Merry Christmas!! 聖誕快樂

What a couple of days, well, the event was just one evening, but with prep-work, let’s add a few days to that. On Saturday, December 17, from 5:30-8pm, we had our annual Chinese Christmas Party. Volunteers and folks were arriving between 4 and 5pm, with students arriving around 5:30pm.

After a short introduction to the evening for volunteers we prayed for the event, for us, for all those who would attend, for God’s Spirit to move in all our hearts this evening, and for opportunities to share Christ and Christmas with the attendees.

Onto the FOOD. We had a formal welcome, a prayer, and then encouraged everyone to eat. One of the best parts of this party is that it’s a potluck, all our students, volunteers, and new friends bring dishes to share. So much wonderful food, and authentic handmade stuff from all over the globe. Yum!

We then had our Christmas presentation and carol sing. Our theme this year was “Follow the Star” based on Matthew 2:1-12, the account of the magi following the start to the child Jesus. (CTA puts out great stuff every year for Christmas programs; we’ve used their stuff the last three years.)

The presentation ended explaining more about Christmas and some of the upcoming events at Redeemer that the attendees could join, including the kids’ program and brunch on Sunday morning.

Judy Kornafel did a wonderful job on the keyboard this year. Thank you for doing a fantastic job, and sharing your time and talents with us. She played all sorts of Christmas music while folks were arriving and did an incredible job following the carol leader (me) without specific directions.

Finally on to Christmas crafts and small talk and a more fun and intimate setting to really chat with people, get to know them, and create some pretty cool Christmas cards, stockings, ornaments, and cookies. Thank you so much to everyone helping out with this event. It was wonderful and so are all of you.

Knowing that I and others would be busy, I counted all the chairs beforehand (enough for 98 people) and put out 100 plates. About halfway through eating I walked around and it seemed that every seat was taken, and I had to set-out a few more plates. So my guess is that we had around 100 folks that night (+/-5).

Thank you again, to all who helped in any way with this event. It would not have been possible or a success without you, your time, talents, or treasures. Thank you to all who prayed for this event, too. Please continue to pray for the relationships that were started, renewed, or re-connected. Pray for Christ to shine in our hearts, in our relationships, and to melt away all the obstacles for His light to shine in their lives this Christmas time.

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A Chinese Pastor’s Analysis on Publicizing and Legalization of China’s House Church

Here is a decent article about Churches and Christianity in China. Hope you enjoy it, this is just the first few  paragraphs, a ‘teaser” if you will. Below is a link to the full article.

“With the rapid growth of China’s house church (especially so for the newly emerged city house churches) in recent years, the topic of China’s house church’s legalization and publicizing has been widely discussed among the overseas Chinese churches and religious scholars. Some think that house churches should actively press the government for recognition, while others believe that a more conservative approach would better suit the current situation.”

“How should Christians objectively view the publicizing and legalizing of the house churches in China? Does the Bible support Christians using protests as a means to seek after greater religious freedom? Or should believers be exhorted to yield when oppression appears, obey those in authorities, and silently wait upon God? “

The article is written by Wei Quan, in the Gospel Herald Reporter; Fri, Dec, 02 2011 11:16 AM.

Full article link here.

This article does a really fine job talking about the issue of how to be citizens of this world and in Christ’s (the two kingdoms). If you need a reference to the underground/house church that they mention you can do a quick search of Beijings’ Shouwang Church. Or if you have an online subscription to the WJS then you could read a good article, entitled -China’s Banned Churches Defy Regime (Brian Spegele, 7/28/2011).

At the very least we need to pray for our brothers and sisters in Christ across the world over.

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