Pastor Hsi’s Legacy: An Interpretive Commentary from South Africa
As a pastor from Durban, South Africa, of Indian origin, I am both humbled and honored to reflect on the life and ministry of Pastor Hsi (Xi Shengmo).
As a pastor from Durban, South Africa, of Indian origin, I am both humbled and honored to reflect on the life and ministry of Pastor Hsi (Xi Shengmo).
Join us on March 20, 2025, in the Twin Cities for Dr. Glen Thompson’s lecture on China’s earliest Christians, their history, and lessons for today. Free and open to all!
In Pastor Hsi, written by Mrs. Howard Taylor, we can tell that the pastoral problems Pastor Hsi encountered when the Shanxi Church was established more than a hundred years ago are exactly the same as those we face today: there is the danger of false teachers, the pain brought by church division, and the various different voices from inside and outside the church.
As this painful summer passed, poor Pastor Hsi endured unspeakable suffering and pressure, but most of his co-workers still supported him firmly. The love and loyalty of people were a great comfort to him. But they still had to go through this refining furnace together. Sometimes it even seemed that God’s hand had withdrawn, and Satan was destroying the ministry at will.
In 1881, Hsi started a medical mission station, apart from foreign supervision, in Deng Village, five miles away from his home. He practiced medicine in the front and held meetings in the back, naming it “fuying tang” (Gospel Hall). Hsi served as a doctor, preacher, and boss, and his home was often crowded with people seeking help.
Jesus became real and trustworthy, not just a man anymore, but God in the flesh. However, the burden of sin, the condemnation of conscience, and the bondage of opium addiction became increasingly difficult for him to overcome.
The LGBTQ community is the new unreached people group. Learn from Jesus to enter their community with companionship and share the gospel with them.
Many Chinese Christians suffered to love others and endured hardship in their native land because they loved the Lord. Pastor Hsi was one of them. Ordained by Hudson Taylor in 1887, he was the first pastor ordained by the China Inland Mission in mainland China.
Viable parallels exist between ancient Christian learning and life with Chinese Christianity, and part of the purpose of our writing these series of presentations is to identify what those are in the best way we know how.
Hong Kong’s churches are navigating a difficult new season. Amid political change, emigration, and a growing “de-churched” generation, believers are wrestling with how to remain faithful in a rapidly changing city.
Mayfield highlights…the essential continuity that bound the early Pentecostal missionaries together with their evangelical contemporaries; the way in which the “heat and noise” of Pentecostal worship, which often repelled Europeans, actually served to attract the Chinese masses; and the strategic role that women played in the founding of Pentecostal churches.
A truly “Christian” Chinese church will not only be thoroughly enculturated, but it will also retain the entire “rule of faith” shared by the rest of the universal church. Finally, Chinese Christians, knowing they are part of the universal church, will continue to seek to share the joys and trials of the indigenous churches of all other cultures. Such a church would be biblical, God-pleasing, and truly Chinese.