Pre-Great-Commission Efforts

Monday I made a day-long trip with some of the guys to the next major city to the south. Apart from a bunch of trips to Beijing, I’ve never really traveled much within the country, so it was a great learning opportunity. We broke into a couple teams early in the afternoon and ran all over the city until nine at night.

This city is almost the same size as the city we live in, though it doesn’t seem to be quite as developed. In a lot of ways, the two are very similar. Which was probably what impressed me most about the trip. The city we live in is big enough that it hurts trying to wrap your head around it. And endeavoring to move beyond mental comprehension to Christ-like compassion is a daily spiritual challenge of equal magnitude. And then to hop on a train, ride for a couple hours, and get off in another city much the mirror of your own – your understanding staggers, your spirit reels. You realize that you’re still far from seeing the world the way that God sees it, and even further from feeling as he feels.

If the need of the city is strikingly similar, what is being done about the need is tiresomely familiar. By all means, cast your nets – build your coffee shops and your bookstores and your English classes – but give strong arms and strong vessels to pull in the nets! The nets without boats and fishermen are just so many entanglements. The city was further confirmation of an amazingly disproportionate amount of resources in this country being invested into pre-Great-Commission efforts.

The need for these efforts, while a reality, is often ambiguous. Why the greater need for these works in China than in other countries? If it be said that it’s because of the greater legal restrictions in China to evangelism, it may be asked in what unique way these efforts actually curb any danger? It is claimed that there are those who are antagonistic to the Gospel who will cause problems if they are allowed to attend services. Lest I be accused of unfairly depicting these organizations, I talked this week to a full-time representative of an organization with hundreds of workers in China who explained to me that their policy is not to allow anyone to attend any meeting until they’ve come to six classes about the Bible as literature and expressed interest. All biblical considerations of boldness aside, unless it can be shown that the danger in house churches actually arises from people who attend services (which it almost never does), then these kinds of safety measures are really just a facade – they don’t shield from any real danger. This is further confirmed by my experience that even the organizations that ‘play it safest’ have just as many problems with the law as anyone else (this may be due to the tendency of pre-Great-Commission efforts to be more high-profile).

If, on the other hand, it be said that these efforts are needed because of some special spiritual or relational difficulties in evangelizing Chinese people, it may be answered (by the experience of all who have tried) that there is rarely a situation where a church with a policy of openness will not be met by a steady stream of visitors, and not just of ’seekers.’ These kinds of barriers exist everywhere in the world and do not warrant such unbalanced attention. In short, the same effect of bringing people into contact with the Gospel can be achieved in far fewer steps. And it’s my belief that openness will always prove to be far more fruitful than any elaborate pre-Great-Commission system.

We also met with a brave young representative of the ‘house church networks’ of China yesterday. Single, mid-twenties, fresh out of college, no training except for what she’s read, no support except that which her little network sends her, no co-laborers except for the Jesus-screaming-chest-beating-Korean-house-church-cult down the street, no fruit except for a handful of young girls. Told us she’d been crying the night before, overwhelmed with her responsibility. You don’t approve of her situation? I don’t either, and that’s precisely the point – this is the end of the untrained laborer’s path. This is the fulcrum of the work in China – the pressure must be applied here.

One of the most encouraging parts of the trip was an opportunity to meet with a new friend who may be China-bound in the future. He had recently completed a survey of a ministry in another Chinese city, and it was immensely encouraging to hear him share a little about what God is doing through the work of the families there. From all I can tell, it is a group committed to applying intense pressure right here where it’s needed most – in training men to do the work of the ministry. Teams like this one are an excuse-breaking example of what needs to be done in cities all over this country. They are letting neither the need for reasonable caution nor the need for pre-Great-Commission efforts deter them from their work at the lever. I praise the Lord for them, and pray that he will allow us to follow such a lead.

So pray with us for cities like this all over China, and consider how you might apply some pressure of your own…

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China and Relationships

Well, our police troubles still haven’t completely disappeared. The same officer has been back several times, including yesterday just before church again! He wants money, is what it boils down to. Of course, this can’t be said in so many words. It is an elaborate dance of intrigue and aggravation. We’ve had to learn a couple lessons about fixing situations like this. As everyone who’s been to China for five minutes knows, ‘relationships are very important to Chinese society.’ I think they’re considering posting it on a sign in the airport near international arrivals. At face value, the theorem means nothing – can you imagine a country where relationships were unimportant? But dig a little deeper and you’ll discover the true meaning – ‘bribery and extortion are very important to Chinese society.’ Naturally – they are in every country where something besides law rules supreme.

