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Mission by the people, for the people: Xian. China Part 5

In front of Shanxi Christian Council office there is a park reconstructed on the top of the Tang dynasty city wall. The moderator Rev Wang pointed to the place below and said “This was the Western Gate”. In 635 the Prime Minister Fang travelled from the imperial court to this gate (today about 45 minutes driving) to receive the Patriarch from the Church of the East. The journey to the East reversed the direction of the Silk Road, and the missionary work was the result of two generations of Persian traders who lived in China. This story was recorded on the Nestorian Stele in Xian Stele Forrest Museum.

Theologically the church does not have a mission, but the mission of God calls the church into being. “Missio Dei ≥ Mission ad gentes + Missio inter gentes” – this is the formula that attempts to summarise the first introduction of Christianity to China.

According to the Record of Major Meetings of Tang Dynasty, a royal decree was issued in 638: “The Dao has no perpetual name; the Sage-hood has no unchanging form. Let [the Nestorians] have the access to establish this religion, so that many lives can be brought across [the ocean of suffering]”. In the period of 649-683, the Church grew quickly through interfaith dialogue with Buddhism and Daoism. The inscription says: “The religion was spread over ten administration zones, the country enjoyed prosperity and peace. The [Christian] Temples occupied close to a hundred cities, whilst households were enriched by the blessings of the Luminous [Christian] faith”.

Protestant missionaries came 1200 years after the Persians. Derived from the China Inland Mission in the late 1870’s, today Shanxi Christian Council has a large footprint in the remote west. Its theological education prepares leaders for 5 provinces covering a vast geography along the Silk Road to Xingjiang Autonomous Region. Xian was the capital of 13 dynasties. Most of the old buildings in Xian have various degrees of heritage protection, including some church buildings. The General Secretary shared with us their challenge to reclaim and redevelop church buildings. Contrary to coastal synods, here they were under resourced. A few years ago the synod was offered a free rental for a floor in the office building that the government purchased so the synod could move out of a basement.

The top priority is to equip enough leaders to sustain the growth in the west. Currently the college can only offer a 4-year diploma program, because some students only had middle school education. The synod has three approaches to capacity building: a) upgrade accreditation from diploma to degree, b) expand lay and continue education, c) construct a new college with 350 residents and redevelop the old college into a social service centre. Being a UCA president from the laity, Stuart resonated with their focus to equip the laity, and encouraged the UnitingWorld program to include this province.

The key to resolve the antithesis between mission to the gentiles and mission with gentiles is contextual theology. Xian is culturally diverse and religiously plural. During the Tang period, there was an innate openness to various cultures, even the Nestorian monks were invited by the Foreign Minister to take roles of diplomacy. Mission was done through a two-century long dialogue with Buddhism and Daoist in a Confucian society as a minority.

This non-Christendom context was a common interest between the moderator and the president. In Xian it is the 5000-year written history and the capital of 13 dynasties. In Australia’s Northern Territory it is the 40,000 years old indigenous culture from the land. Although the two cultures have never met, the task of contextual theology is the same: Gospel with Culture. In this light, the Preamble to the UCA Constitution is a contextual theology in the making. Two leaders exchanged the idea to have a joint conference in Xian on Theology and Culture.

The large need to equip the laity was not fully conceptualised until we attended the service on Sunday. The church was built in 1919 by British Baptist Church with a capacity for 500 people. Now it has a membership of 13,000. Because of its heritage overlay, the church built a 3-floor building next to the sanctuary for extra worship space. There were 5 services on Sunday, and we were at the 3^rd of 5 Sunday services. On our arrival, we saw the 2^nd service was overflowing – with people standing near the gate.

Stuart shared with the congregation about the UCA/CCC partnership, and social service training in Shandong. On a number of occasions his speech was either echoed or interrupted by a loud response of “Amen”. The lay preacher gave a well-researched and delivered sermon on child-parents relationships based on OT scriptures of God’s promise over future generations. She was a retired engineer, and this was her third sermon after completing lay education. When the congregation recited the Lord Prayer in one voice, we all felt the Spirit’s presence among the faithful. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they should see God”.

