Laws Today To Hang You In Ten Years

"On this basis no single African leader has any assurance that we will not, ten years from now, promulgate a law in accordance with which we will put him on trial for what he does today. Yes. The Chinese, in fact, will promulgate precisely such laws just give them the chance to reach out that far."

- Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn. The Gulag Archipelago. VOL 1. 

China Has No Reformer Leadership

"It is long past time to come to the obvious conclusion on the human rights debate. President Xi Jinping may be an exceptional leader, but a liberal reformer he is not. Indeed, more than any Chinese leader since Mao, he is utterly committed to authoritarian governments. The central objective of his tenure to date has been to return China to a system in which one man governs for life."

- Stephen Harper. Right Here Right Now. 

No Reserves, No Retreats, No Regrets - William Borden

William Whiting Borden - missionary to the Muslims of China, but died of spinal meningitis in Egypt during his training there at the age of 25. Samuel Zwemer conducted his funeral.

"In 1904 William Borden graduated from a Chicago high school. As heir to the Borden family fortune, he was already wealthy. For his high school graduation present, his parents gave 16-year-old Borden a trip around the world. As the young man traveled through Asia, the Middle East, and Europe, he felt a growing burden for the world's hurting people. Finally, Bill Borden wrote home about his "desire to be a missionary."

One friend expressed disbelief that Bill was "throwing himself away as a missionary."In response, Borden wrote two words in the back of his Bible: "No reserves."

Yale University in 1905 One of them wrote: "He came to college far ahead, spiritually, of any of us. He had already given his heart in full surrender to Christ and had really done it. We who were his classmates learned to lean on him and find in him a strength that was solid as a rock, just because of this settled purpose and consecration.

During his college years, Bill Borden made an entry in his personal journal that defined what his classmates were seeing in him. That entry said simply: "Say 'no' to self and 'yes' to Jesus every time."

Borden's first disappointment at Yale came when the university president spoke in a convocation about the students' need of "having a fixed purpose." After that speech, Borden wrote: "He neglected to say what our purpose should be, and where we should get the ability to persevere and the strength to resist temptations."4 Surveying the Yale faculty and much of the student body, Borden lamented what he saw as the end result of an empty, humanistic philosophy: moral weakness and sin-ruined lives.

During his first semester at Yale, Borden started A scripture & Prayer meeting with himself and one other, it grew to three. By the end of his first year, 150 freshman were meeting weekly for Bible study and prayer. By the time Bill Borden was a senior, one thousand of Yale's 1,300 students were meeting in such groups. Borden's outreach ministry was not confined to the Yale campus. He cared about widows and orphans and the disabled. He rescued drunks from the streets of New Haven.

Borden's missionary call narrowed to the Muslim Kansu people in China. Once he fixed his eyes on that goal, Borden never wavered.

Upon graduation from Yale, Borden turned down some high-paying job offers. In his Bible, he wrote two more words: "No retreats."

William Borden went on to do graduate work at Princeton Seminary in New Jersey. When he finished his studies at Princeton, he sailed for China. Because he was hoping to work with Muslims, he stopped first in Egypt to study Arabic. While there, he contracted spinal meningitis. Within a month, 25-year-old William Borden was dead.

Was Borden's untimely death a waste? Not in God's perspective. Prior to his death, Borden had written two more words in his Bible. Underneath the words "No reserves" and "No retreats," he had written: "No regrets."

Link: http://home.snu.edu/~HCULBERT/regret.htm

Hudson Taylor's Missionary Training Method!

"My Beloved parents neither discouraged nor encouraged my desire to engage in missionary work. They advised me, with such convictions, to use all the means in my power to develop the resources of body, mind, heart, and soul, and to wait prayerfully on God..... I Began to take more exercise in the open air to strengthen my physique. My feather bed I had taken away, and sought to dispense with as many other home comforts as I could in order to prepare myself for rougher lines of life. I began also to do what Christian work was in my power, in the way of tract distribution, Sunday-school teaching, and visiting the poor and sick, as opportunity afforded."

(The Call to Service in "Retrospect" Hudson Taylor 1865, Perspectives, R.D Winter. pg320, 2009, 4th Ed. William Carey Library.)

How precious is Gods word to us? It is precious in China!

