to spearhead their cause. The
Council I was privileged to be a part of for a number of years, whatever its flaws, was struggling to carry out these tasks of
ministry. My prayer for the HKCC in the future is that it will continue to dare to follow its Lord and co g l u g t o e n u e n t i s t r t o
carry on these ministries.

Wendell P. Karsen
Grandville, Michigan, U.S.A
July, 1989

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