Our big surprise was visiting a church-run HIV clinic. We were shown two videos about the ministry by the laity, a number of elderly people from a small Christian gathering place. They wanted to care for the people suffering from HIV AIDS among migrant workers; they wanted to care for them regardless of their sexual orientation – to be loved by God. The staff showed us a city map marked with places where gay groups and sex workers gathered. The clinic went through a difficult journey to be accepted by the church and the society.

Today this clinic has been licensed by the local government. It is supported by the CCC national office, recognised by the central government, and partly funded by Bill Gates Foundation. They have gathered hundreds of volunteers from nearby universities to engage HIV awareness programs and advocacy for caring migrant workers who have sacrificed their youth for urban development. The powerful ministry of the laity has manifested again in the social margins. The work is not based on doctrinal correctness, but compassion-driven praxis. Sometimes the ministry is a pastoral visit to gay communities, sometimes is to participate in a burial service for the deceased – the unwanted, lost, and forgotten.

When we visited the Nestorian Stele in Xian Stele Forrest Museum, one sentence in the inscription began to speak to us. Between 635 and 781, every year the Christians would gather in four places. “[They] prepared various [charity] works on the Pentecost Day. When the hungry came, they fed them; when the cold came, they clothed them. The sick were treated so [they could] get up; the dead were buried, and so [they were] laid to rest”.

The Mission of God is bigger than mission to the gentiles. In mission with the gentile, the horizon of God’s mission begins to open and brings the common interest of life between the secular and the sacred into focus. It is the Incarnation of God’s life in the world, regardless of the church’s capacity to conceptualise its fullness in theology. On this journey we have seen the work of the Spirit. The Church has been, and is, working hard – to capture the Spirit of life, by which the people of God have been captured.

Church in China – Part 4 Mission of Life

China is an ageing society. Currently 200 million people are over 60 years old, a figure that will double in the next 20 years. Yet half of the elderly are empty nesters – living without children or family – and this is a problem in the Confucian culture where “getting old means being cared for by the young 老有所养”. This has always been a moral code, but it is now not so easy to live out. If the church could look after the elderly, particularly offering care for the dying, then the church’s desire to grow also has a social purpose.

When the UCA delegation arrived about midnight in Jinan, the Moderator and his team were waiting at the station. We were told our operational team, sent ahead to carry out training in Aged Care, had performed exceptionally well. The training had gathered 100 ministers and managers from 85 Aged Care facilities in 22 provinces. The conference room was on the 17^th floor of the biggest non-government publishing company in China. The CEO, Mr Zhang Quan, became a Christian 11 years ago, and he attributed his success to God’s blessings. He has committed himself to Christian business practices and supporting care for the elderly. The company edited the training materials in both languages and printed the papers in a 40-page book.

“End of Life Care” is a special skill to prepare the elderly for life’s good ending. At the training, we realised that UnitingCare has a reservoir of knowledge gained over half a century. Derived from ministry of the laity, the UCA agency has become the largest social service provider in Australia, serving 1 in 8 Australians. Here at Shandong, they put a powerful idea into people’s minds. Dying is not just about death, but also life. To care for the dying is about celebrating life. All skills are built on this ethic and hope.

What then is life beyond death? Death is the end of physical life, but also marks a new beginning in our relationship with God. The hope of passing this life into God’s eternal care is rooted in our faith in Christ’s death and resurrection. It points to homecoming of Christ returning to the eternal life of God. There is nothing outside of this life of God the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. A Christian death can be a powerful witness, calling people to this homecoming – singing the doxology to praise God.

At the end of the training, the Moderator took the stage to thank the UCA team for the extraordinary contribution of the UnitingCare team. He put forward a 3-way partnership: the CCC national leadership, UnitingCare training, and his synod resources and business sponsorship. His vision also included social service as a part of theological education in order to prepare future leadership to be service-ready. The company also committed to continue sponsorship. As all participants received their certificates, two national directors Lin and Rob thanked them.

