With the gospel aside, there came the gloomy start
In 2008, I graduated from university and came to Beijing. There, a northeast-born pastor Feng Xing helped me settle in. At that time, I was not dazed or aimless about my life ahead, (the plan was), I wanted to experience Beijing as much as possible and also the modern economic society, and church life as well; then, some years later, I could return hometown and run a small business, get married and have children, and slowly burn off the rest of my life.
My plan makes me not worried too much about the uncertainty in life, because my expectations are not high, and I don't try to live in Beijing permanently, especially buying a house, or building a church in Beijing was not in the picture as well, that's because I'm fully aware of my limited ability (in such a big city). Although admiring the other pastors, who by the means of maneuvering relationship and hard-work, have established own domains, founded own churches, had own real estates, and married with attractive wives, I still feel these are not my desire.
Until one day, I met a Beijing girl and was about to get married. Her mother hoped that I could be a pastor in Beijing, like other pastors who are admired by hundreds of people, having own cars and houses. The was-going-to-be mother-in-law did not despise my humble root, she always believed that the identity of a pastor is worthy of two suites in Beijing.
At this time, Pastor Feng Xing told me that he would help me living in Beijing. He said, every month, his own church would give me some food and money for the rent, in addition, and would find someone to assist me with the living expenses of 3,000 yuan a month. In 2008, 3000 yuan, is not a small sum. So, I rented a house in Nai Xi Village near the Wangjing district, bought chairs and tables to set up a church, and then began to preach the gospel.
Pastor Feng Xing said that I might fail, but there is also a good chance to successfully establish the church, it's really up to God's guidance, meanwhile, the probability of failure is also over 99%. Nevertheless, this experience can help me to gain more ability and wisdom, to live on the land of China.
Obtaining guidance from a pastor friend
At that time, I was dating my prospective wife in Beijing. I love this girl even more than I love the church. In my youth, with limited experience in life, I couldn't understand the reasons of parting with secular and familial pleasure, for the sake of gospel and church.
Her mother hopes that I will grow up quickly. The "growth" in her heart is that I could become a pastor, have own church, her daughter then becomes the pastor's pretty wife, she herself is the pretty mother-in-law of the pastor.
But the girl was very naive. At that time, she, including me, never think of the efforts that a pastor needs, in order to maintain a decent and dignified living. What's the direction of the effort should be heading to? Is it just kneeling down and pray? Or buttering up big bosses? Or something else? We have no direction and path for the hard labor. After all, we didn't have much comprehension of the pastor career. I have no idea how to dig deep into this career.
She (the girl) asked me to make acquaintance with more pastors with big names, send out more gifts, and keep good relationships with them. At that time, I was living in Ma Quan Ying, the east of Wangjing. I was a freelance and did not have an office. I found a rest area in nearby outlets, sit and worked there as if it was an office.
Through friends, I was introduced to pastor Z, of a relatively large evangelical fellowship. This pastor is very good, very intelligent and considerate. After knowing my aim, this pastor told me that, I have ideals, like the character of Julien, in addition, he thinks that I talk in a genteel manner, seems likely to achieve a lot in the future, so he's willing to become my lifetime friend.
Meanwhile, he gave me further analysis. He said, now that the era of great church expansion has passed, it is no longer easy to establish a church; just by the means of godly and sincere prayers, sermons, and spreading the evangelism, are not enough; the era of individual effort is the way of the past, and now requires team effort.
He thinks that my university education and youth are obstacles, it is not easy for me to integrate into an established team. According to his experience, an established team will exclude me, because he thinks, it's likely I'd give out so-called Proper but pretentious advice, and I don't understand the working principle of a pastor team at a church.
Hence, this pastor suggested me to take risks, engage with pastors with least repute first, mingle with them in order to be known within the circle, and then based on their acquaintance of me and my morality, they can decide whether to accept me or not.
To me, this kind of guidance is very pertinent. I said thank you to the pastor. If I could build a name out there in Beijing, we will be lifetime friends, I will invite you to come to my church to preach and give you lecture fees. At last, the pastor gifted me two big boxes of the bibles, and I took the subway back to Ma Quan Ying. Along the way, although the two boxes of bibles are very heavy, I always found them lighter seemingly, while heaving them through wavy roads, I stumbled and finally transported the two boxes of bibles back home, stacked them up in the church, and sold them according to the pricing of the church.
