Today was my last teaching day here in China, though I will meet individually with some church leaders in the next couple of days. I met with a group of twenty-one pastors and seminary students at the Thanksgiving Church for a six hour study of Philippians. If you are attentive to the walls in the background, you will see writing in English. The Thanksgiving Church shares space with the International Church made up of ex-patriots largely from Canada and the United States.
It was a delight to be with the pastors and students. Most of them were from here in Chengdu, though a young couple, Timothy and Kathryn, who are both seminary graduates and lead a church an hour from here, brought a group of five leaders by bus for the event. The people are attentive listeners and they asked probing and thoughtful questions.
Because of the smaller size of this group, we were able to move from the sanctuary to the Sunday School space and sit around tables seminar style. In many ways this was the best of the teaching spots. I missed my friend, David Sapp, and his group (they flew back this morning).
But we had more time allocated with this one group. At the mid-day break, we shared lunch at a local Western restaurant, The Red River Star. For many of the seminary students, it was their first experience with American food. Watching them try to eat with a fork, open their mouths wide enough to consume a club sandwich, and generally overcome their apprehension about this odd stuff foreigners eat was fun. I explained that they now know how we feel eating Sichuan food with chopsticks.
There is so much right in the church in China. I am eager to say more when I return. Until then, keep Hua Mei International, the churches in Chengdu, and Bill and Michele in your prayers.
grace and peace,
Steve
THURSDAY, APRIL 10
We spent the day today at the Mianyang Lay Training Center (MLTC). It is a beautiful oasis in a sea of despair. I took no pictures of the walk leading to the place, it showed no promise of what lay ahead. Once we were inside, we were greeted by a beautiful courtyard and the gracious hospitality of committed believers. Founded in 2002, the center is developing a three year program (currently there are only two years) to train lay leaders to lead preaching points. The school has forty-five students right now. Students come live and learn at the school for three months at a time, twice a year for two years. In China, a person must graduate from seminary (a three year Bible college accredited by the government) in order to serve as a pastor. In Sichuan, there are one hundred million people and only one hundred pastors. The leaders who come out of this school fill in the gap. For all practical purposes, they will serve as pastors. They will preach, teach, do pastoral care, and perform all the work necessary to lead a registered house preaching point. What they cannot do is baptize new believers or lead the Lord's Supper, those acts are reserved for ordained seminary trained pastors. Imagine that you felt led to start a South Main at Home group, but to do so you had to leave your family for six months in each of the coming two years. These lay leaders are remarkably dedicated; they, their families, and their churches make great sacrifices in order for them to come here.
The leader of the MLTC is the senior pastor for all of Mianyang, Pastor Tsao. He is a visionary leader and strategic thinker whose professional background is in construction. His attention to detail is reflected throughout the campus.
He is working to grow this training center into a recognized seminary capable of training senior pastors for the churches.
In addition to Pastor Tsao, one of Bill and Michele's colleagues at Hua Mei International, Kathryn, commutes once a month to teach music. Other pastors in the area each give a two days each month to come and teach the students. At the present time, graduates of the MLTC can go lead home preaching points under the supervision of a pastor or attend a three year seminary. Four of the students here now will attend the seminary in the fall. About ninety precent of the graduates of the school (roughly one hundred right now) are leading churches. The church here in Mianyang has grown to thirty preaching points and has plans to expand in the coming year.
David Sapp and I taught Philippians again here.
And again, I wish I could capture what it was like to walk across the courtyard and hear the students singing first, "Holy, Holy, Holy," and then, "Hallelujah, Thine the Glory," as we approached.
There is a hunger among them to learn well the Bible, to become effective communicators and leaders in their congregations.
Unfortunately, there is a significant lack of books in the library. The good news is that a generous gift will soon fill the shelves with the books they need for their study. There is also a lack of space for more students.
Fortunately, the land next door to the MLTC has very recently become available for purchase. If you look carefully at the picture, the blue awning/ tarp marks roughly the boundary between the present campus and the possibility of future growth.
Please pray for Pastor Tsao and the Mianyang Lay Training Center, pray that a door opens for the purchase of land, pray for the teachers who make great sacrifices to equip the next generation of leadership for the church, pray for the students who have taken on a significant burden to be here. This is a good place and they are doing essential work at the opportune moment.