“Our UnitingCare team have done the training twice, because God’s love has reached many people through your care”. The President Stuart then blessed the participants – “We love neighbours because God loved us first”.

The meeting in Beijing has been a highlight of this trip. The State Administration of Religious Affairs (SARA) is located in the palace where the last Emperor Fu Yi was born. We were given a private tour through the Emperor’s residence. Our meeting room was his office, a 350 year-old timber building in the classic imperial style. Walking through the complex, we also began to understand this ministry within the State Council. The role of SARA is to develop policy based on the constitution of religious freedom and establish regulations for religious activities. In China there are five historical religions: Daoism, Buddhism, Islam, Catholicism, and Protestantism. SARA has its own foreign ministry department responsible for foreign exchanges with religious organisations.

The meeting was a formal diplomatic exchange. The General Director Dr Xiao Hong and the UCA President took the seats in the front, whereas all representatives were seated on two sides. Compared to the first meeting in 2013, this was a relaxed conversation. After two leaders exchanged views of the UCA-CCC partnership, a nurse was invited to share the story of healing through social media WeChat. The director was moved, and she said “I have seen many overseas groups. You are the first group to have put talk into action.”

Dr Andrew Glenn also spoke theological education. He spoke about Prof Lin’s exceptional Cato Lecture at the Assembly, two conferences in China and Australia, and the good progress of the first CCC PhD candidate studying at CTM.

The Vice Minister Mr Jiang hosted a private lunch. He took particular interest in two Chinese speaking nurses and asked about their experience in Australia. He recognised the merit of 3-way partnership: the CCC national leadership, the UCA intellectual property, and the local synod and business sponsorship. He encouraged the UCA to “spread the training to different parts of China”. At the lunch, the President issued his invitation to the minister for a future visit to Australia, with the UCA to organise meetings with Australian government and ecumenical churches. The UnitingCare team presented a quilt made by the elderly – average age 83 – for the elderly in China. The minister instructed the staff to put this unique gift in the VIP room.

A week ago, the operation team came to China and faced a challenge. Now they received recognition from the highest authority in China. More than a single success, they have demonstrated a bottom-up approach to shaping social service. Just before boarding the flight for Xian, another reflection took place. The partnership model in China could answer the challenges in Australia. Facing radical funding cuts from the federal government, UnitingCare could invite business sponsorship; this external contribution would be managed by synod level UnitingCare agencies.

Zhuangzi once opened his philosophy book by telling a story. In his dream, he became a giant bird flying over his village and travelled to a different place. Why does philosophy start with a dream? It is very simple: to free oneself from the weight of assumptions.

UW derived from the church’s mission to the margins, and our Reformed Theology is based on the assumption of mission to gentiles. But this week, we saw a different approach. Mission to the gentiles is accompanied by mission with gentiles. This is not a radical idea; UnitingCare and UnitingWorld have been working with the secular government for receiving funds and delivering services. The theological question, however, is thought provoking. Who can give birth to two seemingly opposite missions?

Thriving Church in China Part 3 – A Meeting of the Minds

“When friends come from afar, how could one not be happy?”

This Confucian saying captures the spirit of the third meeting between two presidents, one from the Australian Uniting Church, the other from the China Christian Council.

Chaired by Gen Sec Rev Kan, a team of 10 people from the CCC shared various ministries. The UCA President opened his conversation by reflecting the concept of Guanxi – relationship from the perspective of Trinitarian life, God’s relationship with the Creation, and Christ’s relationship with us.

“We are here to continue our relationship”, the President said.

For the ancient Chinese, a myriad of things derived from the interplay of two dynamic forces, Yin and Yang. Today the relationship between our two churches is underlined by a sharing – not only of joys, but also challenges – within the universal Body of Christ.

At the meeting three national leaders, Rob Floyd, Lin Hatfield-Dodds, and Andrew Glenn reflected two arms of this relationship: theological education and social service. Since 2010, there have been 7+7 mutual exchanges supported by the UW relational platform. In 2013, we jointly held a historic conference on Theology of Unity. In response to the ageing society we see in both countries, UnitingCare conducted two training conferences for 200 people. These two arms of engagement can be summarised as “unity in theology” and “unity in praxis”.