First time meeting Pastor Zhang
It is not difficult for me to study Greek in my spare time, but it is difficult to master it outside the academic environment. Although I've tried really hard to master this language, I was trapped in the cycle of learning and then forgetting, on top of that, there are no environments to practice Greek as well, all these make me tired.
But when I was very tired, a pastor who I just met recently, shouted me a meal at a Sichuan restaurant in Dong Ba. The food was very spicy, and the conversation with Pastor Zhang was also quite pleasant. Pastor Zhang only ate little, and always holding the chopsticks. He mainly talked about his past testimony and his present courage.
Pastor Zhang told me that he was a barber, but relied on the Lord, he achieved a great reputation. When he was in the Mount Er Mei while feeling the life of Jesus, Pastor Zhang waved his fingers, and the water on Mount Er Mei retreated from bottom to top, and (this marvel) shocked the surrounding tourists at that time.
Pastor Zhang said, he rid a bicycle throughout the land of China, to evangelize the people from the poorest to the richest, from the least influential to the most powerful.
Pastor Zhang also said that he did not eat for forty or fifty days, but he was still physically strong because of God's grace on him.
Back then, when pastor Zhang said he was trying to explain to the world about the current status of Chinese church, I felt that he was a great spiritual giant. Although the personal experience he told was too puzzling to understand, it's even harder to verify with common sense; still, I told myself that since Christianity itself is a transcendental religion, miracles are not lacking and vary from person to person, since he dares to say, I will dare to believe.
Pastor Zhang believed that I was going to follow him to fight for God. But I didn't mean it, I just want to get to know it a bit, and expand my knowledge a bit. But Pastor Zhang had always believed that anyone is close to him, is either following him or trying to frame him. Fortunately, he does not think that I was going to frame him.
There was one year, on the New Year, I spent a week living at the pastor Zhang's home, in Nan Yang. Every morning, pastor Zhang and his wife Mrs. Zhang always got up early and prayed, but they never woke me up. They said that I was young, might not have rich spiritual experience, and might lack sleep. I replied: pastor Zhang, you must wake me up next time, not only I need to do morning prayer, but also need to be the guardian of the church. But I still never heard them woke me up.
Every evening, they all prayed into the night, their voices were loud and clear, can be heard miles away, and their words were very touching. The words of prayer were the simplest, but very logical, and they cannot be obtained in training, and they are comprehensive as well. I began to think that this is an epitome of house churches, and spiritually he is the iconic figure and a great man, just like the two of the famous Christian trio in the early days of Chinese Christian history: Mr. Wang Ming Dao and Mr. Song Shang Jie.
There are not many spiritual books in the home of pastor Zhang. There are only a few pamphlets. The books they read the most are the Bible. Many pages rotted because of being turned over too many times. They are reluctant to get a new one. The first reason is that it's sentimental to them because they left lots of nodes on the Bible; second, they want to give the new Bible to other people in need.
In addition, pastor Zhang's family has lots of "Holy Mountain" magazines scattered at the corner. The magazine is an academy-specific journal, and it emphasizes the spiritual revolution of theology. Pastor Zhang said that he feels very well by reading it, so introduces it to me. Meanwhile, I am also reading at the articles translated by Wu Lingling and Cao Zhi. All these greatly helped me and broadened my spiritual realm.
Pastor Zhang had organized the training camp for the preachers of the local churches. When everyone got together, Pastor Zhang barely looked at the theological books, or maybe when he was looking, I wasn't aware. I believe that the spiritual source of Pastor Zhang is from his direct contact with God, and from his own experience of evangelism at the forefront for many years. The local brothers and sisters listened to him as a gateway from God, preaching the messages of God; they are so devout that makes me more reverent.
In the conversations with pastor Zhang's wife, she inadvertently said that they were very poor. One son was divorced, but his child still needed to study; the other son had failed in business, and the whole family had lost a lot of money. But they have always believed that God can reverse all these difficulties.