Anyway, the cop insists that we are breaking fire regulations. We implore him to tell us in which respects. ‘Too many,’ is the closest we get to an answer. Code for, ‘I don’t know and I don’t care – you’re going to give me money.’ Try to imagine: our building (about 2,000 sq. ft.) has a built-in sprinkler system, two fire hoses, and five fire extinguishers. Our building layout consists of basically one big huge room. I’m not sure the fire station itself could do as well on the test. But, of course, that doesn’t matter. So here’s what does matter – here’s the different routes that we attempted to take to fix the situation:

1. Make friends with the cop. Dirty cops are like stray cats – if you feed them, they come back. But we still tried the most direct route. The nicest he’d be was to charge us a fine of about $300 and make us sign a paper that pretty much signs over all power of our company over to the police department. Wanted to avoid that, for obvious reasons. Getting our building in code was out of the question, he said. According to him, we’d have to tear down everything and start again. The advice most people gave us was to give him some money – but drag it out for a long time so that he feels like our money is a pain to get.

2. Consult a lawyer. I’ve been wanting to do this for a while anyway. A consultation with a really good lawyer in our city cost us about $15. She said she could handle the situation for us for about $750. How would she handle it? She would call her friends at the police station, invite them to eat, have a bunch of drinks with them, and get them to make this problem go away. At the end of the meeting, we asked ‘for a friend’ if it was possible to make an underground church into a legal church. Impossible, she said, anyone who tells you they can is just taking you for a ride.

3. Talk to the building manager. Lot of buildings, and this cop is supposed to be the supervisor of them all. So we talk to the manager of the properties we rent from. He advises us to give the guy some money. As things got more serious, he offered to undertake the aforementioned dinner shenanigans. But he’s busy, so it’s hard to say what we had to do for him to get him to something for us.

4. Trust our accountant. We pay a small company to handle our accounting and other necessary paperwork. They have the same kind of ‘relationships’ as the building manager. Actually called us once to tell us they had handled the situation for us. So we were pretty happy… until the cop came back on Sunday. This time he stayed for a long time and saw a couple Bibles and songbooks. If he comes back many more times, I don’t know how he can not figure it out.

5. Lastly, and most (hopefully) effectively – we discovered recently that we have some kind of municipal supervisor for our area. He’s a young guy, fresh out of the military. He came by the other day to introduce himself, and he became friends with one of the guys. Turns out he’s got some test coming up that will qualify him for higher government service. So he’s been coming by and studying with one of the guys at our place. Turns out that his dad is also ‘well connected’ at the police department. When his new friend told him about all the junk we’ve been dealing with lately, he said his dad would be able to handle it. So, as the accountant’s promised help fell through, we got in touch with this guy’s dad this week and gave him about $150, which he will use to throw a dinner party of his own.

So, that’s a little picture of what it’s like dealing with the corruption (is there another word for it?) here. It can be frustrating, but it’s a reminder that God is the only one who we can fully rely on.

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The Cop

Yesterday we broke our record for closest call with the law. About ten minutes before our service started, a police officer showed up. Well, when I say showed up, I mean he walked right into our auditorium while our musicians were practicing and the rest of us were putting out songbooks. By the time anyone noticed him, he was standing in the middle of the room asking who was in charge. Our song leader stopped the singing and asked nervously if there was a problem.

‘There’s a problem, alright!’ the officer shot back. Fantastic. The song leader came back and invited the officer to the back room to sit down. Before I went in to join them, I told my wife, ‘Well, that’s it. Guess we’re done.’ A couple of the other guys came to the back room, too, and we closed the door.

‘What is this place? Who’s in charge?’

The guys answered very carefully. ‘Like the sign says outside, we’re a consulting company. We’re about to have a class.’ Then the officer wanted to know if we had some kind of certification for our building – huge sigh of relief. It quickly became clear that he was not there because of our church, but because of our business. So he snooped around for a little while – and apparently he could care less about shelves of books about Christianity and stacks of Bibles. Then he left, telling us what we needed to do to get legit.