Tomorrow we will travel back to Chengdu and then have some time to rest. On Saturday, I will teach a group of pastors and lay leaders in Chengdu. I'll write again Saturday night.
grace and peace,
Steve
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 9
This morning we visited the site that the churches in Bazhong have secured for a new City Church. The pastors in the area meet on this land each morning at 5:00 to pray for the church that will be built here. They will share in the work together once they are able to relocate to the new site. The new church will be in a more visible location, will offer better and safer conditions, and will allow believers who meet in different locations because of space constraints to worship together. We prayed with the pastors (albeit it at 9:00 am) and were on our way to Xia Liang ("Down River") and the "Down River Church."
This church was registered in 2006. South Main provided seed money to the congregation to purchase a place to meet. Last year, our team helped remove the remnants of the nightclub that formerly occupied the property. It was wonderful to see the congregation and their pastor, Dr. Wang, who is also a doctor of traditional Chinese medicine. He asked us to continue to pray for him and his congregation specifically as they battle against what he called "evil religions." This simple fellowship has their work cut out for them. We need to keep them in our prayers.
The rest of the day was dedicated to travel. It was roughly six driving hours from Bazhong to Mianyang, where we will be for the next two nights. Mianyang is the second largest city in Sichuan province, with a population of a little more than five million people. As opposed to the poverty in Bazhong (which is one of China's poorest counties), the city of Minyang is clean and prosperous. It is known as a technological center and has several major universities in town. More about Minyang tomorrow.
The drive to Minyang was through a spectacular mountain range. The road wound and twisted all the way; it was slow driving. I am overwhelmed by mountains. I grew up in Lubbock; if something was so tall as to obscure our vision, we gave it a name. Lubbock is on the Llano Estacado mesa, It is flat. Really flat. As a college student driving home from Waco to Lubbock, I drove onto the Llano Estacado just outside of Post, Texas. Lubbock was forty-five miles away, but at night, I could see it. There is nothing to obstruct the view. It is flat country that inspire names like, "Plain View," "Level Land," and "Brown Field." You can't make that stuff up. People are inspired to consider the vastness of creation and our smallness in West Texas; but no one worships the terrain. Driving through the mountains of Sichuan province gave me an appreciation for the birth of animism. The incredible beauty and overwhelming scale of the mountains easy inspires worship. It is not too far a step to worship the mountains themselves. Having begun down that path, it is much easier to worship other parts of the creation as well. As we drove, the psalmist filled my head (121),
"I lift up mine eyes to the hills.
From whence cometh my help?
My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.
He will not let your foot slip; He that keeps you will not slumber.
Indeed, He watching over Israel neither sleeps nor slumbers.
The Lord is your keeper; the shade at your right hand.
The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night.
The Lord shall keep you from all evil and preserve your soul.
The Lord shall preserve your coming and going henceforth and forevermore."
In the midst of some of the grandest beauty in creation, I spent considerable time today giving thanks to the Creator. For a world so filled with wonder and beauty; for a country so hungry for the Good News; for the opportunity to see and help; for friends like Bill and Michele who have given their lives to God and to these people; for a congregation that sent me and tends me. As they say in China, "sanks God and sanks you." amen.
Steve
TUESDAY, APRIL 8
We arrived in Bazhong last night. It was an eight hour drive to the north east from Chengdu. Driving in China is hours and hours of sheer boredom punctuated by moments of stark terror. The scenery is beautiful, but the stripes on the road are clearly used only as suggestions. Our prayer lives were strengthened every time we took a blind right turn. Bazhong is considered a small town in China. (I finally realized that driving in China is similar to driving through East Texas. In East Texas about every twenty miles there is a town of a few thousand people; in China, every twenty miles there is a town of a several hundred thousand people. It is hard to fathom the population of this country.)
Along the way here, we stopped in Nanchong to see the city church and meet pastor Wang. He has a strategic vision for his community. His church, which includes over 1000 people in worship each week, purchased land in the center of a massive development of new apartments. (Almost everywhere in China seems to be a massive development of new apartments.) The church built the sanctuary and an education building with dormitory space to house and train church leaders. Following a common Chinese model, the church only builds what it has funds on hand to build. As you can see, the church included a place in the floor of the sanctuary platform to include a baptistry, but does not presently have the funds to complete it. One of the many needs among the thriving churches in China.
