Last Sunday, the modern-style Yong’en Church in Shanghai held the first Sunday service after renovation.
As the youngest church in the Pudong District completed in 2018, the the church “is characterized by a longitudinal composition that adapts to the site's geometry, which is conditioned by the proximity of metropolitan railway infrastructures,” according to Arquitectura Viva.
Covering an area of 2,837 square meters, the church is connected with two buildings in the north and south. The two-story church building in the north can accommodate 600 people in the main chapel and the “exterior stairs lead to a roof garden that gives views over a linear park and the Huangpu River.” Including a four-story southern office building with a bell tower on top, the construction expense was around 25 million yuan.
It is worth mentioning that the church was designed by the Madrid firm of Iñaki Ábalos and Renata Sentkiewicz which won the 2019 FAD International Award.
The first Sunday service in 2024 began with a prayer offered by Elder Yu Changqing, a full-time worker of the church: “We give thanks to the Lord for the new church in the New Bund [or Qiantan, a newly built international business zone in Pudong].” Sitting in the front, the choir presented the hymn “I Surrender All.”
Pastor Xu Lei, the head of the church, gave a sermon titled “The Body of Christ May Be Built up” based on Ephesians 4:11-16 to share about the essence of a church. Saying that some returnee Christians asked him what denomination the church belongs to and what kind of theology it has, Pastor Xu would tell them that we are the church of Christ and united in the Lord, as the Chinese church always emphasizes unity and united worship.
“We still see various disputes and mutual conflicts inside the ecumenical Protestant community, causing the church to become very fragmented, and even leading to a complete cessation of interactions.” The pastor said, “The essence of the church is the place where we worship God, witness the Lord’s grace, share it with others, and where everyone experiences the presence of the Lord and grows in their life.”
He continued to say that a church is a group of people who gather in the name of the Lord and carryies out different kinds of services. “A church is appointed with a different task and everyone carries a different mission. But we gather only for one purpose—‘the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith.’” He said, “The church’s greatest distinction from a social group is that there is no affiliation. Most of us are volunteers without affiliation and we gather here because of Jesus Christ.”
However, a keyword in the passage stands out: “unity in the knowledge of the son of God.” The pastor claimed that church members should be built up until reaching unity and this will be a process. “The church is on a journey. Our life is on the road… It reminds me of a teaching from Bishop K.H. Ting: we cannot achieve tomorrow's results today. It exhorts us not to walk before God’s step. Faith and our life journey are both processes. ”
“And the truth is not about theological arguments, but the Lord Jesus Christ.” He continued, “We should not judge people in the church by their eloquence or preaching or judge the choir by their singing skills, instead, we care about whether our Lord Jesus Christ is present within us.”
Pastor Xu also highlighted that the church should abide by the Head, which is Christ. He shared a story about a sister who wished that in heaven she could have all the perfume she could not afford on earth, spray it on her wings, and fly everywhere. But “the Bible tells us that heaven is the place to worship God,” he stressed. “Have you ever imagined that our worship in God’s kingdom is essentially rooted in the Head, who is Jesus Christ?”
Before the Sunday service, he exhorted the choir to release their pressure and offer their best to the Lord. “It doesn’t mean that we have to be perfect in our skills, but we offer our best in spirit and in truth.”
He further stated that it was good to know God from different perspectives, but unity and wholeness were better. Christians should carry out the ministry of reconciliation and practice the truth, he added.
“Another great mission of our church is that everyone builds themselves up in love.” The pastor said, “Everyone has a different character, as our choir members differ in tone. Only when we cooperate together and listen to each other can we sing the same voice and the same beautiful sound.”
After the sermon, the church announced that the weekly prayer meeting and Bible study would be suspended during the summer due to high temperatures. Volunteers aged between 18 and 65 are needed for ministries.
According to CCC&TSPM, Yong’en Church, under the vision of “holding out the word of life” (Philippians 2:16), “bears the mission of exploring the standardized management of Christianity in Pudong, promoting the sinicization of Christianity in Pudong, serving society, and cultivating church talent.”