Pastor Zhang told me that, many people had followed him, but because they were afraid of the privation that came with it, they left. Nevertheless, he hoped that I would not be scared by poverty. However, I am afraid of privation, I love the world, I like fine and beautiful things, all of which require money.
After I left, Pastor Zhang prayed for me. I guess he was very sad, not because of my departure, but because he felt that he could never retain a reliable, trustworthy and capable assistant.
"Reunion" in Zhengzhou
I have been staying in Beijing, building a church in the urban-rural junction of Wang Jing East, and making a journal. The church basically has no growth, but there are more than a dozen believers. Most of them came from the northeast of China. Their sons work in Beijing. As elderlies, they come to Beijing to see their grandchildren.
When Beijing was very cold, in the rented church house, there always was an old lady on a wooden chair, sewed seat cushion for me, and accompanied me to read the Bible. The other elders also took well care of me - as the young preacher, they gave me food and drinks, and even helped with money, although not much, it still warmed my heart. Moreover, the wife of a Korean missionary also went to the gathering. Sunday, after the sermon, (sometimes), my co-workers opened the donation box, were happy to see 1,000 yuan sat inside.
The church house I rented, is a bungalow whose facade faces the street, where the demolition is happening, the entire street is to be demolished, so basically, no one is around. Next to my building, is a small pedicure shop. At night, when the business is quiet, the female pedicurist would come around and asked me what's my job. I said it is a church. She asked if it's profitable, I said, I wanted to, but it's not good. She questioned me, how could I intend to make money, because being a pastor, is to "give", just like charity. I was stunned and marveled that this 40-year-old female pedicurist does have some understanding about the church and the faith. This question seems also have whipped the selfishness in my heart. But this is indeed a true idea of mine, I wanted to make a decent living. She sometimes bought two boxes of takeaways and gave me one. So, in return, I gave her a Bible, free of charge.
Then my girlfriend's mother told Pastor Feng Xing that my church planting was not effective, and was mingling with a 40-year-old female pedicurist. I argued, it was not a relationship, she is just a neighbor because the rented church house was right next to hers, and we only had little chats when there was nothing to do. So, the future-mother-in-law said that if you are bored, you shall kneel down to pray, or read the Bible.
Later, I left Beijing and broke up with a girlfriend because of obscure reasons. In my age, the breakup is not a big deal. But when we split, I still begged God to reverse it, but my girlfriend gave me a pat on the shoulder and said, let's talk about it in the next life. To date, we still keep in touch, it seems a very good relationship still.
Before leaving Beijing, I met lawyer X. Together we helped a church to handle some legal affairs and met Pastor Zhang again in Zhengzhou. He was accompanied by a believer from the Sabbath Church. This believer lives near Zhengzhou makes a living by selling gospel radio sets, 40ish, divorced for five or six years, and he looked very tired. By sticking with pastor Zhang, this believer had been trying to start a nationwide network to sell gospel radio sets but achieved little.
Lawyer X hopes that many churches could pray for a case we took over, so recorded a video on the disc to distribute. Pastor Zhang approves this practice and starts doing it himself first. But then the respondents were few. In my opinion, it's because the power of the summon was not enough, and because Pastor Zhang has lost the leader's appeal. But pastor Zhang believes that's because most believers are cowardly.
Still, in Zhengzhou, pastor Zhang and I had dined together a few times. It seems, he still is mentally strong, with high fighting spirits, and is still bold and full of awe-inspiring righteousness. This makes me feel really humble. I can't do much as him, but I do admire such people.
Pastor Zhang's financial situation started turning bad. He used to get regular help from some churches in the United States, on travel and living expenses. But, those who contacted him thought that pastor Zhang lacks a correct theological view, and does not obey people's persuasion, and likes to show off and brag. At that time, it was once reported on the Internet that, Pastor Zhang had claimed to be the Messiah and the Son of God. When I was having a meal in Zhengzhou with Pastor Zhang, he explained to me that, he only thought, he is the son of God, just as Jesus is; he had only spoken words along these lines, but people with ulterior motives, had taken it out of context.
