26

The Power of Prison

I left that province and flew to my next destination—another large city and regional capital. It was clear at the outset of my trip that I would need to trust my Chinese contacts (and the Lord) to take care of any and all security precautions wherever I went. I was completely unfamiliar with the culture. I determined that the best way—and perhaps the only way—to avoid making unwitting dangerous blunders would be to trust the people who were helping me. My greatest fear was to unintentionally cause trouble for local believers; I could not bear the thought of persecution that might happen because of my mistakes. Still, it was sometimes a challenge to trust other people.

In light of all that had happened so far in China, I was surprised when my contact in this next city phoned my hotel room and instructed me to join him and a number of his believer friends at a restaurant a few blocks from my tourist hotel. Not once in China, to this point, had I been part of a public gathering. In fact, I had been hidden since my arrival.

After a short walk, I arrived at the appointed place. When I mentioned my name to the greeter at the restaurant, I was immediately led up a nearby set of stairs, down a short hall, to the open double-doors of what was evidently a private dining room. It was already occupied by ten or twelve people. They were standing and casually chatting in two or three clusters.

When I entered the room, I was welcomed by a man who I assumed was my host. He explained that he had planned the evening as my introduction to a small gathering of evangelists and church planters from another regional affiliation of house churches. He asked me to share a little about myself and explain the reasons for my visit. He explained that then there would be time for me to ask questions that I might have for the whole group. And, then, before we left, there would be an opportunity for me to make appointments for individual interviews with anyone willing and able to talk with me. Our time was short, however, because I would be leaving for Beijing in less than forty-eight hours.

His plan sounded fine to me. He ushered me around the room and made individual introductions before we sat down for dinner. One of the younger men in the room, perhaps twenty-five years old, was already anxious to set a time for an individual interview appointment. He and I set a time for later that night.

After we were out of earshot from that young house-church leader, my host leaned toward me and whispered: “He’s going to be someone God can use in a powerful way someday. But you cannot trust what he says now; he hasn’t been to prison yet.” This was an attitude that I would encounter often in China. Personal trust and respect for spiritual maturity were often in direct proportion to the amount of suffering that had been endured for the faith. If someone had not yet experienced personal persecution and suffering, trust was withheld until that happened. What was perhaps most remarkable about that was the underlying assumption that the suffering and persecution would inevitably happen!

Our host spoke a few words of welcome. He thanked everyone for coming and briefly described the agenda for the evening. That led to a twenty-minute discussion about whether or not the group should bless the meal out loud. One middle-aged man insisted strongly that we do so. We all bowed our heads and closed our eyes as he stood, raised his face toward heaven, and lifted his voice a few decibels—as if perhaps he thought that God was a little hard of hearing—and proceeded to preach a blessing.

Two or three sentences into his prayer, I heard some commotion and glanced up to see our waiter disappear into the hall. From the sound of his steps, he picked up the pace to a near-sprint as he made his way down the hall. Moments later, I heard someone rush toward our dining room at a more dignified, yet rapid rate.

Meanwhile, the prayer was continuing. The man who was praying was quite passionate—and it was also clear that he was not finished. Suddenly, the approaching footsteps stopped. I took another quick peek to see a professional man—most certainly the restaurant owner—standing in the open doorway, looking and listening, his face full of surprise and concern. Before we ever neared an ending to the prayer, he closed the double-doors to the hallway, and left behind a guard. Those doors remained closed for the remainder of the evening except when our waiters were coming and going.

For the next thirty minutes, the gathering entered into spirited discussion about whether or not believers should always pray a blessing over their food in private and in public. At this point, I began to fear that this particular house-church movement was on the verge of a split over the blessing of our meal. Finally, my dinner companions turned to me for input. “What did I think?” they wondered.

