Some ministers need the support of the church, while some can provide for the church. Pastor Zhou is the latter kind who has revived a church that was on the verge of shut-down.
"If it weren't for Pastor Zhou, our church might not exist anymore." Speaking of Zhou, a senior church committee member said gratefully. Zhou was not trained in this church, and the fact that she is able to serve in this rural church 80 kilometers away from her hometown is directly related to her experience of studying theology.
As a businesswoman, Zhou started to serve the church as a volunteer. She planned to stay that way before she studied theology. Unexpectedly, a young co-worker in the church who had many gifts was suddenly diagnosed with cancer. Although Zhou prayed with the confidence that God would surely heal him, that brother passed away. Zhou did not blame God, she felt that there must be a problem with her belief and cognition, so she decided to study theology. At this point, she was still planning to serve as a volunteer after graduating from seminary while running a business.
After handing over the business to her husband, Zhou, who was in her 30s, embarked on the road to study. The road was full of obstacles. "There was not a day that I did not live by prayer."
Because her husband was not good at management, the family business continued to lose money and eventually had to be shut down. In the end, her husband went to work in a factory. The first year passed relatively smoothly.
When the second year was about to start, she received the bad news that her husband had suffered a serious accident in the factory and was being treated in the hospital. Panicked, she even forgot how to pray, and hurriedly asked the brothers and sisters of the church and seminary to help with intercession, and she immediately rushed to the hospital. After taking nearly a year off to care for her husband, she faced an even bigger dilemma: Should she continue to study theology? With the support of families (some supporting her children for school, while others helping to care for her husband and children), she continued her education path. At this point, her attitude toward service changed, and she planned to serve full-time in the future. "I can't continue to serve as a volunteer after paying such a big price."
While studying theology hard at the seminary, she developed the habit of prayer out of concern for her family and other reasons. There is a cemetery in the back hill of the school, where few students go. It is very quiet, and it is a place where Zhou often prays. This habit played a very important role in her later full-time ministry in the church.
Near graduation, Zhou, as a class monitor, received offers from several churches, many of them in big cities. Among these churches, a township church with only 20 or 30 people became the object of her concern. When she was first invited to preach in this church, before she stepped off the stage, a senior sister took her hand and said, "Please come to our church and serve, and sign a contract with us!" She declined, citing the fact that she had not yet graduated.
In prayer about where she would serve after graduation, she saw two visions: a dilapidated house with a wall that was still strong, and a water heater with a tube so thick she had never seen that could bathe a lot of people (but it needed a lot of heat). These two visions made her understand that this town church was God's calling to her, and she obediently came here.
The church promised to pay Zhou 1,000 yuan a month. In fact, this church was two or three hundred thousand yuan in debt. Financial hardship was not the biggest problem faced by Zhou, but fierce strife in the church was. When the senior in charge of the church left office, to compete for the position of the senior in charge of the church, the church formed two or three factions that fought with each other, and when the fight was fierce, they fought in the church with chairs.
After Zhou came in, they formed a unified camp and worked together to exclude her. When Zhou was preaching, someone dared to go on stage and throw her Bible away. Zhou lived alone in the church, and at night they deliberately made noises to frighten her. They even threw Zhou's quilt outside the house. Faced with these circumstances, Zhou was overwhelmed, so she lived in the house of a senior church committee member.
Looking back at the difficult time, Zhou said she had thought of giving up. The pastor who led her previously also recommended another church for her. "What will the church do with you gone, what will the believers here do with you?" The words of the senior church committee member who had always supported her, coupled with her concern for the believers, led Sister Zhou to finally choose to stay.
How to turn this difficult situation around? She organized the morning prayer in the church and prayed for the development of the church with several believers who were willing to participate. More than two hours of prayer every day was fleeting in Zhou's view, "because there are too many things to pray for". Since then, morning prayer has become a regular part of the church's ministry, which is still the routine of this church.
At the same time, she clutched the pulpits of the church and led believers to the truth through the Sunday sermon. Zhou believes that the service on the altar is very important. While having a clear order and rich theological knowledge, she puts "life" in the first place of the message of the altar, that is, the preacher must pass on spiritual life, not just knowledge. In addition, she also paid attention to the work of visiting believers who had lost faith in the church because of church disputes, so as to find some lost believers.
While Zhou worked hard to serve, several things also contributed to the stability of the church. One of the co-workers who tried to divide the church, the one who had thrown Sister Zhou's Bible from the pulpit, was killed in a car accident. There were several people in that car, and she was the only one who died. After this incident, the people who had gone to the church to make trouble were much quieter. Another group of rioters was arrested for carving the official seal of the church, and later they were quiet too. The Church can at last move forward with one heart.
The church's meeting place was already very dilapidated and rated as dangerous, so the church needed a new meeting place. At first, the church planned to rebuild on the site, and the relevant religious administration agreed. However, because of the church's bad influence during the dispute, the villagers near the church resolutely refused to allow the church to be rebuilt on the site. So the church had to seek help from the religious administration, and after a period of renting venues for meetings, the church finally had a fixed two-story meeting place, as well as supporting rooms for pastors to live in.
After the church got on the right track of development, the number of believers gradually increased, from 20 or 30 people at the beginning, to 200 or 300 people attending the Sunday service every day. Even after three years of the pandemic, the number of people in their church did not decrease but increased. A local Three-Self Patriotic Movement Committee was set up to manage nearly 20 meeting places throughout the region, ensuring that each could hold Holy Communion once a month. Those who were involved in the earlier conflicts took different paths—some left the church, some returned, and others came under the administration of the local Three-Self Patriotic Movement Committee in the form of gathering points.
Looking at the current situation of the church, Zhou said with gratitude that the brothers and sisters in the church are like a family. When a believer's family is in trouble, many believers will actively reach out to help. When the husband of a young fellow worker in the church passed away suddenly due to illness, the church raised money for that sister and collected a considerable amount in a short time. Other believers took the initiative to say that if this sister needs anything, just call out.
Their church's Christmas activities also have a family-like atmosphere. On stage, the faithful enthusiastically performed the unprofessional, rural program, with occasional glitches, but the audience watched with relish, smiling at times and often applause. At noon, everyone gathered together in the church courtyard, sitting around the tables to enjoy the Christmas love dinner.
Zhou has been serving alone in this village church for more than 10 years. Although she is less than 100 kilometers away from home, she only comes home a few times a year, and her husband and children sometimes come to visit her. Although her husband suffered a major accident at work, he recovered well enough to take care of the grandchildren at home and cook meals for the family gathering. Zhou's two children have good jobs and have believed in Jesus. Her son-in-law once expressed the desire to give up work to study theology.
Zhou's biggest wish now is to find a suitable successor for the church, so that she can safely return home to enjoy the happiness of a family union. The church's current conditions are far better than when Zhou came. The church can provide good conditions for preachers. In addition to salary, the social security of full-time workers is also being paid. For the quality of the successor, what she values the most is to be willing to bear the "cross".
"As long as there is a spirit of hard work, as long as you are willing to serve, you’re fine for the job and other capabilities can be cultivated. Without this spirit, even a wealth of theological knowledge would not work well."
- Translated by Nicolas Cao
