My first 5 years Christian life was in an underground church of Beijing. The so called "underground churches" are those churches that are not willing to put themselves under the management of Chinese government. Practically and theologically, they believe that having any kind of relationship with government is not wise or right. They don't go to religious department of the local government to register. They also teach that public church is unclean and misled on the way of truth because they receive government management. They emphasise discipleship training and evangelizm. Citizenship and ethical life in society are not their focus. Salvation is their focus. They train believers to do overseas ministry, like to go to Arab area, as well as train believers to do minority people's ministries. They have wonderful work among university students. Nowadays, underground churches grow very fast and become very strong, they begin to seriously consider about their identity in Chinese society. Some of the leaders do not refuse registration any more, but Chinese government hasn't said yes to their registration applications. More than 90% support of western ministry organizations, persons and churches to Chinese churches go to the Chinese underground church. So they have more spiritual books which public church believers may never see in all their Christian life. Underground church believers have many kinds of Bible printing versions that public church believers never see, because missionaries are told that China has no Bible or not allowed to print Bible, so they carry many Bibles to China risking with their lives. Underground churches receive all kinds of teaching from overseas missionaries, while public church believers usually are taught only by their own Chinese ordained teachers and pastors. In the eyes of most western Christians, only underground church is pure, spiritual and faithful.
Chinese public church is stricter organized. Church leaders are all in the organization of different levels of Christian Councils. Provincial Christian Council will decide who can be ordained, and who need to be disciplined. Christian Councils finance receives auditing once a year, while church's finance is required to be opened. Public churches receive management from religious department of local government in the area of the law, not in the area of belief content.
I worked in Beijing for more than 5 years, 2 years was in the general office of an American international company. That was a Christian company. They not only did business, but also did so called "heavenly business". One day I was secretly called by a policeman from Beijing Police Bureau asking me about the personnel of this company. Then I knew they had noticed this company's illegal affairs. One week later, I told my boss that the policeman found me to check the company. "Gloria, are you a spy from the beginning you came to my company?" This was the question hovering in the mind of the boss from then on. By the end, of course soon I left the company. Since I had several sisters and brothers of underground church in that company, they suggested that I couldn't go to any underground church in Beijing, for I might have policeman tails.
From bottom of my heart, I took their suggestion. Not only I didn't go to any underground church later, but also I destroyed everything that might help police find my sisters and brothers in the underground churches. I tore my address book into pieces. The next Sunday, I had nowhere to go but I had to worship my God, so I went to a public church in Beijing. I heard the pastor pray for all underground church brothers and sisters. I took this as a sign that God hugged me in this church. Later on, I joined the youth choir of this church. Gradually I grow up in the public church system: serving in the church, going to study in seminaries, coming back to serve in local church, teaching in seminary. I was ordained as pastor on Dec. 23, 2007, eight years after I stepped into public church.
7 comments:
Gloria,
As a Christian I pray for my brothers and sisters in Christ around the world.
The parable of the Good Samaritan teaches us that everyone is a neighbor.
"The robbers hurt the man by violence, the Priest and Levite, by neglect. All three are guilty. "To the one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, to him it is sin," (James 4:17).
Jesus was like the Samaritan. He was willing to touch the unclean. He was willing to go to the lost, the outcast, and the needy. And, like the Samaritan, Jesus was an outcast in the eyes of the Lawyers, Priests, Scribes, Pharisees, and Saducees.
Whether one lives in China, Japan, Europe or North America we are all children of Christ.
While loyalty to our nations is good, our loyalty to the Lord goes beyond national pride and identity.
We are made in the image and likeness of the Lord. That means all groups, all ethnicities are Christ children.
What is practicing and preaching like in a public church? Is there any talk or mention of all humankind being one family under God?
I enjoy your writing, and pray for you.
David
Strong story!
Hope you are all well.
Greetings from Norway.
Trond
Gloria; May The Lord Jesus Christ forever enable you to always maintain a pure (Matthew 5:8) heart. If ever anyone ever comes against you with any kind of weapon, then may Isaiah 54:17 come out your mouth with all boldness as a sharp two edged sword to chase your adversary and render them helples. May you win many souls to Christ (Proverbs 11:30). May 1st timothy 6:6 be your prosperity. May all agencies of your government realize and embrace Psalms 33:12 thru 22., Something that tragically it appears that Americas governing officials have aparantly forgotten - Psalms 9:17. Pray for our nation to repent and turn back to Christ. We Love & pray for you & your family - Jim & Kay Partridge (U S A).
