Last summer, I had the privilege of visiting a church in Malaysia with several pastors. The visit has benefited us in many ways for the Church of Malaysia's theological ideas, church structures and pastoral ideas are good examples for the Chinese Church to learn from.
Talking about the necessity for the church to cultivate workers for the future and prepare theology students and missionaries, a pastor said, "The important assets of the church are not its possessions and its good facilities, but it is the people who are its workers!"
"The harvest is plentiful; but, the workers are few. Therefore, ask the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into his harvest fields." Both the sheep and crops have a life. The sheep needs care and the crops need harvest. Because the Lord needs coworkers, He pays great attention to them.
If the church does not have workers with whom God is pleased with, all its work will be unacceptable to the Lord. As servants of God, we must have not only spiritual gifts but also spiritual virtues, living out the life of Christ by following Him. As the ancient people told us that "It is important to prepare crops for a year's plan, trees in a decade's plan and people in a century's plan." It shows that the church should have a plan to cultivate people in the long run and prevent the difficulties in raising good workers from happening.
First, the cultivation of workers.
The church we visited is a very influential local church, which grew from having the first dozen of believers to the current thousands of people and having more than ten gathering spots. Its secret to success lies in their cultivating workers.
The church advocates that everyone - including children, teenagers, youth, mid-aged and seniors - attend the Sunday school fitting their age every Sunday to ensure that everyone can be taken care of. Also, its shepherds and coworkers were all raised up from its believers through its annual training class that lasts for 2 months, which the Church encourages every believer to attend.
For those who have visions and burdens for the church and are willing to continue studying, the church will recommend the believer to other or foreign seminary for further study so that they may become its coworkers and leaders.
Why isn't many Chinese churches experiencing revival today? I think the reason is that they do not emphasize the importance of cultivating workers. Many pastors of the church have not done their best in caring for the sheep. It is urgent for the Chinese church to cultivate its workers.
Second, the workers' lives.
There is a saying that the greatest regret of life is that the dead people have not finished using their money. If the Lord Jesus suddenly came back and found the church to be rich, whose money has not been used on the needy places, wouldn't the church disappoint the Lord? Lacking money is not scary. It is scary to accumulate money or use them in improper places. A church has spent up to 300 thousand to 5 million yuan to build its gathering place. Whether a church would revive or not is not determined by how many believers it has, the size of its gathering place or the level of its hardware facilities. The church should use its money in the most needed place.
"Do not muzzle an ox when it is treading out the grain." (1 Corinthians 9:9) "For the worker is worth his keep." (Matthew 10: 10)
Since missionaries labor to preach the word of God, believers should respect and support them, including their material needs. When Paul taught believers that missionaries should be supported by the church, he points out that the Lord's workers deserve a believer's respect and that the church should take care of their needs in life and support them with the right attitude. But today, the church has not paid attention to the Lord's teaching, considering His workers "hired hands" whom it welcomes when it needs and whom it does not care at all at other times. There are many churches giving only transportation allowances to their workers whom they sent to preach the gospel, which has discouraged many and saddened many workers and believers.
However, the church of Malaysia's practice is exactly the opposite of what is done in China. If brothers and sisters are willing to accept theological equipment, it not only exempts them from paying the tuition fees; but, it also supports their material need in life according to their level of education so that they can live, serve and study without worries. Furthermore, the servants of God in the church will be considered as God's noble servants all the time regardless of their age and length of service. The church will provide for them, including their living and medical needs according to its policy so that when they are old, they are still joyful and taken care of.
I think that today's Chinese churches should learn the lesson to see its responsibility for the needs of others, especially regarding its workers. Because of the lack of church supply, many workers are lost and going back to the world to work. Is it not the church's great loss because workers are its treasures?
It is better to live out the word once than preach the word 100 times. "Whoever loves God must also love his brother." (1 John 4: 21) If we cannot love the servants of God who labor all day for the Lord, how can we love the unseen God?
The author is a free missionary in the Church of Xinjiang.
Translated by Alvin Zhou
