LCMS World Mission Blog

“For some time now, we have been praying that God would help us connect the people who attend our free English Bible classes with the local church body. Originally, we had our focus on the church staff, especially the evangelist, and hoped she would be more active in the ministry with the Center. God is answering our prayers in a different way than we expected. The church has two new members who have good English skills and who are interested in being active in the ministry. We invited them to our free classes and they have been regular attendees ever since.

Later, we asked them if they would be willing to lead the free English Bible classes and they both agreed. So perhaps what we really needed was simply more lay ministers, rather than adding to the commitments of the church staff.

“We have adjusted other parts of our ministry accordingly and as a result, we have seen more fruit. We have learned that we Americans have limited impact when we share the Gospel and our testimonies with the people of Macau. The local Chinese leader of our second site once said, ‘The Americans are great magnets for drawing people into the church, but the real ministry happens with the local people.’ We suspect many reasons for this. It is common for Chinese people to see Christianity as a Western religion or part of Western culture. We cannot empathize with the challenges they face when abandoning the traditional beliefs of their families. The thinking of a Chinese person is dramatically different from someone raised in America.

“What does this knowledge mean for us and how does it affect the ministry? Well, we have modified the format for our Friday night free English Bible class slightly, with a greater focus on equipping local Christians for teaching and witnessing. Historically, this class is intended to be a bridge to the local church and lead by one of the local

Christians, but heavily supported by the missionaries. The local Christians would prepare for the class on their own and then we would attend the class with them, answer questions, and explain the English and the Scripture. We found that the local leaders were not growing in their ability to lead and continued to rely almost entirely upon the foreign missionaries. For the past few months, one of the missionaries has been meeting with the local leaders before the class to help them prepare and especially to encourage and coach them. This way, the majority of the class is lead by the local leader. They are learning new teaching skills and developing their own unique teaching style. They are getting a deeper understanding of Scripture and are able to answer most of the questions without leaning on the foreign teachers. There is more and more discussion occurring in Chinese rather than English. In these moments, we can stand back and smile as the truth is being exchanged between the local people where the real ministry happens. The attendance has been unaffected and may even be growing.”

• Macau Country Page
• Macau Mission Projects