Ministering to Rich Kids

In my last post, the weather came up a lot, but I just have one last thing to say about it for a while. The last week or so has been BEAUTIFUL! Super clear blue skies for the last 5 or 6 days! It's been great, but it's nice to have a semi-cloudy day today. It's actually really beautiful today. Hopefully it'll rain a little bit later :)

So I came to China for ministry, not just work experience, but I didn't want to talk too much about how that was going until I had a really realistic picture of what it would be like. I feel like I have that a little bit more now. There's a few things to note about ministry in my situation. One, I'm not working with poor and needy individuals. You think Americans have a lot? These kids have more, I can guarantee it. It is no problem at all for kids to get money for whatever they want. Want your kid to go to a mission trip at church? No problem! No fundraising necessary! That's one thing I never expected. I've talked to several people, and the consensus seems to be that the kids here are generally "good kids," but they do have a lot of freedom, which leads me to my second point. Second, they get what they want. Parents here in the expat community are generally pretty permissive parents. Some of them come from cultures where it's no problem to kinda let your kids take care of themselves and trust them to take care of themselves in the streets of a big city. Others simply feel guilty for making their children switch homes as much as they do because of their work, so to ease the guilt, they'll let their kids do a lot of things. So even though all of these kids are REALLY NICE kids, many of them have secret sides to them; thoughts that they wouldn't want anyone to know that they say under their breath or that they wear on their faces or things that they've done that you won't know about until they trust you, which leads me to my third point. Third, many of the kids here trust people very easily, probably because so many have moved so many times, so they're used to building strong friendships very quickly.

That being said, there have already been situations where I've gotten a chance to see the kids' differing views of God. Last week at church, I sat with a very posh little British boy, William. He's a very proper-sounding kid, gets very good grades, is a top athlete, and just sounds wealthy. He said in reaction to something during the lesson in a very cynical tone of voice, "oh, you mean God actually does answer prayers?" and then he scoffed and moved on with life. I talked to him afterwards and he seemed pretty put-out with God, but he wouldn't say why. I look forward to getting to know him more. He likes to answer questions during the lessons, and he sounds great, but it seems like there's something under the surface.

Other kids at youth group on Friday nights are other religions altogether. I really respect the two Mormon boys who come, because I taught this past Friday on how to study the Bible, and they both mentioned things during the lesson where I could tell that they disagreed with something I said. They talked to me afterward about some of the basics of Christianity, and I respected them because they both understood during the lesson, "hey, I really think that there's something different between my view and this teacher's view," so they talked to me about it very openly. They asked explicitly, what's the difference between Protestantism and Mormonism? and I was happy to answer them. They understood that there is a difference between our view of grace, in that they believe that God's grace intervenes "after all that we can do" (2 Nephi 25:23) and we believe that God's grace intervenes while we were still sinners and our good works come into play after God's grace has made the full payment for our eternity. They very respectfully asked me what my thoughts were on what is ok for them to share during Bible study because they knew that their opinions may stir up controversy. I asked them to share whatever they feel like is profitable for sharing, but if there is a fundamental difference in belief, to please still share it, just in private with me after the study rather than with the whole group. They were both just such good gentlemen about it that it made it impossible for that conversation to be confrontational in any way. They want to continue dialogue about it, and I'm very excited to do the same with them! I teach again every Friday except for a few from now on, so I can't wait!

There's also several kids who have graduated, but they're going to university in the UK, which doesn't start until October, so they keep coming to youth group. One of them is a fairly young believer, and he wants to meet to go over some apologetics.

The remainder of them are just very smart kids in very smart schools who are wondering about some very hard things. Homosexuality, God's justice, evolution, and many other hard things are the topics they want to know about, so I'm having to answer those questions. This is where I'd really like to thank The Master's College faculty for going over that stuff with me and all my fellow students. I can't emphasize enough how much being there grew me and gave me a really good understanding on how to answer the questions that they're asking. Thank you to the faculty and the students that I stayed up late with talking about these questions. I answer them almost daily in a Biblical (hopefully!) way.

Even at work in the office, these questions come up. I'll write a post sometime maybe about more of these questions and how we've been dealing with them, but I hope this gives you a better idea of ministry here in China.