Joann Pittman is Vice President of Partnership and China Engagement and editor of ZGBriefs.
Prior to joining ChinaSource, Joann spent 28 years working in China, as an English teacher, language student, program director, and cross-cultural trainer for organizations and businesses engaged in China. She has also taught Chinese at the University of Northwestern-St. Paul (MN), and Chinese Culture and Communication at Wheaton College (IL) and Taylor University (IN).
Joann has a BA in Social Sciences from the University of Northwestern-St. Paul (MN), and an MA in teaching from the University of St. Thomas (MN).
She is the author of Survival Chinese Lessons and The Bells Are Not Silent: Stories of Church Bells in China.
Her personal blog, Outside-In can be found at joannpittman.com, where she writes on China, Minnesota, traveling, and issues related to "living well where you don't belong."
You can find her on Twitter @jkpittman.com and on Facebook at @authorjoannpittman.
She makes her home in New Brighton, Minnesota.
As with most questions of a linguistic nature, the answer is a bit complicated because in English the term "church" can refer to either a gathering of believers or a building where those believers gather. In other words, we can use the term "church" to call any and all gatherings of believers, regardless of the existence of a building. Generally speaking, we can infer from the context what is being discussed.
I'm a documentary lover; given a choice between watching a movie, a TV program (drama or comedy), or a documentary, I will almost always choose the documentary.
On Saturday night, April 26, 2014, Brent Fulton and I gave a talk at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, titled "The Chinese Church and the Global Body of Christ."
As of this morning (Monday, April 28) there are wild rumors floating around regarding the situation at the Sanjiang Church in Wenzhou, but what is not in dispute is that the church is, in fact, being demolished.
Late last week The Telegraph published a story about the rise of Christianity in China under the attention-grabbing headline "China on course to become the world's most Christian nation within 15 years."
One thing that I have noticed over the past couple of years is the growing influence of Calvinism among Chinese house church Christians. At a conference I attended in Germany last year, one of the speakers even listed it as a major challenge facing the church in China.
On April 7, the online magazine Tea Leaf Nation (one of my favorites) published an article titled Infographic: Jesus More Popular Than Mao on China's Twitter.
An interview with Dr. Fenggang Yang about a new exchange program at Purdue University.
Adding to my recent list of Ten Books on Christianity, I'd like to also commend the three volumes of Salt and Light: Lives of Faith that Shaped Modern China, by Carol Lee Hamrin and Stacey Bieler.
It's an interesting question, and, as the saying goes, "it depends on what the meaning of the word 'atheist' is."
A few years ago, I put together a China reading list that I titled "My Literary Journey to Being a Sinophile" for my personal blog in which I highlighted books that have shaped my understanding and love for China over the past thirty years. The book topics run the gamut from history to contemporary society to the condition of the church. The book Safely Home (2003) by Randy Alcorn is not on the list.
Since I've been in China for 28 years, and speak Chinese reasonably well, I am often asked two questions (by foreigners), neither of which have easy answers.