Food for Thought as we Search for a Facility

I recently read a book called The Heavenly Man. It’s the story of a Chinese Christian man named Brother Yun and the Chinese house church movement. At one point in his life, Brother Yun felt a calling to begin a training center for the next generations of leaders, so they started the “Prophet Samuel Training Center.” The first class had thirty students and was “held inside a cave on top of a mountain” (220). If memory serves me right, they not only studied in that cave but they lived together in that cave for the duration of their training.

What struck me most about this is that the Chinese house churches are more concerned with accomplishing the mission that the Lord has set before them than they are with their own comfort. They are willing to suffer whatever indignities they must and whatever pain they must to spread the gospel throughout their land and the uttermost parts of the world.

It seems to be the opposite in America: we’ll set our hearts toward mission once we have a comfortable place from which to do so.

Oh how I pray that this kind of spirit and attitude will come over the American church! How I pray that we will learn to suffer indignities and pain and torture and even death for the sake of the gospel. How I pray that we will learn to think less of our comforts and more of the glory of God in the salvation of the lost. How I pray that we will learn to be like Jesus, letting go of what is within our grasp—world-class comfort—and becoming obedient all the way to death on a cross that others might hear about and believe in so wonderful a God and Savior as Jesus Christ.

Longing for change with you,
Pastor Charlie