Strong story!
Hope you are all well.
Greetings from usa.
“My Father is at work until now, so I am at work”
(John 5:17)
“I bless you my children! Today I wish to speak to you about God’s work in these times and about the general picture in which your life and your mission is inserted.
“Try to understand, above all, that you did not happen to be in the reality in which you are by accident, but you are here because of a precise divine project. Whatever you might think about yourselves or others might think about you, know that your life is precious and irreplaceable in the time and place in which you find yourselves to be, according to God’s projects. You have been preordained for this reality, and for this reason God gave you irreplaceable and original potentialities. No one in the universe is equal to you, because God’s creativity is unlimited and inexhaustable, and because each one of you is absolutely unique in his being and in his way of acting.
“Unfortunatly, many on Earth live below their potentiality, because they do not make of themselves a gift to Me. I am the only One to know pefectly the Father’s project for each one of you, because from Him I received the order to bring to completion His work in every person. I am acting in you by the power of the Holy Spirit, who enlightens you, cloaks you, constantly inspires you pointing out the avenue towards Me, so that I might reveal to you the Will of the Father for each one of you.
Without me you shall never truly be able to know yourselves, nor to be able to understand what is asked of you to do in this life.
“The Holy Spirit and I are constantely at work in order to realize the Father’s project in each one of you, but we can do this only with the help of your freedom, that is, only when you willingly and freely choose to love and serve God and you offer to Him your life. This is the indispensable condition so that your potentialities activate and are at work. In fact, by the moment you decide to live for God and to be totally abandoned to His will, within you the action of the Holy Trinity starts working, and little by little, transforms your life and your thoughts. Thus, you are beginning to become conscious of who you are in God and to make a mark on reality, a creative mark, because it is divine creativity working in you. I wish you to be conscious about what I am saying to you, because the knowledge that God is active in you, independently from your human limitations and frailties, is determinant for your mission in the time in which you live.
“Yours is a grand time and a difficult time for the entire universe. Grandiose for the power of the events that the hand of God is preparing, and difficult because it is a time of battle with the powers of evil, an always more open battle.
All this does not refer to the planet earth alone, but to the entire creation and all the people who inhabit many other planets. I have already told you that they are children of God as you are, and that I gave My life for them as well. They are your brothers in whom the project of My Father has to be perfectly accomplished, just as it is in yours.
“What is the project of the Father? To bring back the entire creation to the state of integrity and perfection it had before original sin; to bring back every person to the dignity and glory of a child of God. All men and every creature that exists in the universe must be made free from corruption and death which infiltrated themselves in the work of God because of the sin of your forefathers. Humanity must return to a correct relationship with God, by recognizing His authority and by submitting to His guide. How is the Father going to realize this project? By recapitulating all creation in Me, since He gave Me all power in the whole universe.
http://towardsthenewcreation.com/
“This is why I am at work in this time, so that all those who will come to Me might be brought to a new and filial relationship with the Father.These people will be instructed interiorly by Me, to be ready to understand and to live the events awaiting humanity. When My work will be accomplished in each one and in the entire universe, I will return in My glory and I will introduce all those who belong to Me, in the new incorrupt and incorruptible creation. This will be the new and most pure dimension of the spirit, in which redeemed humanity will live; it will be the kingdom of heaven that at the end of times I will give to My Father, but a kingdom that even now belongs to those who live for Me and in Me.
“On the contrary, those who will remain outside Me, because they will not have accepted Me nor recognized Me as Son of God and Savior, they will not enter the new creation.