This morning I took a walk to the town park, a concrete bridge above the freeway through town. There were groups of people hitting a shuttlecock to one another, others were doing Tai Chi.
After breakfast, we went to the city church here in Bazhong. It is clearly different from Nanchong. The church here in Bazhong is behind a street filled with shops. To get to this church, you walk up a cobblestone alley, then turn onto a dirt path, up three flights of stairs, then through a concrete courtyard. The church is not in hiding, but you might argue it is hidden. As we were walking up the hill, our ears were met by the gentle singing of the congregation. I wish I had some way to record that moment more fully, it was deeply moving to hear their songs and know they were waiting for us to come and share the word with them.
Fifty four leaders from the local churches came for the day. Almost all of them are farmers, so getting time off from work was not a problem for them. David Sapp (the pastor at Second-Ponce de Leon) and I tagged-teamed our way through Philippians. Our translator, Jennifer, did an incredible job of making sense of my twang and his drawl. Teaching Philippians in China caused several passages to leap from the page for me. I hope I always remember this day when I read (1:6), "he who began a good work in you will be faithful to bring it to completion on the day of Christ Jesus," or (1:21), "for me, to live is Christ and to die is gain," or (4:19), "my God will supply all your needs through His glorious riches in Christ Jesus." The Second-Ponce team also presented a workshop on how to begin Sunday School/ small group discipleship in a church. I was again profoundly grateful to have grown up, not only in a country that cherishes religious freedom, but in a church that called every member to discover God's word in a small group.
Please pray for the people of Nanchong and Bazhong. They are eagerly embracing and opening sharing the Gospel of Jesus. Elder Zhang is the senior leader of the Christians community throughout Bazhong. He did not attend seminary because it was illegal to do so when he began his ministry. Through his determined leadership, over twenty churches have been planted in this area and over half a dozen young leaders have attended seminary and are now leading congregations here in China. It is tremendously exciting to see what God has begun here, to hear what God is doing among these people, and to know that, "He who began this good work will be faithful to bring it to completion on the day of Christ Jesus."
grace and peace,
Steve
SUNDAY, APRIL 6
It is Sunday night, April 6th. I have been in China for three days now. A group from Second-Ponce de Leon Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia is here as well. I have known their pastor, David Sapp for about as long as I have been at South Main – five years.
Yesterday, their group led a conference on graded Sunday School for babies through adults. They offered practical advise and shared from their decades of experience. There were people from several local congregations to hear them. Imagine for a moment what it would be like to begin a church in a country entirely cut off from its religious roots, with neither a free press nor full access to the internet. Imagine asking for the first time: how can we help new believers grow in their faith? How should we divide these believers? How many leaders do you need for each baby? each toddler? each child? What do you do when a group becomes too large? The church in China is wrestling with all these questions. I am more thankful than ever for the blessing of growing up in a Christian home and a thoughtful church. I am amazed by the excitement among Chinese Christians about their faith. (more to follow on that)
This afternoon we went to the Thanksgiving Church which Bill and Michele helped plant last fall. The church is on the third floor of a mall here in Chengdu. When you arrive at the church's location, if you turn right you enter what looks like a restaurant, turn left and you are in church. Make a choice to feed body or soul. The church shares very nice space with another congregation that meets in the morning. They have about forty or fifty active disciples and there seem to be new people each week. Sunday School precede worship. Bill teaches the English class. The lesson today was on Pentecost (Acts 2). Last week he taught about the ascension in Acts 1. (Peter Almond will be teaching these same texts this week and next in the Wednesday Bible Study. You really ought to come; he is a wonderful teacher and the parallel to the mission here will help guide your prayers for the Christians in China.) It was a powerful lesson. We read through the chapter in English and then Chinese a few verses at a time (well, we read in English and they echoed in Chinese.) We talked about the wonderful power of the Holy Spirit that gave birth to the church. I heard with renewed conviction Luke's description of that day (Acts 1:21, 38-39), "everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. . . . Peter replied, 'Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.' " We sat among people who live in a place as different from Houston, Texas as it can be. And yet we were brothers and sisters. Divided by language and culture and united by something greater, the truth of the resurrection of Christ Jesus and the good news he offers. A member of the Atlanta church shared his testimony. He focused on the way God's spirit moved him and prepared him in ways which he could only see through hindsight. Then one of our Chinese friends, Lisa, shared her testimony. Lisa was baptized on Easter of this year. Her joy in Christ literally pours out. She told us that no one in her family knows Christ, that she came to Chengdu for her education and was led by God into friendship with Bill and Michele. She spoke of how truly different they are from other people she knows – there is a peace and joy in them that she wanted. Over the span of several years, she came to know Christ personally. And it rang again, "all those who are far off." It was a holy moment.