"The Chinese house Church Movement is a story of the miraculous. Conservative estimates of believers in house churches in China begin at 100 million. The interviewer was astounded by the church growth observed in three church plating movements. In one location, Over 150 house church leaders were being trained. Pastors sat on the ground in rows as other leaders passed among them. They seemed to tearing pages out of books, distributing them to the people seated on the ground.

In horror, the interviewer suddenly realized these leaders were tearing copies of the Bible into page-sized pieces. He asked what could possibly cause such destruction of God’s word. The answer cut him to the heart. “There are about 150 pastors here today,” he was told. “only five of us own a Bible. We are tearing our Bibles into its separate books and distributing them so that each leader can return home with at least one book to teach from the Bible.”

The interviewer watched as they passed books of the Bible back and forth. “Have you taught Genesis? No? Here it is.” Rip. “Have you taught Luke yet? Here is Luke.” Rip. The sound of tearing pages filled the air."

(Five Lies about Missions, Nik Ripken & Barry Sticker. EMQ, Jan 2008, Vol 44, No1, p.34-35)

How Much Do We Really Need To Go?------ A Wiser Miser?

"I learned, however, that the Congregational minister of my native town possessed a copy of Medhurst’s China, and I called upon him to ask a loan of the book. This he kindly granted, asking me why I wished to read it. I told him that God had called me to spend my life in missionary service in that land. “And how do you propose to go there?” he inquired. I answered that I did not at all know; that it seemed to me probable that I should need to do as the Twelve and the Seventy had done in Judea—go without purse or scrip, relying on Him who had called me to supply all my need. Kindly placing his hand upon my shoulder, the minister replied, “Ah, my boy, as you grow older you will get wiser than that. Such an idea would do very well in the days when Christ Himself was on earth, but not now.”

I have grown older since then, but not wiser. I am more than ever convinced that if we were to take the direction of our Master and the assurances He gave to His first disciples more fully as our guide, we should find them to be just as suited to our times as to those in which they were originally given."

("The Call to Service”, J. Hudson Taylor. “Perspectives on the world Christian Movement", 1999, William Carey Library, Pasadena California . Pg 301)

You can not get there from here, old chap!

"Hudson Taylor pushed for interior missions to the least reached peoples. Most got off ships at the coast and began to work. But inland, where it was isolated, hard to travel and get supplies, was seriously neglected.

Taylor poured over maps and statistics and charts and realized that missionaries needed to go inland to the masses millions of unsaved people to the interior of China.

A young man, ……….still under thirty, in the teeth of surrounding counter advice established the first of a whole new breed of missions emphasizing the inland territories.

"When he suggested that the inland peoples of China needed to be reached, he was told you could not get there, and he was asked if he wished to carry on his shoulders the blood of the young people he would thus send to their deaths. This accusing question stunned and staggered him. Groping for light, wandering on the beach, it seemed as if God finally spoke to resolve the ghastly thought: "You are not sending young people in the interior of China. I am." The load lifted."""

Perspectives 3^rd edition: "Four Men, Three Eras, Two Transitions", Ralph D.Winter, pg 257, 1999, William Carey Library)

The Chinese, "Back to Jerusalem Movement" House Churches Send Missionaries

China's Brave Move to Missions:

"In the west, church mission committees struggle valiantly in hopes of getting people to attend a missions conference. Prospective missionary candidates often want to go where they don't have to learn a foreign language, the climate is comfortable and they don't have to worry about civil unrest, crime or terrorists. Mission boards have hundreds of urgent needs, and yet the number of missionaries is declining.

What's the problem ? When needs are greater than ever, enthusiasm for the worldwide cause of Christ is replaced with lethargy, and concerns for comfort override a willingness to sacrifice.

In contrast to the West's dismal picture, the Chinese, "Back to Jerusalem Movement" (BacktoJerusalem.com) exemplifies sacrifice and boldness for Christ. Groups of house churches boldly envision sending 100,000 missionaries along the Silk Road back to Jerusalem. The good news was first preached in Jerusalem, and traveled westward to Antioch, Rome, Europe, North America and finally to eastern China. But Chinese leaders have feared that the gospel stalled in central China. In the early 1940s a small group of students from Northwest Bible Institute in Shaanxi Province formed themselves into the "Back to Jerusalem Evangelistic Band. " The passion of these house churches is to take the gospel full circle along Silk Road routes to Buddhists, Hindus and Muslims all the way back to Jerusalem.

