Guest Series: A Visit to China (Part 1)

Recently, my friend Scott had a chance to visit China on a mission trip. This is his account in a three part series. He has some amazing stories and insights that you’ll enjoy. You may even find that it inspires you enough to start or join a cause. Here is part 1:

In late 2008, I had the opportunity to fulfill a long standing dream and visit China. While there I learned a little more about the growth of Christianity in the region. I talked about my experiences with James and he asked if I would share some observations with the Agile Ministry community.

I was only there for a short period, but walked away amazed and moved by what I learned in 3 areas:

• The Culture and Christianity
• The Church
• Evangelism Encounters

I will offer up some insights about each of these areas in upcoming posts.

Even though I prefer not to generalize about the culture, I’ve tried to make these posts short enough while providing you with some insight about their culture. If those out there have more experience and insights on China and the church movement, I would love to hear if these experiences are typical. I would also like to know what other opportunities exist that I may have missed, as I plan to return again soon.

I can sum up my experience this way: I saw the book of Acts and the experiences of the early church being recreated in our times in ways I never could have imagined from what I see daily in The United States. Never before has the experience of the early disciples seemed so real to me.

THE CULTURE AND CHRISTIANITY

We hear many stories about the government’s opposition to religion in China, including persecution of Christians. I have heard that this is especially true in more conservative, rural, and western parts of the country. I visited only large cities in the east during this trip. In talking with many believers there I would best describe the experience as one of détente or maybe “don’t ask, don’t tell”. This seems especially true as it relates to foreigners with locals needing to be more careful. But in general if we weren’t drawing attention to ourselves we could have reasonably open conversations and prayer in public areas. You surely wouldn’t see “bullhorn guys” or public evangelism demonstrations.

The Chinese seem very pragmatic people. They are deeply interested in growing their economy and maintaining an orderly society. To the extent openness to religion supports the former and doesn’t threaten the latter allows religion to be tolerated more than ever before. It’s like a great experiment by the government to see how things evolve.

One example of this pragmatism came from American doctors we met who were doing missionary and medical work. They had been coming for years and said the hospitals they worked in let them pray over patients and witness to the staff. The reason was that when they first came to China, certain surgery recovery rates were incredibly low. As these doctors educated Chinese counterparts there was orders of magnitude improvement in survivability rates to near western standards. When asked by locals why these doctors were coming to share their expertise for free they explained it as part of their ministry. This opened the door for them to share the Gospel and practice their faith.

Students and business people shared stories about the same pragmatism in their world. It’s good for China to have western business investments and westerners attending and teaching in universities. Those benefits seem to allow greater freedom to practice religion. I wonder if the realities of the current economic crisis and China’s reduced dependence on western consumers will change this openness. This may be something to watch.

As far as the culture itself, I can see why the Gospel would be so appealing, yet so hard to grasp. I say this for two reasons:

First, their core belief systems are so different from the west. We surveyed a number of young adults about what belief system motivates their behavior and interests them. The overwhelming answer (90+%) was “belief in self” or “science”. A very small minority mentioned a religion (including Islam or Buddhism). Basically the whole idea of faith, religion or spirituality is not a concept people inherently grasp. It’s like asking someone to contemplate having 3 eyes – it is absolutely strange and amazing to them.

In addition, very few admitted having heard of Jesus. When I asked why, they shared that, from childhood, you are taught to count on yourself for success and be very competitive. Also, like in many Asian countries, mistakes are frowned upon and avoided at all costs, with the need to “save face” very real. This makes concepts like grace, need for a savior and a power outside of you very hard to understand. It just doesn’t compute.

The second reason is the control of information remains strong. For example, I asked our young tour guide (a recent college grad) in Beijing what she had learned growing up about the protestors in Tiananmen Square. Her answer was “nothing” except than her grandfather knew some controversy happened there, but wasn’t sure what. Control of information about Christ is especially managed.

These cultural aspects have had a unique aspect on how the church has flourished. We’ll discuss this further in the next post.

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