“Please don’t call me ‘Pastor,’just call me ‘Uncle,’” said Pastor Zhang when he first shook my hand. As he stood beside me, I saw an astute man in his 60s. Amidst the strong handshake, he put forth an extremely kind and gentle persona through our eye contact.
Zhang is originally from Puyang, Anhui Province which is close to the border between Henan and Anhui Province. When he turned 26, he accepted Christ as his Lord and Savior which resulted to a massive change in his life path. In the past 30 years, he gave up his previous job and devoted himself wholeheartedly in Bible studies. Later on, he volunteered to become a pastor in Three Self Church (TSC) before moving to a family church in 1990. He prefers to be called ‘Uncle’ by others because for him, it is a comfortable title to be called by family members who are brothers and sisters in Christ.
His experience is also a journey of growth since he rose up from a regular church member to a church pastor and he concluded, “All my growth comes from the grace of God.”
Since 2010, Zhang has been observing the changing church as it transitions from a traditional model to a newer model.
“Now, it is the time for a transition – from a traditional model of preaching into a service model which would cater to the practical needs of society. If we call ourselves salt and the light of the world, our deeds ought to outdo our words.”
He is deeply convicted that the church should bear the obligation for vulnerable groups in society such as neglected children, the elderly, drug addicts and AIDS patients.
Zhang observed that many churches nowadays focus excessively on publishing and evangelizing messages in words, but not in action. However, non-believers fail to reconcile what they have heard and what they always observe from the life of their Christian friends. As such, we should walk the talk by reinforcing our words with our actions.
Below is what Pastor Zhang’s detailed sharing, in First Person.
How did I become Christian?
I accepted Christ in 1980 shortly after the Cultural Revolution. There weren’t many churches at that time. Since my wife fell into a coma, I brought her to the church out of desperation with the hope of getting her healed. Amazingly, the disease that has bothered her for 6 years was amazingly cured by the Lord within 1 week. Moreover, she even gave birth to to 3 more children after being healed. I’m extremely thankful for this miracle in her life. The miracle my wife experienced gave me my first encounter with God’s power. However, it was only when I turned 26 did I truly come to know and accept Jesus as my God and personal Savior.
Transformation after Christ and his service as a preacher.
Earlier, I was a young leader in my village. When I accepted Christ, I gradually found my job to be meaningless as I had to entertain people by drinking and eating with them. I gave up that career and started my own business not long afterward.
Although I was busy at work, my passion to study the Bible grew and I remember myself completely reading the entire Bible every single week. Though my physical condition at home was poor, I was still motivated to read the whole New Testament throughout the night while under the dim light from an oil lamp.
However, I wouldn’t be able to grasp the biblical text sometimes due to the lack of understanding of the Bible. Biblical jargons such as ‘salvation’, ‘Justification’ and others became more familiar to me after the church elders’ explanation.
Ten years down the road, I began to feel burdened for the things happening in the church. I began to spot some mistakes committed by the church which is not in line with the Biblical truth each time I would hear the leader’s sermons. I prayed to God for him to grant me the power to preach the truth. God indeed empowered me and trained me to become an eloquent speaker as time passed.
Upon learning the Biblical truth from my own personal devotion, several short-term discipleship training, I gradually learnt how to prepare sermons and slowly began to preach in church.
Upon later reflection, I realized how God has been faithfully leading me in my spiritual journey. He has lead several turning points in my vocation, helping me decide my career path from almost becoming a soldier, a teacher, then quitting the leadership post in the village and into becoming a preacher.
It was in 1990 when I first started to preach. In order to prepare myself in serving God, I took part in numerous short-term training programs. However, due to the lack of resources at that time, I was not able to study in a formal Bible study school. When I think about it, it is the selfless help of many of my senior brothers who have lead me to where I am today. They took care of me and provided me with the platform to hone my preaching skills.
During my first preaching, I was very nervous as I reflected from my stumbled speech. The crowd scared me in that congregation. If I remembered correctly, 5000 people were present for that sermon. However, as my exposure grew, my confidence also grew slowly.