Mentioned by names, Pastor Zhang said that these years, some people have systematically blocked his connections with the foreign churches, resulting in him unable to integrate into the orthodox churches and because his reputation is impaired, and those who had helped him financially, no longer are willing to help him. When Pastor Zhang was talking about this, he held a piece of watermelon in his hand; he ate the watermelon but did not spit out the seeds.
At that time, Pastor Zhang felt a bit disappointed, but he did not verbally admit defeat. He believed that, because of his loyalty to God, and his passionate love for the gospel, he can reverse his current life direction. He wants to open a blogger account on the website Weibo, and he wants to get a passport to go abroad, so asks me what to do. I said I can't do it.
I have a hunch that, like me, Pastor Zhang is an individual being left outside of the established teams in the pastor class, we have to battle alone. Even though there is occasional contact with the other preachers, and such contact can dignify (us), but it can't make people rich. Hence, he (pastor Zhang) is likely to have a bleak future in his late years.
Meeting him again in the city C of Shandong province
After I returned to my hometown, I married my current wife and had children, got a house, got a mortgage, and started to toil for my own life. Occasionally, I talked about my personal beliefs of the faith in the online WeChat groups, but most of the time I just run my small businesses, deal with unadorned but shrewd customers. Because it is a small city, product quality is not high, and the after-sales process is cumbersome, which grinds me a lot physically and mentally.
I often miss Pastor Zhang, I don't know why. Later I heard that, after his reputation was crippled, his pressure of family life grew, and people who had helped him financially, no longer continued to help him. His sister was in Shenzhen, and one day she suddenly invited him over to do business there, smugly boasted that her business in Shenzhen is high-flying.
Thus, Pastor Zhang and wife took the south-bound train to Shenzhen. Shenzhen is a place they used to visit a lot, but this time they have different feelings in their hearts, because this round, they are going over to make money. At the start, theydidn't want to mention it to people, just stuck to making money quietly.
Later on, Pastor Zhang's sister told him that, her project in Shenzhen is a capital fund, to sponsor projects like "Dragon Loves Quantum" (which in fact is a pyramid scheme). For example, the project "Dragon Loves Quantum", they claim to return millions yuan for an investment of 80,000 yuan. (In this project), there are two ways to make money: one way is to recommend others to join - after buying into the project. Every time you sign up a new member on this line will get 10% of the top up of that member. Recommending others to join is a magical process of multiplying and fission (in numbers). I may recommend it to 100 people, if these 100 people continuously recommend people to join, subsequently this line keeps growing. If the new members buy in, I will get a 10% reward of my own early investment.
Another way is the sales profit of the company's products, which is returned to the account of Pastor Zhang - in the form of fixed term interest. It was at one night, many members who went to Shenzhen for dinner were dinning at a hotel. The food was plenty and great. After the dinner, Pastor Zhang was arranged to attend a seminar, in which lecturers talked about their system and business model of "Dragon Loves Quantum". Pastor Zhang quickly understood this principle of making money. Hence, he unceasingly recommended and developed new members to join.
At meals, Pastor Zhang would always tell other members on the table that, he was a pastor, very famous, had many testimonies, and the proof can be found online. So, everyone else immediately dropped the chopsticks and searched for it on the Internet, which turns out to be true. Hence, everyone thinks that Pastor Zhang has a wide network of contacts, and the network is wealth. It is worthwhile to accept Pastor Zhang and encourage Zhang to top up.
The members have good manners, they often talk about their faith, and they also like to pander to Pastor Zhang by admiring Christianity introduced by Pastor Zhang. Some people even instantly express their willingness to accept the Christian faith, so Pastor Zhang prays for them. Pastor Zhang is very pleased that on the first day of his arrival on Shenzhen, he was able to preach the gospel to some people and they accepted the Lord.
But afterward, I am not very clear about what happened. Until the spring of this year, Pastor Zhang invited me to city C when he was there, and told me that he knew me very well, and he thinks that a project in the city C was tailor-made for me. Out of respect for Pastor Zhang, I sorted out my chores and went to the city C.
