Urbana 09

So I finally made it back to the non-Urbana world. So many things I learned, and not enough brain to process and store it all. I actually bought books!! I would have never imagined that I, being someone who falls asleep reading anything on paper after 10 mins, would be buying books and reading them. One book in particular caught my eye during the conference. This was it. It was the book I was looking for!! (well, other than the Bible of course)

From my Urbana experience, I've narrowed down the people I want to help in my ministry: Chinese people.

Yes. The world of Chinese people and their Chinese churches. Yes, we have at least heard of some of the stereotypes of Chinese families...limited career choices, parents pushing their children to work hard, unconditional respect for people in authority, and the list goes on. Now, I'm not saying that these things are wrong, but there are so many things in Chinese culture that seem so unbiblical. Some of these things I see within the church as well, including several aunties, uncles, my parents, and even myself. It sometimes angers me even more that many of us don't even realize that we have this huge plank in our eyes.

I attended a seminar at Urbana that talked about discovering God's calling. (Unsurprisingly, there were so many people who wanted to know it that I had to listen from outside the doors of the room.) One of the billions of things the speaker talked about was finding out what God wants you to do with regards to ministry. Who/what do I have a passion for? Is there anything I hate? The only thing I could think of was...my own people. Chinese people.

Probably the part of the conference that stood out the most was the musical worship. We visited a few different worship styles and languages. Sometimes we were doing the standard stuff, sometimes African, sometimes Egyptian, sometimes Spanish...lots of dancing at times! Although me being brought up in a more conservative background, I preferred to worship more with my voice than the rest of my body. I certainly learned how it feels to try to worship under culture shock, like how the traditional Chinese congregation feels about the contemporary style of worship from the English congregation.

Before the conference, my mom warned me to watch out for "those dancers and crazy people". Yes, I'd get rebuked by church elders if I danced during my church service at NT. This got me thinking...why do we have to be so closed-minded sometimes? Is there only one or two ways to worship, and all other ways foreign to us are wrong? Maybe it's not that, given that NT has allowed the use of musical instruments other than the piano and organ.

Is dancing a distraction to some people, hindering their ability to worship God? Most likely, since not everything that is permissible is beneficial, and cultural differences usually require different contexts (i.e.: style of worship). Okay, I'm fine with this. However, what saddened me the most was how during NT's Summer Conference, some people raised the issue that seeing bare feet of the musical worship team was a distraction. Yes, we are supposed to respect God by wearing our best clothing when meeting with Him, but why is something like bare feet a distraction in the first place? Shouldn't we be focusing on God and God alone while worshiping, not looking at what someone is wearing?

Perhaps it's not even much of a distraction at all. Maybe we, as Chinese people, care so much about outward appearance that we completely forget about worshiping God entirely. Pastor Ken Foo shared a story about his old church a long time ago. A drug dealer, who had been wounded on his side (but healed) decided to attend a church service one Sunday. He wore the best shirt he had, which was torn and stained with blood at the location of his wound. Before long, he was escorted out of the church, and he went back to his drug dealing life.

Why do we care so much about what non-Christians, or those weak in the faith, think about such small things? The ones we drive away are the non-Christians and the weak in faith! The same can be applied to other social differences, like people of other nationalities and skin colour. In my honest opinion, I think that the Chinese ought to be the most racist people I've ever known. A friend of mine from CCF shared how some members from his Chinese church were so against having a non-chinese pastor serving at their church. Is this really what we're supposed to be doing? Is this going out and making disciples of all nations?

Putting all these together, I've developed a strong passion to reach out to the Chinese church. So far, I'm going to start with one of the things the church picks on, and one of the things I love most: musical worship. I don't know how well it's going to work out, or even where it will lead me. But I've been placed there for a reason (already drafted into Wayne's team), so I'm just going to have to take the step of faith.

My vision for Chinese churches is having a single congregation--regardless of spoken language and culture--all worshiping and praising God together...just a glimpse of what we'll eventually experience in heaven.