Female believers who grow up in rural villages may probably receive an elementary education at most. Since the day this sister started to serve, she had already realized the shortcomings in her education level. In order to better serve the Lord, she not only actively participated in the Bible study classes held by her own church but also in the training courses organized by other churches in the region. Later, she even received college-level professional training at the seminary.
Besides enhancing this sister’s Bible knowledge and spiritual discipline, the long years of studying had also built up her skills in preaching sermons and church management.
Therefore, when the church board was due for renewal, this sister was elected as the leader of the whole church.
As remarked by some staff at the local churches, the gospel had been spread to the area where this sister’s church was located, which is the Huangtang community in Xu Xiake Town, for over a hundred years. More than a decade ago, there was one church in the region that was built in the 1980s that became too small and dilapidated, so local believers decided to spend more than two million yuan to build a new church on the same site.
This brand-new church building could come into being because of this sister's ability to gather the strength of the local believers after she became the church’s person in charge. When the construction work just started, they had no more than one hundred thousand yuan as the initial funds, but in the end, the construction fund of the church was over two million yuan. Yet, the debt incurred in building this church was fully paid off in less than five years; this was because the church not only received money offerings from its own believers but also from the believers of the surrounding churches, as well as the offerings from the pastoral staff headed by this sister. Also, as the government's policy tightened just a few years after the church was built, no other new churches were built in recent years.
Although there were many Christians locally and the church building could accommodate up to five to six hundred people, the Sunday service attendance was just over a hundred; among these attendees, most were non-locals, and the local believers only made up less than one-third of the group. The more disheartening thing was that these local believers were lukewarm in their faith, let alone serving in the church. In spite of this, this sister was able to drive these local members who attended church regularly to church and encourage them to serve in church; she also sought out different ways to provide them with learning opportunities. In the end, several local believers were even selected to be part of the church administration team.
As for the large group of non-local church members, she not only encouraged them to serve as ushers and greeters, sing in the choir, and take part in hymn teaching, but she was also willing to hold evening meetings at her home for church members who lived far from the church.
(The article is originally published by the Gospel Times and the author is a believer from Jiangsu.)
- Translated by Joyce Leung
