This is a blog that a man by the name of Noe Rivera wrote about his time with us ( Y squad) at our 8 month debrief in Beijing, China. We were staying at a hostel and each evening we would get together and have a time of worship. This is his experience. He also got a recording of us. Here it is.
The Underground Church of China: A Worship Experience
The place we were staying at let us use their small upstairs balcony room that overlooked the entire city to hold meetings and worship times. Even though it was freezing outside, the room was so hot with all the 50+ bodies crammed in there, we had to open up all the wall to wall windows to let in the fresh air. We lowered all the windows, and then slowly and quietly…began to sing. To sing a worship song to God. Saying the name of Jesus, louder, and louder, and louder. I’m sure the entire neighborhood of small shops and homes could probably hear the loud voices bolting out from the tall building songs of love, God’s love.
However, for me, It was the first time since I was a kid (embarrassed to sing out loud to Jesus) that my throat, my lips, my mouth actually was hesitant to worship. I could barely whisper out any words.
Why?
Because I became…afraid.
Yes, afraid.
Wondering that if I opened my mouth and sang loudly, that Chinese officials would come running up the stairs to force us to stop singing Jesus’ name, and throw us out of the country, or worse. And I was one of the leaders! I asked myself, “Should I, or we, be doing this?”
Simply put…I FROZE.
Never, NEVER, has this happened to me before in my adult years. So I stood in that room, a leader, but couldn’t even lead my own voice out. I answered the “logical” question in my mind, should we even do this?…the answer, yes! If ‘they’ came, well…okay. Also, we were okay to worship as a group in that hostel. They gave us permission, and we were not putting in danger any Chinese ministry. And we have also had other groups there before doing the same thing. So the only other factor preventing my worship was…my fear.
So I physically turned my body towards the wall, shut out everyone and everything in that room, and put my spirit and mind at rest in the Lord. I prayed that whatever was putting fear in my voice, would not be there anymore. Minute after minute, the faith grew, to sing. And so I started to sing, a little louder, a little bolder. As I increased my voice, increased my faith, I knew I had to make that final decision. I decided, “I don’t care what could happen, I’m going to shout the name of Jesus. I’m going to sing aloud. Enemy, you can’t quiet me. Fear be gone. I will worship and praise MY God! Free, BE FREE, Noe!”
With that internal declaration, I shouted! I joined in and sang with the rest of the room, as loud as I could. Lifted my hands, my voice, and freedom rang in that place.
And what you hear, is this…listen to this video of our “Underground Worship of China”
You won’t see anyone, and you’ll have to turn up your volume. We had little light, and a little phone to record on. But what you get is a symbolic picture of what worship sometimes must look like in this land.
