China Ruined Church

A controversial title I know and perhaps a little too dramatic, but it is something I have been reflecting on since our return and I can’t help but compare our China experiences of Church to what we are finding back in Africa.

Many don’t understand the religious set up in China and a lot is hidden from international view; but there are three main Christian ‘churches’ operating in China: The first kind are the International Churches – these are similar to western evangelical churches but are open only to foreign passport holders and this is checked at the door every service. These churches also tend to be ‘spread too thin’ in our opinion because they are expected to cater to such a large, varying Christian population with hugely varying degrees of expression and theology. The second type of church is the Three-Self Church or government sanctioned Church which are supposedly Christian and preach good morals and lessons from the Bible but omit to teaching about Jesus (the revolutionary) and His grace and salvation for all mankind. The third type of Church is the house church or underground church which is commonly understood as the persecuted church because these are Chinese Christians who believe in Jesus, meet in secret and hide from the government because the communist government of China does not appreciate radical religious thought.

While in China we had first-hand experience of both the International Churches and the Three-Self Church and although we did meet several people operating within the underground church, generally foreigners attract too much attention for them to worship regularly at these house church meetings. The International Churches were the most disappointing, in our opinion not meeting anyone’s needs while trying to cater to everyone’s spiritual ‘tastes’.  The Three-Self Church experience was very interesting (for Kyle, as it was all in Chinese so it was lost on me) and these services were surprisingly packed in all services on a Sunday. Many people believe that the Chinese are majority Buddhist, but during our time there we found them to be mainly agnostic, with a lack of spiritual awareness at all. Many are searching though, which is why the Three Self Church was so full on Sundays – people were genuinely curious to learn about being more than just a physical being.

However, despite being ‘spoilt for choice’ so to speak, overall we found Beijing to be a spiritually dry place and struggled throughout our first year to find a place of worship to call ‘home’.

That was until an SA friend introduced us to Robert Glover, a man who changed our China and Church experience for the better. Not only did he eventually become my boss and Zipporah’s god-father, but he also introduced us to a group of like-minded families who were also disappointed in the way church was being done in the city, and who were craving an authentic Christian life alongside fellow believers. We began meeting with this group of families every Wednesday, even though the bus trip there and back took us almost 3 hours every time. Those times together were so sweet and so honest: someone bringing a word, a song, a prophecy, and even though no one came prepared, everyone brought their gifts and their vulnerability. It was a special time.

About a year after that God spoke to us as a group about moving our meetings to a Sunday so that more families and children could be impacted. We were one of 5 original “church planting couples” who said yes to the idea, and thus began probably one of the hardest spiritual seasons of both our lives.

Anyone who has ever been involved in a Church plant knows that it is not for the faint hearted, and lots of “stuff” comes to the fore when you start leading others. By the end of the first year only one other original couple remained in the church. But we had grown and new families had joined, and God always gave us enough to go forward – enough encouragement, enough of Him.

By the end of the 2^nd year we were (by complete default) the only original couple left and by that stage were shouldering the heavy weight of the church plant both spiritually and practically. Between running children’s church, band, setting up the chairs and coffee, weekly home groups and choosing the message or preaching the word, we were spiritually spent. But again, God gave us just enough people to encourage us to continue, and although we wanted so often to call it quits, there was the sweet presence of Jesus in the faces of the people who, over time, had really drawn closer to Him, and that we couldn’t deny. And so we stayed, until there was no venue to meet in and God called us back to Africa.

We had high expectations of just being pew-warmers when we got back following our long, hard season in China. We actually spoke of our church-hiatus often in the last few months in Beijing, but now that it’s here our valuable rest is mixed with feelings that we wont ever fit into mainstream church again. It is probably still too soon to tell, but our initial feelings of SA church-life have been less appealing than we originally thought. China has changed our view of Church and of how to “do” church, and our perspectives have really shifted from being that of a consumer, to that of a participant. We believe in doing life together, openly and honestly; of everyone bringing their gifts and actively seeking the Lord’s presence. We don’t understand the appeal of the flashy, slick display you see in most mainstream churches because we have been part of a church stripped down to the bare. Only Jesus. People didn’t come because of anything we did, they came because of Jesus. And when everything in the service went horribly wrong and we were sure that would be the end, people came back. But only for Jesus.

So I suppose my title isn’t too dramatic. We had a prophesy before we left that we would experience Church in a new way in China, and be able to come back and teach others about it. We had no idea just what kind of ‘new church’ we would discover, and although it wasn’t always pretty, it was God’s. And so for that experience, however difficult, we are so grateful. We can only pray we find that same authenticity in our spiritual walk with believers here in SA.