Meanwhile, a couple miles away, one of our members was riding the bus on the way to church. Suddenly, the bus’ engine quit, and the driver pulled over to the side of the road. While the driver checked the engine, this student (who is a studying for her doctorate in nuclear physics) realized she might be late to church and thought about some of the problems we’ve had lately. So she guessed that maybe she ought to pray for our church’s safety. A couple minutes later, the driver declared there was nothing wrong with the engine and started it back up. Really blew this girl’s mind when she got to church a couple minutes after the officer left and heard the story.

I think one of the most foolish things that we do as believers is to mistake answers to prayer for coincidence. Seriously – that officer was leaving, and something in my head said, ‘Well, there you go, wasn’t any danger after all; he was just here about the business.’ Unbelievable. A police officer walked into our illegal church ten minutes before service, while a dozen students were practicing for the song service and were putting out Bibles and songbooks – and nothing happened. If that’s not protection, then what is? And here I am ready to chalk up a victory for randomness.

Why does God bring us so close to danger? Seems to be a nasty habit of his, doesn’t it? Doesn’t do a miracle until Daniel is in the lions’ den. Doesn’t open the Red Sea until the Egyptians are hot on the trail. Doesn’t even heal Lazarus until he’s dead! It’s probably partly to do with God’s bringing us to trust him more fully. That more of the iceberg of our fear would melt into the warm waters of security in God. Honestly, that officer showing up really shook me up. It affected the rest of the service. It’s easy to feel like you’re a brave person until you’re up close to the fearsome. Skydiving is scariest when you’re in the airplane with the door open. Walking on water is scariest when the waves are hitting your feet.

So, thanks so much to all of you who join us in your prayers! Please don’t stop!

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Profitable Participation In Organizations

Saturday, after our last church service, I rushed out to the nearest university to an assembly of about 500 freshmen. I spoke to them for about 20 minutes about college life, learning English, and participation in an organization. This is an amazing tool that God has blessed us with in our city – great relationships with several influential campus organizations. Several leaders are faithful members of our church. And to be honest, we put a lot of time and effort into making these organizations more successful. I think we’ve had to learn the hard way about the right and wrong approaches to utilizing these opportunities.

- We’ve got to have a plan for introducing people to the church. Otherwise it just won’t happen. There was a period of couple months that we were going to English corners without any real effect. There’s nothing magical about English corners or any other association or club that you can join. There has to be an idea about how a person could find out about church and come if they were interested. For us, English corners are one of our primary means of meeting new people. We don’t go to English corners looking for church visitors, we go looking for friends. Then when we’re hanging out later, as friends do, we tell them about the church. These days, we have several members from our church at any event we go to – the goal for them is always the same: meet some people, get some phone numbers.

- We’ve got to contribute real value to their organization. Otherwise you’re just using people. It is contradictory to the Gospel message itself to participate in any community simply to get. The Gospel makes us genuine givers. Contributing value is also necessary for a long term relationship. We’ve learned (the hard way) not to strip-mine an organization. We really try now, though, to make these organizations better. Last week, when things blew up with that teacher from the nearby university, the first demand she had was that we stop going to English corners. The leader of the organization told the teacher, ‘If they don’t come, the English corner is finished.’ That was a big compliment – plenty of English organizations are completely foreigner-free. Most of these campus organizations are pretty weak and aimless – they really respond well to investment and direction. Which creates a thankful audience that’s willing to listen to what you have to say.

- We’ve got to keep freedom in our schedules. And here’s the pitfall that keeps many people out of these relationships completely. They can be an endless draw on your time. If you want to be involved, you have to learn to say ‘no’ when you have to. For us, because this is our primary means of making new friends, we can allot a big chunk of time to it. For example, this week, I spent about 5 hours at different organizations’ meetings. When we can’t agree to something, though, it’s helpful to give a consolation. I had a meeting last Thursday with three leaders of a campus organization that wanted help for their weekly meetings. Had to turn them down. But we offered to come out and help them once a month. They were excited enough about that.