In the city C, after new year day, the weather was still very cold. Pastor Zhang sent his location to me via WeChat, on the way, I took trains and taxi to meet him, the final stop for me to wait is a bus stop.
That night, the weather was very cold, but I was looking forward to meeting with Pastor Zhang. The city C has developed rapidly over the years. On the way, the taxi driver told me that the city C is a city with great potential, the infrastructure is constantly expanding, and people are flowing into the city, it's full of unlimited vitality.
15 minutes later, at the entry of an alley, I saw the pastor Zhang coming over to the bus stop. Being a nostalgic person, I am concerned that Pastor Zhang with such an old age had come to pick me up. But he is still very healthy, full of vigor, he dresses in a business suit, the one that he wore many years ago, but still very clean and tidy.
After we met, we all stood there and excitingly talked about our own experiences in the past few years. Ten minutes later, the atmosphere and excitement eased a bit. Pastor Zhang began to lead the way. I followed him to his residence in C City.
For me, Pastor Zhang's wife has prepared a sumptuous meal, fish, pork ribs, and dishes of shredded vegetables. The flat consists of three bedrooms and one hall, very neat, besides Pastor Zhang and his wife living there, there is also a goddaughter of Pastor Zhange, she's from city Shenyang but living in C City. They all said that they had already eaten, and while eating, I was trying to express my gratitude and enthusiasm. Pastor Zhang told me to finish up the meal quickly so then we can talk. So, I enjoyed the great meal on table.
After dinner, I wanted to help the hostess to tidy up the table, but she insisted that she can clean up herself. Pastor Zhang's wife is good at persuading people as always, so I did not insist on it. Then I started to conversations with Pastor Zhang on the sofa, and his wife was alone in the kitchen to wash the dishes. I was envious of such a family scene.
Pastor Zhang wants to pour tea for me. This time I stopped him, and I served him with tea. We talked through the whole night, talked about own experiences in the past few years. I told him that I am married and have children, live a stressful but still cheerful life, and I'm not passionate about church anymore, but still manage to go to the church as much as possible.
Pastor Zhang said that his former church federation was abolished and he thought it was wrong; the federation is a just a religious form, and he now advocates faith; the faith is the true essential substance of beliefs, it is different from the external religious form. Hence, He has renamed the Federation to the "Christ Church of China". Pastor Zhang once again recounted the beginning and collapse of the entire federation and said he was constantly "framed" by his colleagues. I don't think that Zhang's narratives are all true and accurate, but I think the facts are facts, facts cannot be garbled, it's just the causes are so obscured that Pastor Zhang self cannot tell it clearly.
In the evening, Pastor Zhang said, "you should take a bath and get some sleep. Tomorrow I will arrange for you to meet some brothers and sisters in the fellowship. They all have wonderful testimonies in their respective fields." So, I washed and settled into the room already arranged.
Bu I was young and energetic, couldn't fall in sleep, so I looked at the city lights outside the window, thinking about the spiritual outlook of Pastor Zhang, I sense that the life of Pastor Zhang has begun to turn around. I walked around in the room and saw the books on the sill of the bedroom window. There was a notebook of his co-worker, Pastor Dong, which recorded his own sermons and notes. I read it page by page. My heart was pounding, I'd never thought that in the Nanyang city of Henan province, there is such a preacher who loves the Lord so much.
In the last few pages of the notebook, I began to see records of various capital fund projects, account passwords, (guessed that) he was afraid that he can't memorize them, so he kept records of them. Only in recent years, I am aware of all kinds of MLM projects that have surfaced. The URLs and system models recorded in this notebook can be clearly seen at 1st glance. They are truly the virtual capital funds but being titled as financial innovations.
The next day, Pastor Zhang took me to another residence community. It was 8:30 am, a group of young people there was led by their respective leaders. We arrived in a car, although I am not familiar with cars, after seeing sunroof on the car, I know it should be a luxury car.
