Posted on 04/17/2005 7:17:37 AM PDT by sionnsar
TAWAU, SABAH (4/17/2005)--I am woken by the sad wail of an imam at a nearby mosque. I look at my watch. It is 4.45am on a hot, humid Saturday, and the first of five calls to prayer that I will hear that day, though mercifully I will be out of town visiting Anglican parishes in the area when some of the calls are sounded.
A tall single spire with speakers at the top of it is clearly visible for miles around and the gold shaped crescent at the top of a green-colored dome has a loud speaker placed in it that increases the volume all over the city, so I am told by a Christian worker at St. Patrick's Anglican Church, whose compound I am staying in. The church and the Mosque are within a stone's throw of each other.
Archdeacon Albert Vun, Tawau's leading Anglican cleric and one of four possible successors to Archbishop Yong Ping Chung when he retires, has placed me in a flat (apartment) in St. Patrick's compound. It is on the second floor and commands a view of the nearby city. He himself is in Thailand working on establishing an Anglican presence there.
The Christians here have grown used to the sounds from the Mosque. They are undeterred. On Sunday morning when I awake the Mosque and the wail is silent. It is the Christians turn.
From my second floor flat I can hear songs of praise fill the morning air as more than a thousand young Chinese men and women lift their voices in praise and prayer at the House of Prayer for All Nations - a huge auditorium like structure that is separate from the Church and can seat as many as 2,500 for special conferences. The compound which stretches over several acres is rich in palms, trees and flowers, the buildings are kept in immaculate condition.
There will be six services today conducted in Hakka, a Chinese dialect, later a bilingual service in St. Patrick's church, an English service, a Bahasa Malay service, a language which is also used in neighboring Indonesia, a Mandarin service and a Bahasa Malay stand alone service. I will attend them all.
The Hakka service is underway as I step into the cavernous auditorium. The place is packed with some 1,500 souls. The Hakka dialect is close to Mandarin so I am told and the service is a joyful, alive occasion to both observe and celebrate. As I pass into the auditorium I am escorted like some sort of celebrity up to the front where I shake hands with two senior priests and the young Rev. David Wong who is multi-lingual, Western trained and clearly in charge. The 1,500 people are being led by a woman pastor in joyful praise with a 20-piece band in attendance. (Note. Women pastors are not ordained to the priesthood. They perform all functions within the church except Eucharistically.)
A choir of 50 is on stage as the woman leads worship and some 20 demurely dressed dancers in long white dresses with red sashes sway and move to the rhythms of the music. It is colorful and alive. The people sing and spontaneous fervent prayer breaks out across the large congregation which by now has reached overflow proportions. This goes on for at least an hour before the preaching begins. We stand the whole time. We only sit for the preaching.
The text is Gen 3:1-24 followed by Heb.11: 5-6 and it is about faith built on revelation and understanding revelation rightly. Faith we are told is built on intimacy and the life of Enoch is evoked. We are told to walk regularly (daily) with God. The preaching is straight biblical, strong and powerful. No words are nuanced or minced. We are called to repent, have faith, act, live out our faith and if God calls you to do something for Him, do it without question and without hesitation, even it means laying down one's life.
When it is over I am introduced and asked to say a few words. I thank them for their hospitality, explain that I am here in SE Asia at the request of their archbishop, explain briefly what is going on globally and share briefly the crisis in the Episcopal Church. They are shocked about the whole homosexual piece. It is totally off their radar screen. I don't dwell on it, but they are smart and get the picture very quickly. I talk about my website and they are all smiles. Most of them are Internet savvy. I know I will have a few thousand more readers before the day is out.
There is no communion today. This is a Morning Prayer service. The place is packed.
I attend the bilingual service at St. Patrick's where another 500 show up and then it is back to the House of Prayer auditorium where more than 1,500 Bahasa Malays are hearing the same service and sermon in their language. They are mostly from Indonesian descent.
Nearly 4,000 Asian Christians including upwards of 500 children passed through the compound of St. Patrick's today and they heard an uncompromising message of salvation.
When I asked what the secret of their church growth was they told me that they had initiated the "cell group" concept in 1992 from Singapore and the Faith Community Baptist Church and the Rev. Lawrence Kong. "We moved from program-based ministries and integrated them into cell groups. Today we have nearly 250. All the church's ministries center on cell groups; adult, youth, children and senior citizen's," said Philip Lo, the church's Missions Director. "The Cell church concept is very much a lay ministry while the senior pastor and other pastors concentrate on teaching, training and the "equipping of the saints". As a result we have seen a great increase in the number of highly trained, capable lay leaders come up in the church. Evangelism, nurture, visitation and pastoral care are mobilized through the cell groups, with the cell leaders being the actual pastors of the groups."