Anyway, the point is, while many people have ideas about impacting a campus, they rarely materialize. I would venture a guess that a lot of these efforts fail at a very fundamental stage – meeting people. Universities can feel like impenetrable fortresses at times. Getting involved in some good organizations can be a productive way to overcome this most basic obstacle.

And last of all, thanks to all who prayed for us these two weeks. We had another great day of services yesterday with two students professing faith in Christ! Praise the Lord – when we are most worried about protection, he often goes beyond and blesses!

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Investigation Of Invasion

Well, run your mouth about boldness and you just might end up in a scary situation! Last week a teacher at a nearby university decided to begin an ‘investigation’ of our church. She has several students in her classes that come to our services and a few that have become Christians. When she found out that we go to English corners to make friends, she was fed up. She told some of our members that this is a ‘cultural invasion’ and that an investigation was underway. She also said that she was going to come to our services and try to get the students from her university to ‘go back with her.’

So, come Sunday, we were very nervous. To clarify, a teacher coming is no big deal (we’ve had other teachers attend regularly in the past). The problem is anyone attending who has a reason to be angry at us! Because any one person has the power to do some major damage – it’s as simple as calling the police. It doesn’t matter if this teacher comes, harasses us, curses us, argues with us, or beats us – the only thing that could really get us into trouble would be to call the police. That could end us up out of the country.

Praise the Lord, she didn’t come last Sunday. I think if she doesn’t come this weekend, the coast should be clear for now. Please help us in praying for this situation – a teacher coming doesn’t sound like a scary thing, but someone with a motivation to call the police is. Last week there were many of our friends and family all over the world in prayer for us – the students were pretty amazed when they found out the teacher was not coming – it was a great lesson for them in the power of prayer! Here’s a couple other things of note about these kinds of situations:

1. The big question is what to change: Do we change location or time? Do we not let some people in? We didn’t do anything differently in the end (not because we felt that was the only right choice, though), and we had a fantastic service that night. This question requires weighing options, most especially in prayer. As we could see no end in sight for a change (why wouldn’t she just come back the next week?), we decided that this was a time for boldness via normal-ness.

2. It’s always about the ‘cultural invasion’: Take the foreigners out of the equation and you don’t have much of a problem. People assume that we’re using some kind of bait to get people to come and then brainwash them. In response to these feelings, it’s important that you really do purge the church of any kind of bait-and-switch tactics, and also that you get national leadership in place as soon as possible. Thankfully, if the teacher had come last week, she would have heard a Chinese guy preach. And if she comes this week, she’ll hear another Chinese guy preach. It’s been planned for a long time, but this really is the best time for this kind of an ‘investigation.’

3. We have to teach members to respond: What this situation really needs to make it explosive is some undiscerning reactions on the part of our members. I talked to the guy who was going to preach that night about what to do if verbally harassed while he was speaking. We added an announcement explaining that we were a church meeting to worship and study the Bible. We encouraged students from the other locations to come out and support this one. And most importantly, we encouraged them to pray. Some of the students who were most nervous about the teacher coming came to service on Sunday, anyway. That was really encouraging.

4. People in danger want a scapegoat: They want to know whose fault this is. Many of them have set their sights on a particular guy who they think is the culprit. And they hardly welcomed him when he came into church on Sunday. I don’t believe this is his fault, but he feels miserable all the same. Even if he is an enemy, we are to love him. It can be easy to pass the test of boldness and fail the test of charity. Our members need to understand that.

If the church here will have any kind of longevity at all, it will have to go through times of fear like this regularly. That’s mostly out of our control. We can only trust God’s purposes and seek to respond in obedience. Thanks for your prayers!

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Hands On Deck

Another busy weekend past! It was our first weekend with five services in four different parts of the city! We had our first Bible study at a new location near the most prominent university in our city – had about five or six students show up! Then on Saturday, we added a study in English – we have a handful of native English-speakers that come to Chinese services already, and they requested a study they could bring their English-speaking friends to. Of course, an English service tends to attract a lot of Chinese visitors, as well.

Probably the most exciting thing to me in the start of these new locations has been seeing our members getting involved at new levels. I encouraged them at our leaders meeting to commit themselves to an additional service that they would not normally go to, and go just to serve. It has been such a blessing seeing them respond!