In 1984 when Bishop K. H. Ting visited WCC in Australia he requested a meeting with the UCA leaders. When he was asked why, he replied: “I have read your Basis of Union. We have a lot to learn from the Uniting Church in Australia about a theology of unity”. Stuart recalled this story in Rev Prof Andrew Dutney’s book. Indeed it has taken 30 years for us to recapture Bishop Ting’s foresight. Within this relationship, there is a core value overlapping two identities, namely God’s reconciliation in Christ Jesus. “Inner virtue enables outer ruling”. Our doing derives from our being.

Travelling to Nanjing was comfortable and quick. The 300km section is a part of 1400km railway built during the Global Financial Crisis. It took 3.5 years to complete and cost trillions of RMB. Although the tickets would never pay for the construction (A$30 to Nanjing), the network is designed to create a “same-city-effect”. It takes about the same time to Nanjing (65mins) as from one side of Shanghai to the other. The railway links an economic zone with a radius of 350km, and tax income pays for further development. China has a 16,000km high-speed railway network, and it will reach 30,000km by 2020.

In Nanjing we visited the Mausoleum of Dr Sun Yatsen(1866-1925). On the gate, there were two characters 博爱 – unbound love. When the last dynasty collapsed under the colonial powers, Dr Sun started the revolution in 1911 to replace the imperial system with a state of Republic. Married to a Methodist, one of three sisters of Song, he combined Christian love with Confucian morality and used the unbound love to heal the wondered nation. His “Three-People Principles 三民主义” – People’s Governance, People Livelihood, People’s Authority – replaced the idea of Son of Heaven, and moved politics from the One to the many. The job of a government is to “Serve Everyone Under Heaven 天下为公”. Forever he rests under the cosmic potency: “The Heaven and the Earth is set upright by Qi 天地正气”.

In the first week of Pentecost we came to Nanjing Union Theological Seminary. After a successful theological conference in 2013, we visited once again to speak about the practical implications of unity. Four speakers took the stage before 200 students. They spoke about their fields of leadership and also formulated four questions for further discussion.

1. The relationship between God and people enables the UCA to journey with the First Peoples. “How do you enable this God-people relationship to flourish in your context?”
2.  The story of UnitingCare is a bottom-up unity from the laity. “How do you identify the painful needs in the society and empower the congregation to respond to the brokenness of this world?”
3.  UCA international relationships derive from an outgoing spirit of unity to form specific relationships with our neighbours in Asia and the Pacific. “If you were a future leader, how do you shape unity in relationship with Asian church neighbours?”
4. The UCA is going through major change and requires ministers to facilitate these shifts. “How do you become a facilitator of spirit filled change in our locations?”

These questions invited students to form discussion groups. After 10 minutes of animated discussion, each group was invited to present their findings. The speakers were very surprised and encouraged by the answers: thoughtful, articulate, and targeted.

This week’s lectionary teaches us a biblical lesson: The Spirit’s renewal = God’s movement + people’s correspondence. Here among the students, it is evident that the Spirit is renewing the church. Where is God in all of these? God is moving in the margins. Missio Dei has called the church into being. We have been invited to participate in, and contribute to, people’s correspondence.

Why do you keep asking me for money?

“My letterbox is full of guide dogs and children in refugee camps and blind people and endangered orangutans and Royal lifesavers (complete with budgie smugglers) and still you keep coming.

 You keep asking me for money.

 Don’t get me wrong. I like your cause. I believe in what you’re doing. But seriously, why so clingy? Why so persistent? There’s only so much a person can take.”

I hear you, people.

In fact, I work for one of those causes you sometimes want to break up with because our never-ending requests for money, like some teenager with an online shopping addiction, are getting you down. You can’t quite bring yourself to cut us off because either you can’t find our phone number or you still believe in us. (I’m hoping it’s the latter.) Please keep believing in us. We want you to know that we really appreciate your gifts, we understand that you can’t always give and we don’t want you to feel guilty when you can’t donate.  

