| Since its reopening in the late 1970's, the Protestant Church in Mainland China has experienced rapid growth with three conspicuous phenomena: extreme gender disproportion, increased numbers of young intellectual and white-collar converts, and growing numbers of women pastors. The first two phenomena have attracted many Chinese and foreign scholars to explore the underlying reasons. However, few studies have focused on women pastors who serve prominent roles in church development in China. As a special group of leaders, the lives and leadership experiences of these women pastors are unknown to the world. In this qualitative narrative study done between May 2016 and May 2017, the researcher interviewed eight (8) women pastors in the registered Protestant Three-Self Patriotic churches and the unregistered house churches within W Province in order to understand their lives and experiences, including how they entered the Christian ministry, how they perceive their leadership roles in the church, and what challenges they have encountered in their ministry within contemporary Chinese culture. This study shows that superficially the majority of the participating women pastors entered Christian ministry because of their mothers' influence and push. The underlying cause lies in the special political, economic and social circumstances in Mainland China during the 1950's-1970's. These women church leaders and pastors see themselves as double-burdened mothers of their families and of the congregations. They all face the challenges of dealing with complicated interpersonal relationships, lack of male leaders and workers, and weak faith within the congregations they are leading. |