For instance, the place up across the river is pretty far away – 50 minutes or so each way by bus. And every time we go up there, we have about a dozen members that go with us and help in meeting newcomers, getting things ready, cleaning up afterward, and generally making the service run well.

Another example is the only one of our members who’s from the big university I mentioned earlier where we’re starting the new place. She has worked hard inviting her friends and classmates to come to the Bible study. It’s great to see how the Lord is using her!

A couple people have gone way beyond the call of duty – there’s a few that heard me preach all five times this weekend! Not to mention leaders meeting and theology class in the middle of the week! I don’t know what’s wrong with some of these students, but I’m thankful for their faithfulness!

So, here’s some of the ways I think having a group of more established Christians helping you start a Bible study gives you momentum:

1. Added excitement: people walk into a room full of people who have been taught to anticipate worship, and you can feel the excitement. Without them, it would be considerably harder to speak to this crowd.

2. Extra workers: students have been great about doing whatever is necessary to make the services work. Which is absolutely essential now – five services would kill us if we had to do all the work ourselves.

3. More personal contacts: when everyone is new, it’s easy for some visitors to slip through the cracks. It’d be really terrible for someone to get far enough to come to our church, and then leave without meeting anyone.

4. Added prayer support: this is an area that we haven’t even come close to maximizing yet, but it’d be hard to over-estimate the value of multiple believers in a room petitioning the Lord on your behalf as you preach to a group of mostly unbelievers! That will be the theme of leaders meeting this week!

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New Bible Study Update

This has been an exciting weekend for our church. Yesterday we held our first Bible study in the far northern district of the city. There’s a university nearby, and we’ve spent the past few weeks running up there whenever we had a chance. But yesterday was our first real service. I think there were 21 students from that university, supplemented by a great group of about ten from our church. Praise the Lord for a good first week! The service went great – besides my preaching, which was worse than usual!

I seem to have forgotten already what it’s like to speak to a predominantly unbelieving group! It’s tougher than I remember! Preaching to an audience like that seems to have an extreme polarizing effect as well. You have people absolutely rejecting the message on one side, and people begging for more information on the other. This seems to be the kind of audience that Paul often preached to in the book of Acts. These audiences have high turnover rates – lots don’t come back. But those who are thrilled by the message also have a tendency to bring their friends. So it’s an exciting time – a time to lay the foundation for what we pray will be a long-term witness in this area of the city.

Something new (to us) that we’re trying in this location is to rent space from a business. This is an option that we hadn’t really considered before here, though it is often used by church plants in the States. Guess we kind of assumed that it would be impossible here (and it could still prove to be so!). Karaoke is a very big deal in China, and there are clubs all over the city. They rent you a room equipped with microphones, speakers, a projector and screen, etc. on an hourly rate. Since the karaoke club nearest the university doesn’t open ’til one in the afternoon, we made a deal with them to use their largest room at a discounted rate Sunday mornings before they open. Here’s the rundown so far…

Advantages:
1) The location is perfect – everyone knows the place, and it’s a minute from the campus
2) The price is low – much cheaper than renting out a house, thus highly reproducible
3) No neighbors – probably the most volatile factor in a house church’s safety
4) Great cover – it’s perfectly normal for a bunch of students to crowd into a karaoke club
5) Excellent set-up – the room is outfitted very comfortably and suitably, and there are more bathrooms available than any house would have

Disadvantages:
1) There’s no place to use throughout the week – but as we have other houses that we’ve rented already, this isn’t a big problem for us
2) A lot depends on the manager of the club – he could get us into some trouble if he wished, but this is true to a point of the incidental relationships involved in any rental agreement

So, lots to pray about concerning the future up north! I hope you’ll join us!

The Meaning of Boldness

I got an email the other day asking for a personal opinion on what it means to be bold in witnessing in China. Really important to think about. We all know to say that we should be bold in our witness for Christ no matter where we are, but what counts as bold and what doesn’t? Is it how close we come to getting arrested? Does it have a geographical element – where we dare to witness and where we don’t? Honestly, the question was one that I’d never put a great deal of thought into – so I tried to dwell on it some this week.