When coming to another community, I saw a businessman from Henan province, he is a Christian and a pastor. At first, he gave me a brief introduction, then he told me a verse:
And Jesus answered and said, "Verily I say unto you, There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my sake, and the gospel's, But he shall receive an hundredfold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions; and in the world to come eternal life." (Mark 10:29-30, KJV)
Then he told me that, "I'm the most typical small businessman in Nanyang city. My business fluctuates from time to time, although I have always been serving the church. But later on, I read the Bible and found out that God has new instructions and summons for our era, namely: he hopes that Christians can help each other in this world to obtain a hundredfold profit, and then use the proceeds from Lord, to help other poor Christians, and then can gain the eternal life in the next life.
This was a pyramid scheme. I wanted to go home.
In the following week, Pastor Zhang took me to attend classes constantly, from morning to afternoon, then have nice meals at night. Later on, brothers and sisters from different "family", came to visit the place where I lived, exchanging views and beliefs on the project.
This project is called the "wealth management of private small mutual aid", referred to as the 50300 project, because the investment amount of this project is 3,300 yuan per slot, a total of 21 slots, that is 69,300 yuan, immediately after the investment of the 21 slots, 19,000 yuan are returned, that is, only invested 50,300 yuan in sum, the return will be about 8 million yuan if the investor manages to develop 3 tiers of members .
During the week in C City, besides being taken to visit "separate household" by Pastor Zhang Pastor, another task is to attend classes of other "families". Every session is arranged, they have a WeChat group, being at the top tier, they organize all of these. Based on my social class and experience, I was arranged to go to different families, so corresponding teachers can lecture me about greed and persuasion.
Pastor Zhang Pastor belongs to the tier "upper general". In total, they have five tiers, namely the notorious five-tier three-rank system, but because the five-tier three-rank system is a well-known pyramid scheme, here, everyone uses the star to replace the tier: one, two, three, four, and five stars. The five-star is called the "upper general". (Within the system structure) every person needs to sign up three new members, once total 28 seats of each umbrella the are filled, the general can then leave with 8 million yuan.
Pastor Zhang Pastor told me that God does not bring poverty to people, instead, he wants to help people to grow up to become rich. And only the rich can help the poor. The air that the rich breathes in, and the suns they see, are different from the ones the rest of world see. Pastor Zhang believes that according to his observation, he can see my desires of money from my eyes and my experience. Pastor Zhang also told me that this model is not a con. If the investment is made, it will be distributed to other people according to the proportion. No one will gobbe up the money. Pastor Zhang asked me to raise funds and said that I need to take out all cash from the card and hand them over to the superior, and the money is distributed proportionally on the same day, so it is very fair.
Being a general (in the system), Pastor Zhang enjoys its perks. He manages the dorm heads of other "families". Pastor Zhang encouraged me and said he almost can't resist helping me pay the investment lot, and wished me to develop faster. He said that people at every tier can only have the knowledge of that tier. When a person is raised to the "general", he has the right to know the affairs of "general" level, so he can know more spiritual secrets.
The weather in C city is very cold. Every day when I went to visit other families, I met many people who were invited by lies to join, just like me. Everyone is surprisingly polite, behaved in a good and civilized manner. They get along very well with each other, no bad words on each other. I admire that.
Every night, at dinner time, all brothers and sisters of the fellowship mingle together, and there are many pastors. Here, the pastors no longer sit on high horse, but full of love, humbleness, and unselfishness, and they are not pushy, always resort to love to influence people.
One night, after returning home, I sat on the sofa with Pastor Zhang, began to talk about worldly affairs, talk about faith, gospel and missions, and he knew that I like to hear them. Pastor Zhang said: "In the beginning, didn't you want to become a person with dignity? You have experienced a lot in these years. Don't you understand? No matter whatever the faith is, no matter what, no money, everything is empty talk. Once you have money, everything will come. Social status, status at churches, they all will come." Pastor Zhang's words are very earnest. It never occurs to me to think that this is Zhang's personal desire to entice me to join, and tease my hidden lust. But indeed, I was such a person, I hoped to have plenty of money to pursue my unaccomplished dreams.
Nevertheless, I told Pastor Zhang that in my social circle, among my friends, everyone hates MLM (aka pyramid scheme), and it is clear at 1st glance that this is a pyramid scheme. Second, I don't have much money too, and I shoulder lots of family burden. At this time (of my life), I am still in the stage of saving money only for necessities. If I have unnecessary and surplus funds, I might participate (this project).