Here leaders are raised up to lead a dozen or so persons. Sunday worship services are celebration gatherings of the whole church, with the main teaching carried out in the preaching services. Other ministries include the Student Touch Center, visitation, counseling, healing Old Folks' ministries, St. Patrick's Playschool and Daycare center, Taman Semarak Touch Center and the resource Center.
Over the last three years, numerous new congregations have been planted, in both Bahasa Malay and Chinese. I was privileged to be taken into the interior and visit two of the congregations; St. Augustine at Merotai and Good Tidings Church at Taman Semarak. The church's mission drive is awesome. They have planted churches in Kuala Lumpur, Indonesia, and working on a mission to Thailand, while not neglecting their Jerusalem.
The previous day I was driven out of Kota Kinabalu to Keningau by the Rev. James Lee to his parish in the interior in a somewhat harrowing 3-hour drive over a winding mountain arriving in time for a Bible study group in a private home, conducted by a lady who had been a Christian leader for more than 21 years. A local taxi took me back to Kota Kinabalu the next day and a short flight took me to the eastern shore of Malaysia and the city of Tawau.
The evangelistic zeal of the largely Chinese driven church cannot be underestimated. There is real spiritual power here. Spiritual warfare is taken seriously as many Indonesians and Chinese come from demonic backgrounds where spiritual bondage has held these people in sway for centuries. They are riddled with family gods and a history of spiritual practices that needs to be brought to the light and exorcized. They believe the gospel has enormous power to change peoples' lives and to free them from spiritual darkness. I saw it in their faces, many of whom had been liberated from years of spiritual despair.
The commitment of the church's members is staggering in its proportions. Every member is committed to tithing ten percent of their pre tax income; commit to praying for one hour a day; commit to reading through the Bible in a year, commit to Sunday worship, and attend a cell group weekly.
Education plays a big part in the life of the Christian community here. St. Patrick's Church has a kindergarten, primary school, secondary school, a play school, a nursery and a day care. They have also started a private Christian school as their former schools were taken over by the Government.
Later some of the senior Chinese leaders take me out to lunch. They want to know more about why the Western Episcopal/Anglican Church has tossed in the towel over the gospel. They find it incomprehensible and wonder what sort of gospel we do have. I try to explain, but "inclusion" is lost on them. "We don't include sin, murmured one, we expel it." Now they ask me why anyone would want to stay in The Episcopal Church if it is has no Good News to offer people. I try to explain but I run out of steam trying to defend an institution where one of its bishops this past week inhibited and deposed six godly priests in the Diocese of Connecticut. For the first time I find myself at a loss for words.
I do tell them that the Nigerian Primate, Peter Akinola is sending priests and a possible bishop to the U.S. to rescue Nigerian Anglicans who cannot worship in a morally and spiritually bankrupt Episcopal Church, and that perhaps the Anglican Church in Southeast Asia ought to think about doing the same. They smile their inscrutable smiles and nod their heads. I have hit a home run.
Traditional Anglican ping, continued in memory of its founder Arlin Adams. Good news bump.
Definitely. A word to those who think Anglicanism is near death.
The South East Asian Province is one of the most biblical Anglican organizations in the world, though I think Nigerian and Ugandan are on a par with it while Hong Kong is not too far behind.
One thing I have noticed is how simple and evangelical-oriented South East Asian Anglican is, even when compared with slightly "higher" Hong Kong church. For instance, we use their Book of Common Prayer for Chinese-language Anglican service here in NZ since it is bilingual and it has far fewer liturgies than the BCP produced by the Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui (SKH, or Anglican church).
Although I know one of our old pastors (originally a Hakka Chinese from Malaysia, he is now with the Lord) warned that the Province is very much into the Charismatic movements and sometimes they have stepped out of the boundary.
Now I wonder... several years ago I was visiting Shenzhen (I got all of one evening in Hong Kong before my early-morning flight out). We had Sunday free so my host took me on a tour. When we visited his place he pointed to a cross on the wall, and said his wife was a Christian. What churches are active there, I wonder?
