Guest Series: A Visit to China (Part 2)
Recently, my friend Scott had a chance to visit China on a mission trip. This is part two in his three part series on the insights and inspiration of his visit:
THE CHURCH
I had no idea, but apparently China has official state sponsored churches. My friends also saw a factory which prints Chinese editions of the New Testament. However much of the evangelism, discipleship, and churches exist in secrecy outside this environment for two reasons. First, is apparently the sermons and teaching in state churches are reviewed by the party. This can create semi-censorship of the pastors and changing or diluting the message. Also, participation means labeling oneself a believer. This can have negative repercussions in employment or other aspects the culture as it’s not something yet embraced by the party. We are proud to talk about religion and faith publicly. There, as in the early church, it comes with a real price.
Hence much of the spread of the Gospel happens the way it did in the Bible. Small groups worshiping and learning together in homes (think upper room) as opposed to big community churches. Perhaps most interesting is the way they learn. Let’s just say there aren’t Family Christian Bookstores nearby. No TV evangelists, no Christian libraries, and no yellow pages listing all the independent churches you can visit. They grow through leaders discipling new leaders. When a home church gathering becomes too big, they split and multiply. There’s no concern for building programs, Sunday Schools or a lot of what we are accustomed to for “running a church.” Imagine all of this in a world of potential persecution. You can see the parallels to the early church. And you certainly wouldn’t want to use something like because you wouldn’t want lists of members and ministry activities so easily discovered.
So what is the main source of learning and teaching? The Bible. I found such amazing knowledge and deep Biblical based theological discussions happening amongst local believers that I rarely see in the west. We’ve augmented the Bible with so many surrogate ways of learning that have many bypassing a direct and consistent study of God’s Word altogether. In China it’s quite the opposite. There is also a strong commitment to not being hypocritical to the Word. Imagine having to actually do what we say we believe (tithe, study, fellowship, minister, etc.). There is a strong level of support and accountability that helps make this real.
The church is not without its challenges of course. In talking with some leaders (we weren’t allowed to actually visit a home church gathering because of privacy concerns), there are many who drop from actively participating. This is especially true of young believers who enter the workforce and begin to encounter the career pressure and competitiveness. They are not surrounded by a strong support structure and, as I mentioned, being a believer is not considered a resume booster by any means.
Perhaps the most interesting challenge is one also faced by the early church. There are increasing levels of doctrinal debate occurring amongst the church leaders. 1 Corinthians gives us a glimpse of how this kind of divisiveness can play out. I heard this tendency to debate the “right way” to teach and evangelize is becoming a real challenge and taking focus away from the real mission.
Despite these challenges, their mission and the evangelism movement is amazingly strong. We’ll discuss this in the final post.
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