Colleague Ron Boyd-MacMillan recounts an interesting experience in China:<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a house church in Beijing I like to take my friends to visit. The members are all young professionals, about twenty of them, and they meet in a huge, darkened, open-plan office at midnight once a week. It\u2019s totally illegal. Some of them are quite high ranking members of the communist party. If their faith is discovered, it would end their careers\u2026or worse.<\/p>\n
At the beginning of each meeting, the leader goes round and asks each member this question \u2013 the most challenging question I\u2019ve ever heard in church: What are your wounds for Christ this week?<\/p>\n
On one occasion I had brought two pastor friends, and the same question\u2014through translation\u2014was put to each of them. They replied, \u201cOh, we are not wounded or persecuted, you see, we live in Britain, where we have religious freedom, and we are so grateful for that!\u201d<\/p>\n
This reply was greeted with uncomprehending silence by the Chinese house church. Then a young woman spoke up, and without a trace of irony asked, \u201cYou mean they don\u2019t let the devil into Britain?\u201d<\/p>\n
The house church leader patiently explained to the visitors the biblical understanding of persecution. \u201cIn the Bible, to be persecuted means to be pursued by the enemies of Christ. When we become a Christian, his enemies become our enemies, and we are pitched into a battle with the world and the devil, and this fight will draw wounds. So it doesn\u2019t matter whether you are in Beijing or Birmingham, the fight is the same, only the degree and type of suffering may differ. You\u2019re going to get pursued\u2026that\u2019s persecution.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut we thought persecution was legal discrimination, or being put into jail for one\u2019s faith\u201d replied the pastors. The house church leader answered, \u201cThat\u2019s the extreme tip of it. Look, we may not sit on the same thorn, but we all sit on the same branch.\u201d<\/p>\n
Still the pastors did not look convinced. Another Chinese member said, \u201cIf you don\u2019t have wounds for Christ, how do you know you are alive in Christ? Wounds bring joy, because then you know you are making a difference.\u201d<\/p>\n
This struck a chord with the visitors. As preachers, they knew that nothing communicates like joy. That\u2019s why persecuted churches are growing churches\u2014they are alive in Christ, and they know it because they have wounds! So find the source of resistance to the gospel in your local area, and when you apply the gospel, watch the fight begin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Colleague Ron Boyd-MacMillan recounts an interesting experience in China: There\u2019s a house church in Beijing I like to take my friends to visit. The members are all young professionals, about twenty of them, and they meet in a huge, darkened, open-plan office at midnight once a week. It\u2019s totally illegal. Some of them are quite […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-quotes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/disciple4.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/disciple4.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/disciple4.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disciple4.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disciple4.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=563"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/disciple4.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1423,"href":"https:\/\/disciple4.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563\/revisions\/1423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/disciple4.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disciple4.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disciple4.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}