After Sunday School we went to worship. The church is fortunate to have a vibrant couple, Charles and Mary, who serve as co-pastors. They are both graduates of the seminary here in China. They alternate the preaching role. Mary preached today from Psalm 73. I have no idea what she said, but I could watch the power her words had on the congregation. With quiet dignity, she shared the grace of God that transcends the injustice of the world. At various times during the worship, she would refer to a text and everyone would look it up and we recited it out loud together – we in English and they in Mandarin. The word was made breath among us, loosed in the mall. I can only say God was among us as we read His word and worshipped together. I will not soon forget the experience.
Tomorrow, we head off for two communities North East of here. I am not sure that I will have email access in either, so my next post may not be until Friday. During the week, Dr. Sapp and I will be teaching Philippians together. Next Saturday, his group will leave early in the morning and I will have an all-day seminar with the pastors here in Chengdu.
Please pray for the Thanksgiving church and her faithful leaders. Pray for the pastors with whom we will work this week. Pray especially for my translator, Jennifer. You know the task she has. I miss Houston, and I am glad God has me here this week through your agency. Until I can write again,
Missions Blog - China
The leader of the MLTC is the senior pastor for all of Mianyang, Pastor Tsao. He is a visionary leader and strategic thinker whose professional background is in construction. His attention to detail is reflected throughout the campus.
He is working to grow this training center into a recognized seminary capable of training senior pastors for the churches.
Fortunately, the land next door to the MLTC has very recently become available for purchase. If you look carefully at the picture, the blue awning/ tarp marks roughly the boundary between the present campus and the possibility of future growth. 
Tomorrow we will travel back to Chengdu and then have some time to rest. On Saturday, I will teach a group of pastors and lay leaders in Chengdu. I'll write again Saturday night.
This morning we visited the site that the churches in Bazhong have secured for a new City Church. The pastors in the area meet on this land each morning at 5:00 to pray for the church that will be built here. They will share in the work together once they are able to relocate to the new site. The new church will be in a more visible location, will offer better and safer conditions, and will allow believers who meet in different locations because of space constraints to worship together. We prayed with the pastors (albeit it at 9:00 am) and were on our way to Xia Liang ("Down River") and the "Down River Church." 
"I lift up mine eyes to the hills. 
After breakfast, we went to the city church here in Bazhong. It is clearly different from Nanchong. The church here in Bazhong is behind a street filled with shops. To get to this church, you walk up a cobblestone alley, then turn onto a dirt path, up three flights of stairs, then through a concrete courtyard. The church is not in hiding, but you might argue it is hidden. As we were walking up the hill, our ears were met by the gentle singing of the congregation. I wish I had some way to record that moment more fully, it was deeply moving to hear their songs and know they were waiting for us to come and share the word with them. 
This afternoon we went to the Thanksgiving Church which Bill and Michele helped plant last fall. The church is on the third floor of a mall here in Chengdu. When you arrive at the church's location, if you turn right you enter what looks like a restaurant, turn left and you are in church. Make a choice to feed body or soul. The church shares very nice space with another congregation that meets in the morning. They have about forty or fifty active disciples and there seem to be new people each week. Sunday School precede worship. Bill teaches the English class. The lesson today was on Pentecost (Acts 2). Last week he taught about the ascension in Acts 1. (Peter Almond will be teaching these same texts this week and next in the Wednesday Bible Study. You really ought to come; he is a wonderful teacher and the parallel to the mission here will help guide your prayers for the Christians in China.) It was a powerful lesson. We read through the chapter in English and then Chinese a few verses at a time (well, we read in English and they echoed in Chinese.) We talked about the wonderful power of the Holy Spirit that gave birth to the church. I heard with renewed conviction Luke's description of that day (Acts 1:21, 38-39), 