The subject of this paper is the rare case of a Chinese “reverse mission” to the United States. Witness Lee (Li Changshou, 1905-1997) was a coworker with Watchman Nee in his “Little Flock” movement in China. He became the leader of the movement’s Taiwan branch after 1949 and migrated to the United States in 1962. Instead of working among Chinese immigrants like most other Chinese Christian workers would do, Lee turned to the major market. In the early 1960s, Watchman Nee’s writings just appeared in English and attracted a growing readership. Lee paid frequent visits to these readers who were intrigued by Nee’s original church model. In less than ten years, the Local Church in the United States spread to fifty localities and added about 5,000 members, most of them were Americans. This paper argues that a transnational tie established between Taiwan and the United States, and a unique style of worship and spirituality born out of the tie were the keys to Lee and the Local Church’s success.
Witness Lee’s effort to bridge the churches in the U. S. and Taiwan began as early as 1965. From July 25 to September 5, 1968, he organized a large group visit of 141 American members to travel to Taiwan. From that point on, a continual fellowship helps nurture a new “church life,” an encompassing experience that includes American worship styles in the 1960s, practices of evangelism originated in mainland China, and a new spiritual method called “pray-reading”. Lee repackaged the new “church life” as an alternative to the shrinking mainline Christianity as the “old religion” in America’s changing religious landscape.
The culmination of this transnational relationship came in 1987. The previous year, seven hundred foreign members temporarily moved to Taiwan to receive Lee’s four-month training called the Full-Time Training in Taipei (FTTT). During the following Gospel Feast, foreign and local trainees formed small units to proselytize on the streets of Taipei City, and there were reportedly 38,000 new baptisms during the year. The FTTT and Gospel Feast created a “universal” atmosphere in the church in Taipei and challenged the traditional colonial power dynamics in the church as the participants came to learn from a Chinese Christians and the churches he established.
This paper uses Witness Lee’s published writings, the newsletters of the Local Church in Taiwan and U. S., and other primary sources. It argues that transnationalism in the form of connections between churches and mutual visits can be an asset in conducting reverse missions, negotiating identities between immigrants and residents, and shaping evangelism and evangelicalism in the global context. By highlighting the Local Church’s transnational fellowship, especially the two significant events in 1968 and 1987, this paper aims to contribute to the relationship between Asian American Christianity, transnationalism in religion, and global evangelicalism.