Benny Yang
I currently serve as the Associate Mission Pastor and Dean of WLI China.
Life in China
I was born in the central part of China and lived in Beijing since 1994. I received Christ in 1995 through an American English teacher at my college, and then I started to serve as a youth minister in Haidian Christian Church in Beijing. We saw a great revival there among young people in the early 2000s.
In the past 15 years of living in Beijing, I have founded and served two house churches and co-founded Cypress Leadership Institute, a nationwide marketplace ministry platform in China. I have witnessed the great harvest and revival among businesspeople in China. With personal life changes, family restoration and company transformation, that was a great season of the gospel entering into the marketplace and extending influence into other mountains of mainline society in China.
Journey in America
I got my M.A. in Leadership from Trinity Western University in Vancouver, Canada, as the first student there to be a Chinese pastor—a guinea pig or a trailblazer. We eventually brought this M.A. program to China and created a Mandarin program. Now this program has been running for three years and is going to have its seventh Chinese cohort.
China is a place of great revival. China is also a place of great pressure. In 2012, I was totally burned out. I took my family and moved to Denver, enrolled in the M.Div. program in Denver Seminary to have a good time of vacation. In April 2012, while I was in my very dry and depressed season in seminary, I met Dr. Peter Wagner in Saipan Island. This divine incident totally changed my life. I started to encounter my Lord in a very fresh way. Eventually, encouraged by Cindy Jacobs’ in-refusable prophecy, we created the Wagner Leadership Institute CHINA, and I became the Dean for WLI China. Very soon, I dropped out of my seminary studies, we moved to LA in May of 2014, and we started enjoying the everlasting sunshine here in Southern California.
Life Verses
I have two life verses. One is from Genesis 1:28—simply, “Be fruitful and multiply, take dominion on earth.” I married to my bone of bone, flesh of flesh, my wonderful wife, Kitty, in 2001 in Beijing. And we had three children since then: Betty, Emmanuel and Joanna. They were all born in Beijing.
A certain phenomenon started after our son, Emmanuel, was born (precisely, we know that he was conceived on Easter Sunday 2004 and was born on Dec. 25 that same year): Many Christians around us started to have their second or third child. My successor in my Beijing House Church, a local Beijinger, married in 2008 and now had his fourth daughter in April of 2014. Therefore, I know that Genesis 1:18 is still as powerful as when God said it in the beginning. Surely, it is no exception in the One-Child Policy of China.
Another life verse is Joshua 1:9—simply, “Be bold and courageous.” As I’ve served and lived in China, I’ve found that this is not just a life verse, but this is truly the verse you need in your everyday life.
Vision
My passion is in raising up leaders, and my vision is to see the “Back to Jerusalem” movement become a reality. China will become the largest missionary-sending nation in a very short timeframe. My burden is to offer whatever I have to God’s hand for this mission. But this whole cross-culture mission movement is in the preparation stage now, so we need help from all parts of the Body in His Church. After all, it is not for China, but for Christ.
I am glad to join the HRock family and experience God’s love, intimacy of Christ Jesus, empowerment of the Holy Spirit, together, extending the Kingdom for the King!