Since then, some Christians have cautioned that the Back to Jerusalem vision might be overly simplistic and idealistic. So far, there are few known "results" from this movement. Yet, our Chinese sisters and brothers' commitment is a great inspiration for world missions. Who knows how God will use them to win the least-reached nations?

1. House churches commission and send their best people-experienced leaders who have suffered great hard- ship for the kingdom and have had fruitful ministries.
2. Missionary training includes topics beyond basic cross-cultural communication - how to witness in jail, escape handcuffs and suffer and die for the Lord.
3. Few church leaders have earthly possessions to prevent them from going.
4. Innovative financing makes everyone's involvement possible. For example, each rural family is encouraged to dedicate a chicken and its eggs to the cause of missions.
5. The leaders of the movement gratefully trace their heritage to Hudson Taylor and believe; "God's work, done in God's way, will never lack Gods Supply".
6. These leaders see themselves not as an army of elephants, but as an army of termites who know how to work underground to destroy the walls of Islam and Buddhism.

7. Chinese missionaries expect to face torture and prison, but many have already endured decades of suffering in China.

8. House churches expect revival to continue in their midst as long as they remain obedient to the task of taking the gospel back to Jerusalem. ……………………

(World Pulse; "World Shapers- The Brave new world of Chinese missions " Jim & Carol Plueddemann pg 8, Jan 23,2004)

More Short-term Mission Teams Issues

"National church leaders in many of the areas receiving so many experience-seekers are too polite to say anything, but wonder privately what has taken place: "Whatever happened to the old time missionaries who would sacrificially give of themselves for those to whom they were called to live, work, and incarnate the gospel ? "

(EMQ January 2004, Column- A second Look "Changes at Home" Gary Corwin, associate editor of EMQ.)

"A veteran Christian teacher in Beijing has had enough of short- term visitors from her home country. "I used to think I could give them a briefing and orientation that could be helpful," she told a mission agency leader. "Very few ever listened. They all have their own agenda. All they want is instant results." The woman now refuses to meet with such people and does not consider them to really be ministering to China.

(Stan Guthrie, Missions in The Third Millennium, pg 85. 2000, paternoster Press, )

Problem with Cults In China

" In fact, one of the cults, "dongfongshandian" (Lightning from the East), is extremely insidious. Inter- views with church leaders indicate this group has often resorted to a number of tactics. They attend a local church masquerading as a worshiper for a period of time to gather under- standing of the church. They teach biblically sound materials initially to gain the trust of congregational members. They memorize and quote Scriptures more than church leadership to win the respect of church co-workers. In some places, they have stayed hid- den for over 24 months. During this time, they also visit and understand the other local churches and leader- ship. From time to time they will visit homes of members of the congregation and church leadership and leave their thick, well-bounded, doctrinal book. Then, unexpectedly, they spring into action, taking over the whole church and often an entire network of churches.

"Systematic training, properly implemented, is having a dramatic impact in China. In some cases, after the shepherds have been trained, they will go into areas where the local churches have been infected by cults and the congregation will turn and listen to the voice of the "true" shepherd once again."

(Samel Chiang (Partners international) EMQ January 2002, "How to help the church in China Meet the challenges of a new generation.")

Stats on China

Samuel Chiang says the number of Christians in China (the 80 million figure) are exaggerated.

"Many numbers have been reported. From the official number of around 10 million, to an indirectly acknowledged number of 24 million by Dr. George Carey, archbishop of Canterbury, when he visited China and commented that there are now enough Bibles for one in three believers (as reported in local newspapers, September 28, 1994), to furiously revised number of over 33 million by Tony Lambert ( OMF), to some estimates of 63 million and 83 million by Jonathan Chao (CCRC), to some numbers estimated by charismatic groups numbering from 80 to 90 million. My personal conviction is that there are probably, at most, only around 40- odd million evangelical believers."

"There exist tremendous pressures to "under-report" the numbers in the "official, or open, or registered, or Three-Self churches." There is a general fear that if actual growth was reported, the government will look at the local counties with disfavor. In fact, in one private discussion with one official, August 1994, he told this writer with embarrassment that he reported on only 15,000 believers, but in fact there were over 42,000 believers. Why? He indicated that the growth was just too fast from 9,000 (1990) to 42,000 (1994), so they had to inch up the numbers gradually."

(EMQ. "The China Challenge", by Samuel Chiang april 2000)