Pastor Zhang was not eager to refute me. He said he only hopes that even if I don't invest, I'd continue to stay and learn more, and he said that's his expectation on me. But whenever I requested to leave, he'd stop me and defeats me by playing the emotional card, claimed that I don't need to do this, and he's only hoping that I'd accompany him longer.
One day, when visiting families at another community, I finally stiffened the atmosphere. I said that I want to leave, and my wife at home cannot take care of children by herself. It seems that Pastor Zhang's patience had finally run out, and he began to obstruct my departure, saying that there is still one more class for me, telling me how I could explain this experience to others. I couldn't wait anymore. When the car stopped at the traffic light, I opened the door and left quickly.
What should I do?
When I got home, my mind was very troubled and thought about how to deal with the experience with Pastor Zhang. Cautiously I told pastor friends of Pastor Zhang about this. However, all felt that God will be with Pastor Zhang, we can pray for him, but it's unnecessary to send people to persuade them. Moreover, these pastors believe that 1st, Pastor Zhang is too clever to be held as a hostage by that group, 2nd, he is very smart so he might have spiritual purposes. Thus, they ask me not to be worried, everyone can privately pray for Pastor Zhang.
In my own conclusion, I felt it's compelling to take actions as below: the first, is to sincerely write down the short experience of me and Pastor Zhang, and present it to the people who are concerned, so that everyone knows that this is not something to be fabricated with the aim to defame Pastor Zhang, instead, it's Pastor Zhang who is organizing and running a pyramid scheme.
Secondly, in order to get out of the scheme quickly, Pastor Zhang has begun to promise that, anyone invests into his umbrella (of the scheme) and if in need of becoming a priest, he can ordain the person to become one immediately. Moreover, recently Pastor Zhang has recruited another friend of mine to go to MLM. This friend managed to cough up 70,000 yuan in ten days and handed it to Pastor Zhang Pastor. Pastor Zhang smiled and patted my friend - brother Zhu's shoulder, and said, "God loves you."
My friend, brother Zhu, who loves the Bible, went to Cambodia last year, he followed a Pastor of Hubei province, to enjoy the Passover over, and to establish the Christian Kingdom of Cambodia there. Later on, brother Zhu discovered that Pastor Yang was lazy, arrogant and domineering. Hence, he left Cambodia, doesn't want to become a vassal of the new Christian kingdom there.
Now, Brother Zhu has been invited there by Pastor Zhang Pastor. He has experienced the same as me. He also did not withstand Pastor Zhang's tease on human's selfish desires, and eventually came up the money and handed it over to Pastor Zhang.
I am writing this, is to tell the brothers and sisters in the church. If Pastor Zhang of C City invites you to attend a gathering to foster spiritual beings, this must be a pyramid scheme.
In addition, we also pray for Pastor Zhang.
When I came back to deal with this incident, another thought also came to me, that is the mind of " bureaucrats sticks up for one another", prevails among pastors. They did not believe that what I described was true at first. They all said that I was attaching the servant of God. Although they think that they differ from Pastor Zhang's theological view, it's an internal issue among pastors, so it shall remain inside the group to be solved, and they do not want this news of pastor involved in a pyramid scheme, to be published.
At the same time, everyone is concerned about the cosmic and spiritual events. After learning the incident of Pastor Zhang, few people care about Pastor Zhang at C City, not to mention to verify the authenticity of the story, instead, they remain indifferent to this.
Afterthoughts
This article is my factual narrative. I hope to attract attention to the inside of churches. Not only we can all pray for the pastors who are deeply trapped in the pyramid scheme (aka MLM), also it allows us to ponder the deep inner experience of these pastors and Christians. Myself is in dilemma as well. On the one hand, I am thinking about exposing the level of Pastor Zhang's deterioration into pyramid schemes. On the other hand, I have to empathetically relive my own experiences over the years. It seems that I have confirmed Pastor Zhang's judgment on me, he believes that I have enough personal excuses to join him and become a co-worker in the MLM business.
- Translated by Jake Jason