Thought a good place to start would be Acts. The word ‘bold’ and its fellows show up often, so it was worth a look. Here’s a couple notes from the resulting study and some personal conclusions.

1. Boldness is usually associated with proclamation ministry.
I jumped into Acts to find what boldness should be like specifically when it came to our witness, only to find almost every passage about boldness is a passage about our witness! There’s barely a distinction. The Bible doesn’t just talk about being bold as ‘doing what’s right even when it’s hard’ or ‘daring to be different,’ though those things are necessary. It associates Christian boldness most often with the ministry of verbally declaring the Gospel to others. It’s just not enough for us to live exemplary Christian lives among unbelievers in China – we are to be involved in the direct, open, verbal proclamation of the Gospel to unbelievers. We are not just to try to live in such a way that people ask us about our faith; we are to proactively preach it.

2. It is revealed as a work of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
This is especially evident in the opening chapters. A couple references put the ‘bold speaking’ immediately after filling with the Holy Spirit. Additionally, the disciples pray for boldness in chapter four. Worth a look to Ephesians, as well, where Paul asks for prayer that he would be given boldness in his preaching. This means that the apostles recognized that the boldness necessary to carry out their ministry could not just be conjured up. They needed God’s empowering. They didn’t just try really hard to do bold things or deliberately put themselves in dangerous situations. Rather, they prayed that their proclamation of the Gospel would be bold. So real boldness is given, not manufactured. Good news for those of us who aren’t naturally bold. This also means that genuine boldness is nothing to boast about – it’s a gift.

3. The word carries a connotation of ‘freely,’ ‘openly,’ and ‘frankly.’
And brass tacks… the word doesn’t just mean ‘brash courage.’ It’s used all through John’s Gospel and is usually translated ‘openly’ or ‘freely.’ In Acts, I think it only shows up once as ‘freely.’ But the connotation is there in every situation. Paul spoke the word of God boldly in front of Jews that would almost certainly not take it well – his message was not compromised. What he preached was the truth – clear, open, confident, bold. This has definite ramifications in our witnessing. Can we condone any missionary strategy that prescribes misleading others about our faith in Christ? That says you shouldn’t tell someone you’re a believer (even for a ‘trial period’ to find out if they’re a government spy)? Note again that the people that Paul is openly witnessing to are the ones anxious to put rocks in his skull.

4. Boldness does not produce a uniform response to persecution.
Boldness does not mean (to Paul anyway) ’stay put until you’re dead.’ There’s a couple times that Paul is said to be bold, then is threatened with serious danger, and he makes his escape while he can. You can find the apostles’ boldness before, after, and in the middle of episodes of persecution. Apparently, Paul saw living to preach another day as a valid strategy in missions. I think it’s interesting, though, that we don’t see anyone in Acts considering a non-bold witnessing approach. It’s consistently ‘bold-here-or-bold-elsewhere,’ never ‘bold-here-or-not-bold-here.’ He’s creative in his approach, but his approach is always the Gospel. So while boldness doesn’t determine every ministry choice (where to go, how long to stay, etc.), it does determine what we say about Christ to others.

In summary, I think what is most striking about these passages is that boldness is there to empower the disciples to do what they would do and to be what they would be if there was no persecution. It lets them ‘be real’ even when the surrounding circumstances demand that they bend. Paul’s testimony of faith is consistent wherever he may be. That might be a good working understanding of boldness in China: we share our faith in largely the same way that we do anywhere else. Sounds simple enough – but it’s astounding how many people spend their first months in China learning that that’s exactly what should never be done! Not saying this is easy – I catch myself sometimes not being as open about my faith in China as I might be in the States. But let’s be honest about the problem – what I need is boldness.

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Apologetic Adaptation

When witnessing in China, you find yourself crashing into the same roadblocks time and again. Tiring, but it’s not that different from anywhere else in the world. Critical work, then, for a missionary, is discovering what particular things are problematic for many in believing the Gospel. And learning how to answer them in an understandable way. Part of cultural adaptation is apologetic adaptation.