“I came on Earth in order to bring the beginning of a new time, a definite and decisive time for the humanity of the whole universe. After My death and resurrection a progressive journey towards the new creation had begun. With My passion, I fufilled in front of My Father what His justice required, washing the sins of the forefathers with My Blood and erasing your heavy debt. This way I opened the avenue to every single person of good will who wants to accept Me and follow Me. If you offer yourselves to Me, I will lead you perfectly according to the plans of God, to introduce you, some day, in the kingdom of heaven. However, the walking is up to you. Don’t think that I also do your part! I am near you and I sustain you but I do not walk for you. Christians often depend on Me, thinking I already did everything, so they don’t have to do anything anymore. They feel satisfied by participating in some religious rite, and they think they are fine. No, children, this attitude is very wrong. I redeemed you, this is true, but if you remain lifeless and passive, without taking upon yourselves the responsibility expected of you, as spiritually mature people should do, how is Redemption going to bring any fruit in you? What will distinguish you from those who do not believe? My life and My work must become incarnated in each one of you, so that you might be able to make My Sacrifice efficacious, alive and visible, for your benefit and that of others. It is not sufficient to believe in Redemption, one must fully enter It, taking up your cross and following Me.
“If this is true at the level of a single person, much more is it true when referring to the entire humanity. The entire humanity will have to know Me, accept Me, and follow Me if it wants to be taken back to the Father and led into the kingdon of heaven.
Bringing back the entire creation to the Father is up to Me only, therefore everything has to pass through Me.
“Which is your duty then during these times? It is that of firmly believeing in Me and offering Me your very selves, so that I can unite you to Me in order to take you back to the Father. This is the meaning of being recapitulated in Me. This way you will be part of My Mystical Body which is the most powerful force working in the universe. Part of the Mystical Body are My Mother, the angels, the Saints, and all those, living and dead, who believed and still believe in My work, because they love the Father and recognize Me as Son of God and Redeemer of the whole humanity.In this way you will become partakers of My actions and of the Father’s; you will be part of God’s army, that in these times is powerfully at work. This is why it is absolutely necessary that you decide to live for God, renewing yourselves interiorly and detaching from your selfesheness and egoism. I expect from each of you a serious and unequivocal decision. Such a decision is not postponable anymore; this is valid for each individual and for the entire humanity.
CONTINUE ---> http://towardsthenewcreation.com/
---> “I will act in purgatory so that the greatest possible number of souls may enter in the beatitude of heaven, thus participating in My work with their prayer. Purgatory will be shaken and the souls will definitely place themselves on the road towards heaven.
Generations and generations are in purgatory: they will be awakened and will drag also the living with the power of their faith.
“A very powerful time has started, where the signs from heaven will be more and more evident, if you will be able to read them. Lucifer’s anger will grow stronger and will hurl itself against everything and everybody, but it will not be able to hurt those who belong to Me.
“You will also see nature restless, because nature reacts to the solicitations of good and evil, with a sensitity often stronger than yours. Nature will be hit heavily by the forces of evil, forces who will try to damage humanity, but nature will not be destroyed. Nature also will be recapitulated in Me in order to be renewed and transformed. Therefore, do not be afraid, My children, when facing the natural events that will follow one another. Hold on tightly to Me and you will have nothing to fear.
“I am stopping here for now; later I will talk to you about other matters so you can be prepared for what is about to happen. The Father never asks man to adhere to what he cannot understand; first He gives him light, then He asks him to decide, because God is fair with you. The Father sent Me among you to enlighten your road toward God and place you in the condition to be able to walk. Now it is up to you to decide.
“I am asking you to pray a lot and to seriously decide for God. I am asking you again to donate your life to Me, so that I can protect you and prepare you for the events that are awating you. It is not about catastrophes, like the most apprehensive ones fear, but it is a matter of tests necessary for the purification of humanity, in view of the beautiful and incorrupt new creation awaiting you. The Father prepared it for those who love Him, and I am calling you to be part of it. The Father is at work unceasingly and I am at work as well; therefore, your eyes will see great things. If you have faith you will be able to read them in the right light. They will appear to you for what they truly are: the marvels of God’s love for His people.
“I am blessing you in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit”.
In the book “Beyond the great barrier” at Chp. 6, I spoke about the humanities of other planets, and of the choices made by each humanity. As a matter of fact, not all men have committed the original sin. There exist some humanities that kept themselves faithful to God, thus preserving spiritual and physical prerogatives much superior to ours.
For other messages:--- http://towardsthenewcreation.com/ ---
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God Bless you
Angelo
http://www.versolanuovacreazione.it/
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