What I Learned: Refuge from Our Fears
These words are a compassionate gift, written by saints who find refuge in Christ amidst great suffering. Their words challenged me as a pastor, and pulled me further away from my fears. I hope that we would come to see even suffering as a great invitation. Although none of us may ever sit down with Gabriel and Bao En, we can hear them say: “Come, let us together find refuge in Christ.’“
To See the Gospel Advancing: Gospel-Centered Legal Practice
When we talk about the law in church today, we do this to return to the gospel… When you treat something as higher than the gospel and use it to judge everything, it will create problems. We must return to the gospel. But how do we testify to the gospel when we are in the process of defending our rights?
We Cannot Stay in the Ivory Tower: Gospel-Centered Legal Practice
As Christians, we are to have knowledge, but we do not stop there. We are to be honest, but we are also to have the wisdom to discern and respond. We need to be equipped with information, and also to manifest these things in a clearly defined life of faith occurring amid specific historical events.
Boundaries and Filial Piety
The Bible clearly teaches, “a man shall leave his father and mother, and they shall become one flesh.” My wife and I are different from my parents. We try to respect and care for them to the best of our abilities, but I struggle determining the boundaries.
We Will Follow
This rope of love has a beginning and end, and for Li, the rope passed through the valley of the shadow of death of Jiabiangou [a labor camp]. What is left in our lives is not a chronicle of suffering, but rather a journey of grace. It should also be our vow when faced with suffering: we will follow the loving and faithful Savior into the depths of the waters. This is a journey of perseverance and of grace.
The Worst News Becomes the Best: Dangerous Mission
The Bible tells those of us who are now alive that we must be crucified. Yet the gospel becomes comfort to those who are hopeless in this world and those who are prepared to die. God says, “Let those who are hopeless in this life, live.” This is the dangerous gospel I bring to each of you.
How Christians Ought to Face the New Media Era
Whether or not you like it, every Christian who has something to say to the world ought to hold him or herself to the standards of an evangelist. If you go online, you must be a “missional Internet user.” If you talk about the gospel, you must be a committed and discipled Christian. If you start a Weibo account which you use to post daily sermons, then you ought to consider applying for a seminary certificate program.
The Riches of Missional Church Partnership
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.
Continuing to Plant Makes the Church Healthy
Hopefully we will keep on planting churches over the next three to five years. My long-term vision is that in ten years, the city of Shanghai will have a church planting center to help people plant churches. At least we can be a model and continue planting churches. I am against the mindset that a church needs to be healthy enough to plant. I think planting churches is the biblical way. In Scripture, there is no church that is healthy enough to plant another. Instead, continuing to plant churches makes the church healthy.
Driven by the Gospel Instead of Fear
Last weekend, Sunday was a work day. Next door to a church is a law firm, which would be working during the service. Our church wants to be a good neighbor, and not be too loud to affect their work. I also had fears about whether they would report us. I needed God’s wisdom. Our church changed locations last weekend; we moved, in the same building, to the company of a church member to hold the service. Every day I have to make these kinds of choices. Every decision needs to be driven by the gospel, instead of by fear, even if the result seems the same.
When our church was small, when there were only twenty people, I had fears about financial sufficiency; now we have 130 to 150 people each Sunday, and I have a fear of too many people.
