“Lord is Always by My Side”—— Special Report on the Professional Music Mentor of Baoji Shilipu Church

Musical Preacher, Qi Zhen
1/3Musical Preacher, Qi Zhen(photo: Photo Provided to CCD)
Baoji Shilipu Church Chior
2/3Baoji Shilipu Church Chior(photo: Photo Provided to CCD)
Baoji Shilipu Church Chior
3/3Baoji Shilipu Church Chior(photo: Photo Provided to CCD)
By CCD contributor: Zheng ZhikuiOctober 19th, 2016

Qi Zhen was born in a Christian family. His predecessors had a godly life. Not only that, there were the servants of God in each generation. At the end of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in the 70s, at which time the Church started to resume, Qi's grandfather firstly started the rural Church in Jingyang County , Shanxi. In his hazy memory, every Sunday he went to his grandfather's to worship with his mother. The warm words of God made his young heart filled with the incomparable joy of childhood.

But as time went on, the only thing let his grandparents feel disturbed was that there were not enough full-time preacher in the Church! They became older and older, so they wanted his mother who was a junior high school graduation to take over the work of God. Because his mother was occupied by the housework, she did not respond to the call. Finally, there was no one of the mother's generation serving God! It was the biggest regret of my grandfather's family! Then they watched Qi grow up and said to him something in simple words, "Zhen, go to serve God when you're grown up. This is the most blessed. God will protect you!"

At the beginning of 1980, a sensational event happened in Jingyang. The magistrate's 16-year-old sister went crazy for no reason.She used to run in the nude in the street all day long and went pregnant after raped by someone shameless. The magistrate  took his sister traveling around the country to see a doctor which cost a lot of money but didn't cure his sister. The helpless magistrate  said that he would let whoever cured his sister's disease be an official.

Afterward, a brother knew it and took the magistrate's sister to Qi's grandfather's. He requested everybody to pray for the poor girl. Qi's grandfather and all the brothers and sisters prayed for the mad to be healed. A month later, the miracle happened.The magistrate's sister was thoroughly cured, who later got married, gave birth to a child and now lives a happy life. The whole county was impressed by this wonderful witness, which also came as a tremendous shock to young Qi.So  he no longer tried to escape from the call of God, and eventually embarked on the road to serve God full-time.

From then on, as a high school student, he came to Gansu Pingliang Church to do volunteer work with his mother.He and mother worked together as librarians, later they were in charge of a meeting of Shilipu in Pingliang and the coaching of choir vocal. In order to reduce the pressure of his mother and make some more income for many homes, Qi used to go to a nightclub to sing and hand out advertisements on the street. At that time, he had a hard life, but with the company of God, he felt that his life was full of sunshine, and he was very happy. But the successive events happened later put him into the bottom of life.

In April 1995, his mother suddenly fell ill and went to the hospital.He had to stop his three-year life in the university and take care of his seriously ill mother at home.A few months later, his mother's illness did not improve, her cough is more and more serious.In this December, his mother left him forever. On her deathbed, she said to him: "son, no matter how difficult your life would be, you must insist on your faith.Lord is always by your side......" He tearfully buried her and went to church without hesitation.

However, his career as a singer had no market without any customers.Some small Cara OK dance halls tried to hire him with good salaries, but he refused.He knew that he was God's son and he should not go somewhere like that.Then, he ran a flower shop and met his wife.In 1998, his son was born. With a warm family and a cute son, though not rich, he is satisfied.

One year later, their small flower shop closed down and they were in debt. Disasters pile up on one another.Their only house left by his mother was demolished because of the transformation of the city.Their life suddenly fell into despair. One day, of which his memory very clear, it was a raining and blowing morning, his wife said to him: "Let's divorce.I can't stand it." He said, "We have God, and everything will go well later." His wife shouted to him: "God, God, God, just go and live with God!" Later, his wife left him and took their son away. He knew that his son is still too young to stay with him. It has been more than ten years since his wife left him.

After those heavy blows, he was very depressed.Though he still went to church and did service work, his depressed heart was full of contradiction and blame for God.He thought that after all that work he did for God, he should not have suffered from those pains.He did not understand why. Just when he was frustrated, God gave him a good plan.When he was 29 years old, Presbyter Liu Xifeng got in touch with him through Pastor Li Jianguo of Pingliang Church.Presbyter Liu said that he knew Qi has a great gift in music so he invited Qi to coach the choir of Baoji Shilipu Church choir for three months.It might be better to change the sad environment for a different one. So he went for this trip.

He carried his luggage and found Presbyter Liu Xifeng of Shilipu Church.He was warmly welcomed by the brothers and sisters and was provided accommodation.His cold heart began to melt for that.

He got to Church just before the Easter.Without rest, he devoted himself to work.There were more elders in the choir, who had a poor foundation of music features.So he made a great effort on the pronunciation and modified every song in the breathing, resonance, articulation, length, speed, and strength, which made the choir rapidly improve in a short period of time and achieved good results in the Easter sing.It was highly praised by the pastors and congregations. The three months soon flew fast, he had thought that everything would be over.However, Pastor Wang, Presbyter Liu and the brothers and sisters in the choir repeatedly retained him, and he also fell in love with everything here. From that day on, he was hired as a full-time vocal music teacher in the Church and began his professional music service for nearly 14 years. From then on, he is full of passion for work to show his gratitude to the grace of God.

In order to improve the quality of the choir, he gave the brothers and sisters of the choir a more strict vocal training He asked them to do three points.First, everyone needs to learn the staff.Second, everyone needs to memorize the lyrics and stop bringing the song clips onto the stage.Third, everyone needs to comprehend the meaning and sing with emotion. And there must be the interaction of emotion on and under the stage.They need to sing out the "praise" and "beauty"  of the psalm and give the best and most beautiful psalm to God.

Nowadays, a choir he tutored has a good reputation in Shanxi.You reap what you sow. Since 2012, he and the brothers and sisters of the choir have gone to Shanxi Bible school and communicated with the teachers and students for several times.They have participated in many local Church Building singing activities. What is the best-known of this choir is that they went out of Shanxi to participate a national psalm concert in Tianshui and was highly praised. In 2013, three choirs, a Sunday school and a Youth Fellowship,150 people in all, sang "Hallelujah" together.In 2014, during the Meixian Taibai Mountain Tourism Culture Week, the choir successfully held a concert sermon with the Dawn and the choir of  Meixian Church, which was really influential in the local.

At the end of the interview, he said: "During all I experienced,I used to be an ignorant child and grew up from step to step.Now, I have a master's degree from the Renmin University of China and do my favorite full-time church musical work... Although there were tears and pains in the period, but there were more laughter and happiness. At this moment, with all these things, the only thing I want to say is "Thank God".Lord is always by my side!"

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