But here’s why we keep asking you for money.

1. We ask because your money is doing amazing things. You’re part of a community who are changing lives.

It’s easy to lose sight of the fact that your financial gift, combined with others, has genuinely saved the lives of thousands of people. I mean, seriously.  You should be quietly pretty chuffed with yourself!  It’s given hope to whole communities, changed the future for children, allowed mothers to hold their babies in their arms when they would otherwise have died. You don’t bear the needs and pains of the world on your shoulders alone, but together with others, you’re helping create a world where that suffering is lifted.    No matter the size of your gift, when you combine with others, it’s powerful. Thank you so much!

2. We ask because the people we work with really, seriously need it.

We are not messing around when we describe to you the needs of the people with whom we work. Compared to the way we live, our partners struggle with challenges impossible for us to comprehend. War. Filthy water. Systemic injustice and corrupt politics. Crushing poverty. Disability without health care. Sometimes, when we spend time in communities, we think to ourselves: if our supporters saw all this – both the grind and the sheer grit of our partners – we would never need to ask for money again. People would simply give. But sadly, it doesn’t work like that. We are not routinely as generous as we think we are and the world is ridiculously unequal. The latest stats show that the world’s 63 richest people own more wealth than 50% of the global population. We ask because if we didn’t, that stat would continue to grow. Even you and I, simply having a roof above our heads, running water in our homes, enough to eat and clothes to wear fall into the top 15% of the world’s wealthiest people.  Most of you know that already.  But some of us need reminding.

3. We ask because “if we don’t ask, we don’t get”.

Boil it right down and if we don’t repeatedly ask you to be generous, we simply don’t get the money we need. So we ask. And we ask again. Each time, our supporters open their hearts and give with a generosity that amazes us. And we are grateful beyond belief. Of course, we know that in continuing to ask, we risk tiring some of our supporters. But we continue to put needs before you because the needs are great, and miraculously, people continue to give. (FYI, all our financials are here.)

Here’s some tips to keep our relationship fresh (because everyone needs hot tips now and then!)

1. We hope you won’t see every request you get in the mail as an attempt to twist your arm for cash. We have no expectation that every person will give every time, but asking reminds those who are able to do what they can. When you can’t give, please use the material to get informed and inspired about the work. Pass it on to someone else or use it to pray for the people we’re writing to you about. We use environmentally friendly, recycled print materials, but we’d love you to recycle too and spread our material around rather than simply throwing it out – leave it in your church, your train station or your dentist’s waiting room!  We don’t send you things you don’t need like bags, pens or stickers, but we hope you’ll use what we do send to stay connected to the people you support in knowledge, prayer and advocacy.  This in itself is a great gift to our partners.

2. If you really prefer not to receive material from us in the mail, give us a quick call or email and let us know. But please stay in touch via email and through our newsletters.

3. Consider becoming a regular giver. This works best for our partners, who know they can rely on steady income instead of repeated requests for fundraising. And it works best for you, because you have the chance to develop some depth of understanding about the project and people you’re supporting. If you like, you can request only to receive material about special appeals and faithfully commit to one project as a Regular Giver.  But remember, receiving our material can also keep you up to date even if you’re not able to give.

4. Think about other ways you can connect with communities who are benefitting so much from your support. You could volunteer or visit them through our InSolidarity trips. We have so much to learn from being part of the lives of others. Giving is a two way street.

Thanks for sticking with us. We hope this honest answer to your question encourages you not to feel guilty about your giving, and explains why we continue to ask. Please know that we take great care with your gifts and appreciate your generosity. Most of all, the people to whom you give appreciate it more than we’ll ever know.

Right now, yes, we have an excellent opportunity for you to give!

When you give to our Community Development Programs, we’re able to make your gift go up to six times as far because it’s matched by Government Funding.  This makes your donation, whatever its size, much more powerful than usual.

Please consider making a gift before June 30 for the most impact.  Donate here. And thank you!