One example here in China is, I think, related closely to feelings of nationalism. Many Chinese people dismiss Christianity out of hand, saying something like, ‘You believe what you believe because you’re an American. But we’re Chinese. And we don’t really have that kind of faith in China. We’re Buddhist [or atheist - one pattern fits all, in this case].’ This kind of talk can be troublesome for an American to answer. While we don’t want to come across as the Great White Culture-Destroyer, we also know that Truth is hardly a respecter of international borders.

A guy from our church was sharing the Gospel with a (Communist party member) roommate of his. The roommate quickly came around to this attack. He said, ‘You shouldn’t believe that Western stuff. Don’t you know we Chinese people have our own ideas?’ To which, the guy from our church responded, rather brilliantly, ‘You mean like Marxism?’ Really a great point which has helped me many times since. Marx was a Westerner, but that doesn’t stop millions in China from believing in his teachings. Not to mention there are countless other things (technology, scientific discoveries, systems) from the West that have found their way into everyday life in China. It’s illogical to say you’ll take neckties and Windows from the West, but you reject Christianity strictly because it’s Western!

Furthermore, as we all know, there’s nothing particularly Western about Christianity! It’s roots are Middle-Eastern, and in its 2,000 year history, it has flourished on every continent. And, it’s great to remind them, there are tens of millions of Christians in China as well. So you’ve either got to accuse them all of being traitors to their Chinese identity (very arrogant indeed) or admit that being a Christian is a legitimate option for a Chinese person.

And finally, major world-views that China has previously adopted en masse (and even made distinctly Chinese) include the likes of Buddhism and atheism. It’s interesting that these can be perceived to be as Chinese as chopsticks, when they’re really imports. If someone wishes to point out that these things were adopted to fit Chinese culture, we can respond happily that the Christian faith wears many cultural clothes as well. There’s no faith in the world that has adopted to so many different cultures, staying just as true to its own integrity as to that of the culture it enters. I have even found it helpful to talk to people with this particular hang-up about some of the cultural differences between churches in China and those in other nations.

As with all apologetics, it doesn’t really work in an argument. But if a person has an honest objection to faith that they’re stuck on, sharing some of these ideas with them will often help them through it.

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Heaven Hybrids

Imagine there’s three guys in front of you. Each one of them is given a hundred bucks. Then they are told that after an hour, something’s going to happen with their money. The first guy is told that after an hour, whatever money he has left will be taken away, no matter how much or how little. But the second guy is told something different. He is told that for every dollar he gives to someone in need, he will, when the hour is up, receive a thousand in return. The third hears something different yet. He is told that if, after an hour, he lacks so much as a cent, he’ll be beaten severely. And… action!

What’s going to happen? Of course, these three are all going to behave quite differently. One will go on a spending spree, another will guard his money with his life, while another will spend an hour searching frantically for an opportunity for benevolence. Why the difference? Their understanding about the future changes how they live in the present.

And so does ours. While we know that death will inevitably come to us all, it is our varied perceptions of the life to come that cause us to act in the different ways we do in this present life. If, for example, you believe that death is life’s final curtain, then the most logical thing you can possibly do is to ‘eat, drink, and be merry.’ Over against that is our faith in Christ, which says that to be absent from this body is to be present with the Lord. There will be an eternity, to which this life and death itself serve as mere door and keeper.

Unfortunately, we (Christians and non-Christians alike) often find ourselves subscribing to some kind of bizarre hybrid of these two. I think that if someone was scrutinizing my life, trying to figure out what I believed about life after death, I think they would conclude that I believed in some kind of a Heaven (because I wasn’t on a spending spree or living in perpetual terror of death), but that I must have a very low opinion of this Heaven indeed (for I give it little thought and seem far more preoccupied with my various earthly treasures). Could they possibly guess that I agreed at all with the Bible’s depiction of the incomparable glory that will be Heaven?

We, the misers, the hoarders, the spenders, the wasters, and the indulgers – our lives express the warped view of heaven in our hearts. We either gaze into a mirror too dark, or we do not look into the mirror at all.

What does heaven mean for a missionary? It means that no earthly thing you or your family ever give up can really be loss. It is eternal glory disguised as temporal heartache. It means that fear of danger can crumble before apostolic boldness. Immortal souls can live in peril for the mortal. And it means that we are moving steadily towards eternal union with the One that we preach. It is love for him and anticipation of his presence that can make each day a joy.

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