8 Lessons We Can Learn from the Church in China
6th Lesson: Genuine Fellowship
Tract by Asia Outreach
The original word, ‘fellowship,’ is ‘koinonia.’ I understand it is a very descriptive word. It has a meaning of opening up your life and letting your blood flow into another person’s body, and letting his blood flow into yours. This inter-flow of life is ‘koinonia.’ The western world perhaps sees ‘fellowship’ as ‘fellows in the same ship.’ That’s good but I don’t think that is deep enough.
How do Chinese Christians fellowship? Particularly when they are put through trials and tests?
Pastor Chen is now an associate worker of Asia Outreach. He helps produce Gospel radio broadcasts for China.
Brother Chen has been an itinerant evangelist working in central China for almost 30 years, 18 of which were spent in different hard labor camps.
“I considered being transferred from one camp to another as a change of mission field,” he once told me. “And the most wonderful thing was I could always be sure of beautiful Christian fellowship no matter which camp I was sent to.”
Pastor Chen told us that in 1959-62, he was imprisoned in a hard labor camp in Anhui province. It was during the so-called Natural Disaster Years. The whole of China was suffering a devastating famine which was primarily due to the disastrous result of communization, compounded with drought. Millions were starved to death. In his labor camp, everything was severely rationed. They had one meal a day and that was very meager.
“I remember our feast. It was Chinese New Year’s Eve, and everyone of us was given an egg. One egg a year – that was celebration, our feast of the New Year. The camp mates would hard-boil their eggs and eat the whole thing, of course. And they would crush shell into powder and drink it with water. Everyone was desperate.”
What about the Christians? Pastor Chen told us that instead of eating that once-a-year feast, they gathered their eggs and took them to the brothers who were sick and weak. “We would urge them to eat the eggs because they needed more nourishment. We wanted them to get well and strong.” Now that is fellowship. It is by this kind of love that the world could know that they were Christians.
As a matter of fact, when Pastor Chen was finally released from the labor camp, the Chief and the Deputy Chief, both of them hard-core atheistic Communists, came to the station to send him off. In front of each other, they confessed, “After observing you Christians for years, we are both convinced that your Jesus is real.”
When Pastor Chen told me this, I couldn’t help but be reminded of the Roman guard who stood underneath the cross watching Jesus suffer. He not only saw what Jesus suffered – the pain, the agony, the humiliation – he also witnessed how Jesus suffered. The way Jesus prayed must have had a shocking effect on him – “Father, forgive them, they do not know what they are doing.” Finally, this tough guard had to confess, “This man is truly the Son of the Living God.” (Matt. 27:54)
The way the Christians fellowshiped in China must have created an impact on all walks of life. I have heard testimonies of government officials, professors, factory workers, and most of all, young people, who tell about their confession of Christ because they saw how Christians relate to one another, even in most desperate situations. Genuine Christian fellowship is beautiful. It is a powerful witness.
What is the level of our fellowship with each other? Are we willing to really open our lives, and to let our lives flow out to others?
Thank you for sharing this testimony and your comments. Such an incredible story. Great encouragement to me, giving the right perspective of what being the true follower of Jesus really means.