From Three-Self Church to Family(house) Church
I first served in a Three-Self Church for a part-time basis. Apart from my service for the Church, I also did extra responsibilities in order to provide for my family.
My financial situation at that time was very tough because I had to provide for 9 family members. However, I have never neglected my responsibility to my family despite this challenge and continued to serve the church on the side. God is faithful in in teaming me with my wife. She began to encourage me to serve the Church after God healed her from her disease. She even willingly took over farming and work at home alone while I was preaching. She is a great support in my life.
My understanding of God slowly grew and developed as I serve in the Church. God is molding me through my service for him in church.
I am a naturally hot-tempered person and I know God has been molding me hard. There was once a sister in church who came to beat me due to her abnormal psychiatric condition. I was able to calm her down due to the understanding that all of these challenges are given to me are there for a reason.
Later on, I left the Three Self Church and became the leader of a Family Church. My decision to leave the Three Self Church was brought by my discomfort in hearing umbilical messages from some leaders of the TSC.
In 1999, I became involved in coordinating training in a bible school. Amazingly, we established a fellowship around 40 to 80 people and the spirit of learning was very strong at that time.
In February 2013, I was ordained as a pastor.
"It is the time for church to transition from a traditional model to a new one"
I believe it is the time for the church to change its form from a traditional model.
The reason is simple.
Despite the dire needs that society is now facing, we have not done a good job in reaching out to those who are in need.
We Christians should stand out in our society, standing out for God’s people and serving the needs of society. That is because Jesus does not call us to be served, but he calls us to serve.
There are two vulnerable groups that we must serve and care for: the children who have been neglected by their parents and the elderly.
Some have asked the question: which is more important: to spread the gospel or to meet society’s practical needs? For me, we should work on both areas. Without meeting the needs of society, it would serve as a hindrance to the people who wish to go to church. Words without action is extremely hard to take and support.
Also, we should not regard the church as a hospital by only telling the people how God’s spirit can heal a person’s physical body. If we do not change this practice, people would stop coming to church after they are healed physically, defeating the purpose of restoring their relationship with God.
In the 1980s when people have little access to Bibles, many people have experienced God’s miraculous healing power through their prayers. Similar cases nowadays are very rare. I believe that it is happening because now that it is very easy to access the Bible, God’s desire is now focused on us knowing Him over his blessing. God’s blessing is not the end goal, Jesus is. A life full of blessings from God but void of any clear relationship with Jesus is still meaningless.
"Transition requires the church to humble themselves and exalt Jesus as the sovereign King"
Only when we humble ourselves before the Lord can we wholeheartedly serve the Church and each person fulfill their role in God’s family.
We should let God be God instead of letting our own views become dominant over God’s position.
Church elders should begin to delegate tasks to the younger generation, enabling them to become involved with church service and sustain God’s kingdom.
The biggest issue in Christian churches is often the dissected spirits of the people as seen in church politics. Some churches are sometimes not founded because of Christ, but due to human desires and thoughts. When people ask me which side I would take, I will always reply “I follow Jesus’ side.” I realized some of the famous Christian icons – while they do bring revival back to the church – trigger conflict between people. We should never follow people, but we must follow God.
I believe that inter-denominational debate and legal teaching tend to cause church conflict. Church leaders should not frame others in a way that they themselves would not be able to uphold. Leaders must humble themselves before the Lord and let God, instead of their personal views, be God.
At least 90% of Chinese churches today have leaders who are overly-protective of their church, seeing the church as their personal property rather than a property of God. Power struggles are often visible and show how these leaders wish to build their own empire. However, these leaders should remember that the church belongs to the Lord and they must let go of these personal desires for their own personal kingdoms and serve the Lord.
I was once like one of those ‘overly ambitious’ leaders who hoped to do something great in church not for the purpose of glorifying God, but to glorify myself. Slowly, I realized that only a Jesus-centric team can shine for him. As such, we ought to have a humble heart to learn from others.
Let’s listen to God’s voice, serve him and exalt him as our sovereign King.
Translated by: Maggie LI