If you look Asian be careful whenever you buy something or have some tourism services when in Shenzhen. Horror tales abound about the variety and depth of scams - they make Enron or old school robber baron look like Billy Graham. ;-)
Seriously, I think your acquisence's wife could be from one of the "Three Self" churches. It is the officially sanctioned church under the umbrella of the Protestant Church of China under the umbrella he Christian Council of China that was formed by the Communists after merging all pre-1949 denominations in China like the Chung Hwa Sheng Kung Hui (Chinese Anglican Church), Church of Christ in China (a merger of Presbyterian, Reformed, Congregational, and London Missionary Society churches, and no relation to the Campbellite church), Methodist church of China, Lutheran, Roman Catholic (Catholic Patriotic Association). Alternatively she could be from a house church (independent church) but her husband could be risking his life if he shows you this under this condition.
The Three-Self churches are likely to be monolithicly Presbyterian/Reformed liturgical - I imagine they would all have shed the distinctive church government by now as the Anglican, CofC, Lutheran, etc organizations are now already abolished by Communists. Theologically I imagine a standard dose of liberal theology - the Chinese Communists allow pastors to undergo training in the West, provided they go to "safe" places like Tubingen and certainly not the likes of Moody or Dallas Theological Seminary. But from first hand account they have started to openly defy official atheism and many do preach the full gospel. House church is simply evangelical or charismatic - imagine a cell church movement coupled with James Dobson morality.
Ironically, most of the churches in Hong Kong are remnants of these pre-1949 Chinese churches. Hong Kong still uses the pre-1949 CHSKH Book of Common Prayer, and indeed even its constitution up until 1998 when Hong Kong formed its own Province ( http://www.hkskh.org ). Likewise, the only remaining part of Church of Christ in China is in Hong Kong after HK was "kicked" out of the Chinese denomination already under Communist control. It still calls itself as the Hong Kong Council of the Church of Christ in China today ( http://www.hkcccc.org ). Same with the Methodist church as well ( http://www.methodist.org.hk ).
<< Archdeacon Albert Vun, Tawau's leading Anglican cleric and one of four possible successors to Archbishop Yong Ping Chung when he retires, ..... is in Thailand working on establishing an Anglican presence there. >>
"Establishing?"
That's pretty strange as, a part of the Diocese of Singapore, we've been here for more than a hundred and fifty years -- and are still going strong!
Good News, indeed.
[And our Bishop, John Chew and his crew -- and our many many field missionaries -- believe there are already more than 200-million Chinese Christians -- and going even stronger!! (No wonder the rumblings of dissent and movements toward FReedom are increasing there!)]
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http://www.christchurchbangkok.org
WELCOME TO CHRIST CHURCH BANGKOK
Christ Church, a church "for all Protestant Christians," is a member Church of the Anglican Church of Thailand within the Anglican Diocese of Singapore.
The English speaking congregation has been meeting in Bangkok since 1865 and here at Christ Church since 30 April 1905.
Anyone may attend the services of Public Worship.
Communicant members of other Christian denominations are welcome to participate in Holy Communion.
If you are a Christian living in Bangkok, we invite you to become a member of Christ Church. We do not ask you to terminate your membership of your Church elsewhere to do this.
Ministry Opportunity:
Christ Church Bangkok is seeking to expand its ministry team by appointing an Assistant Minister in the English-speaking congregations.
Further information on request
Applications to Andrew Dircks, Vicar, by May 1 2005
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BUMPping
If you look Asian be careful whenever you buy something or have some tourism services when in Shenzhen.
This American of Scottish extraction is definitely not Asian in appearance! (The biggest problem I had was everyone who wanted a photo taken with "The Christmas Man.") But I've heard that Shenzhen has also changed much since my visit. In Beijing my hosts would not permit me to leave the hotel without an escort, but in Shenzhen it was "you're safe here, have fun" -- at least for one evening.
Lucky you! Because you look white there is much less hassle when in Shenzhen. One of my Dad's friend told us a scam that ran like this: when you discover a pile of money on the ground, don't stare at that and go away as soon as you can! Someone attempted to pick it up and a police officer immediately came up and arrested him with suspected stealing. Of course it turned out it was a trap set up by that officer to extort money from unsuspecting Hong Kong Chinese - when you follow him to the police station he will explain he could release you without any formal charging provided you give him and his colleagues 400 Yuan each.
And when you stay at a hotel, always remember not to answer any knocks and phone calls from call girls. It turns out there is yet another scam in which police would frame unsuspecting guests of "receiving prostitutes" and this is yet again another means to extort money. And it is not unusual to find yourself woken up at 3 am in the morning by police officers at your bedside and asked to show your ID (another anti-prostitution operation, or should I say yet another extortion?). This is the side of China that Westerners will never experience.
Ugh. Thanks for the information.
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