I asked them if persecution might come because of praying out loud in a public restaurant. I then asked if that kind of resulting persecution would actually be for Jesus’ sake (because of who Jesus is) or if it would be happening simply because of a loud prayer spoken in a public place. They continued a lengthy discussion in Chinese about this, but eventually a sense of peace seemed to settle on the group. The discussion grew less and less heated. I assumed that they had finally agreed on their approach to praying out loud in public over their food.

Unfortunately, they never told me what conclusion they had reached!

After our meal, it was time for me to say a few words to the group about myself. I gave them a brief version of my personal and spiritual journey.

As I always did to orient and establish a little foundational rapport with potential interviewees, I also summarized my experience in Somalia. I talked briefly about the frustration and the questions that I was struggling with. I explained how my experience in Somalia had led me to places like this and why I wanted to meet with them. I was seeking wisdom that would help encourage believers around the world who were dealing with persecution. To illustrate the kind of things that I had already heard and learned thus far on my pilgrimage, I shared a small sampling of the stories that I had gathered.

Then, I gave them each a couple of minutes to sum up their own life story for me. We then opened the floor for questions. I invited them to ask anything that they might want to ask.

We had a very lively and productive exchange. Several specific topics stood out to me.

From the introductions that I had just heard, it seemed that most of the house-church leaders in the room had served at least one three-year prison term for their faith. I had observed the same thing at both of my earlier stops in China. Surprisingly, none of the people who reported on their time in prison seemed particularly resentful about the experience. At the same time, the believers who had not yet been to prison did not seem to be especially fearful about the possibility of someday having to go themselves.

It was clear that these Chinese believers were not seeking persecution. However, their attitude about the likelihood of persecution seemed to be an attitude of calm acceptance. The attitude was not so much “if it comes.” The more common attitude was “when it comes.” I was reminded of what the old Russian pastor had said to me earlier. Here, too, it seemed, that “persecution was like the sun coming up in the east.”

Virtually every believer who I had met in China had either been to prison for the faith—or they knew someone who had. They were personally aware of many of their spiritual brothers and sisters who had endured persecution and had come out of it with deeper spiritual roots, a more mature faith, and a greater appreciation for fellowship with other believers. They had also come out of the experience with a much stronger relationship with the Lord. One of the house-church leaders actually asked me, “Do you know what prison is for us? It is how we get our theological education. Prison in China is for us like seminary is for training church leaders in your country.”

What an insight that was! And it certainly explained a lot about the wisdom that I had seen in Pastor Chang. He had graduated with honors from three of these “seminaries.”

I couldn’t help thinking about my own education and training—and how that compared to what was being described to me now.

Another very interesting discussion happened that evening. As a matter of course, I posed a question that turned out to be an effective discussion starter on many points in my trip. I asked the question this evening: “If I were to visit your home communities and talk with the nonbelieving families, friends, and neighbors of the members of your house churches—and if I would point out your church members and ask, ‘Who are those people? What can you tell me about them?’—what answer would I get?”

Many people started to answer at once. The response that jumped out at me, though, was the answer of a man who told me that his church’s neighbors would probably say, “Those are the people who raise the dead!”

“REALLY!” I blurted out involuntarily.

Several of the men in the room, especially the older men, smiled and nodded.

I was stunned.

Then, as if to validate the claim, people around the table began recounting story after story from their own churches—stories of healings, stories of miraculous answers to prayer, stories of supernatural occurrences, stories that could be explained only by the activity of God. These miraculous events seemed to be milepost markers in their personal faith journeys. These were the happenings that had forever proven God’s power in their minds. These were the stories that had drawn unbelievers into Christ’s Kingdom.

In addition to reminding me of who God really is, these amazing narratives helped me connect a few more dots. What I had just heard in China was additional persuasive evidence in support of what started as a hypothesis in the former USSR. This hypothesis was quickly becoming a conviction:

God seemed to be demonstrating His power on earth today in places like Russia and China. It seemed that He was using the same miraculous and supernatural means that He used in the first-century church of the New Testament.

Believers in persecution were teaching me that. And I realized that I wasn’t yet finished with my learning. I just never imagined how far I still had to go.