is this suffering worth it? Have you had moments when you question whether it is worth it? Suffering is messy, and most of us do not look like heroes when we experience it. Jesus knows that. He went through it himself. So, even if we do not emerge from suffering as heroes, it is more important that Jesus endured his suffering and was victorious over sin and death.
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At a time when the American evangelical church is greatly divided over a host of issues, missional church partnering for ministry in China offers great riches in the form of expanding the horizons of the body of Christ. Such partnership can rally the church together behind an important vision. American churches unfamiliar with the church in China can begin to learn from first-hand testimonies about the challenges and victories of our brothers and sisters on the other side of the globe. This serves to strengthen the congregation’s scope and understanding of the world-wide body of Christ, while also casting vision for the next generation of young missionaries in our U.S. congregations.
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One has to seriously reflect on what the Lord is teaching his church about developing local leaders through the conditions of the pandemic. The task of global outreach no longer falls on the shoulders of missionaries from traditional sending nations in the West, nor does it fall on the shoulders of the “younger churches” of nations like South Korea. As the global community of churches envisions the future of missions and missionaries, wise agencies ought to begin to wrestle with the implications of the growing number of Christians in the global South and East. These changes should be reflected in policies and strategies within mission agencies.
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Prayer is an indispensable tool that is easily neglected but often taken up when circumstances are difficult, as they are for many house church Christians…the culture of prayer that has carried over from the earliest days of the house church in China rings true. Their prayers are often ones of lament or desperation, but they are also filled with hope. When they are harassed, persecuted, beaten, arrested or mistreated by the authorities, most house church believers recognize that they have no recourse other than to take their grief and lament to the Lord and pray for his grace and strength. They have no politicians who represent them, nor do they possess political power to leverage circumstances to achieve a favorable outcome when things get bad. Prayer becomes, for them, a precious tool.
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House church Christians in China face many challenges in their daily faith journey. Dilemmas arise from broader societal issues, such as cultural incongruence and a pervasive spiritual vacuum, as well as issues specific to the house church identity, centered around a posture of resistance. Both these areas need to be addressed; all create powerful disorienting features. These challenges also present an opportunity for house church Christians to learn, grow, and be transformed. Theological education in the house church context must factor in these contextual elements, encourage students to theologize within their communities, and find biblical solutions.
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Theology that answers contextual questions is important—but who gets to pick which questions are important? Are they being answered within the contextual “soil” by those who grew up in that soil? Those inside the soil may choose to converse with different theological voices abroad based on the needs that face them…Are inside voices choosing the content of the theological conversation? Or is that content being thrust upon them? There needs to be a recognition of both the beauty and the fallen-ness of culture whereby we are both purveyors and critics of it. If this is how we measure contextualization, then the voice of the house church must be heard, for their theology is a significant contributor to the conversation.
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The church in the U.S. must engage in precisely this kind of indirect suffering to better appreciate what Scripture passages like this mean. The more we invest in learning the stories of the persecuted and oppressed church, keeping their struggles a part of our daily prayers, and connecting with their suffering, albeit indirectly, the better we can make sense of the experience of suffering and persecution.
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God began a great work in China many, many years ago, and today, you are the evidence of what God began many years ago. Phil. 1:6 is a great promise from God; a promise for you and for the whole church in China. That verse kept my parents going even when they had to leave China, as they remembered it was God who started the work. It was not their work, it was God’s work, and you are a wonderful evidence of that promise.
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I would like to propose three principles that can potentially help us in choosing national ministry partners. These are not the only things you should be aware of; rather, these are the things that I have seen most often neglected among the foreign worker community that I have interacted with over the past twenty years.
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Questions of communication in a common language, financial provision, cultural expectations and many others are complicated. In addition, there are issues of theological and ministry-style differences. One can get so burdened by the complexity of these issues to the point that we just throw our hands in the air and give up. Is it possible to come up with practical, biblical principles and guidelines that would help us to better understand how to work toward that koinonia?
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