Church

In China I never got to go to church except for a couple of Sundays that were Chinese Holidays. Rob and the boys went to an English language church though...1.25 hours each way via walking/metro. One time I was so lonely for church that I went to the one Chinese protestant church in our city. I didn't speak one word to one person the whole hour and half....nor did anyone speak to me. But I cried for a good 30 minutes at the joy of worshiping with other believers.

I will never forget that experience.  To this day, I am not sure if I was supposed to be there, since it was a registered church and the laws about that stuff are pretty sticky.  But it was the only other protestant church I knew of and it had a service in the evening after I got off work on Sunday.  So I took a taxi and my face hurt from smiling by the time I got there because I could see the steeple of the church from a ways off.  I was SO excited to go to church.  I was about 30 minutes early so I took my time walking from the taxi up to the steps.  On my way there were shaded picnic tables where people had started gathering reading, studying, and praying together.  My joy was overflowing.  After months of working with people who had never heard the name of Jesus and months of feeling like I was the only one in this part of the city that knew there was more to life….

I found my way in and found that while there was still a good 20 minutes before the service began, people were coming.  Sitting, kneeling, reading, and praying.  A couple hundred at least.  And they kept coming.  By the time the music was into its second song, I started counting rows and seats and estimating people and gave up after my estimate reached 1,000.  One thousand Chinese people who knew the name of Jesus Christ and came to worship Him on a Sunday night.  That number pales in the light of knowing that to my knowledge it is one of only TWO Christian churches (one Protestant, one Catholic) available to the Chinese population in a city of 14,000,000.  And yet, that number IS significant.  Those people are far more than what the Christian church started with in its infancy and those men, women, and children have an opportunity to reap a harvest like you and I have never dreamed of dreaming.  I was in awe.  And as I began to realize the spiritual landscape in front of me I began to cry.  Realizing that my own pitiful complaints about this people and their culture were battles of my own making blinding me to a people who needed Jesus Christ and that the enormity of what stood before these people deserved my deepest respect and most earnest prayer.  And so I prayed.  With tears in my eyes and joy in my heart for the first time in a long time I prayed not for myself but for the people around me.

That was the first, last, and only time I entered that church-but the impression it left on my heart was an eternal one.  I will never again walk into my American church the same.  I would never enter my Enlglish language Chinese church the same.  And after my year in China, I find that church in America is easy.  Too easy.  It is difficult for me to reconcile the effort put forth to get to church and fellowship with believers in China, the effort put forth to bring the name of Jesus to a world in need-to the ease of hopping in my car  walking into a church and effortlessly doing my Sunday thing.  I can’t help but feel that it should NOT be this easy. I’m not saying that it shouldn’t, I just wonder.  Does what I am doing here constitute giving Him my all?  Am I living boldly enough?  Am I sacrificing enough for the sake of the gospel?  Am passionate enough about taking what happens on Sunday morning into the world around me?  Am I remembering and praying for my brothers and sisters in Christ who risk everything?  Do I remember what is at stake?  Will I slide into the easy life again or live my life so that every last drop is spent on what it most dear to my heart?  I don’t know…I just don’t know.