Today we went to our first church service in China, at a local "3-self church". Without going into too much detail, I'll do my best to describe what the churches are like in China, as well as recap my experience. The 3-self churches are non-denominational churches that are sanctioned by the government. I like the fact that there are no denominations in China... denominations are a Western "invention" and are therefore not found within churches in China. The "3" part of "3-self" stands for the fact that all of these churches have 3 specific requirements in common: they are 1. Self-propagating, 2. Self-funding, and 3. Self-governing. I love this sign that was posted above the door to the sanctuary:
The entire service was in Chinese, so of course I understood very little! It was pretty awesome though to learn that there is no translation for "Amen". At the end of every prayer there was a resounding "Amen"... if you're only going to understand one word in a service, that's a good one! Here's a pic of the first song that we sang:
A few days ago we went on a tour of the Haidian district of Beijing. That happened to be where the church was, and they let us go inside and go on a tour. Here's what it looks like inside this particular 3-self church:
There are 2 other types of churches in China: the rural, underground House Church and the urban House Church. Around 1950 the government in China closed the doors and sought to erradicate religion in China. 30 years later the doors re-opened and noone knew what the state of things would be. Currently, the government says there are about 35 million believers in China (these are the registered believers that attend the 3-self churches.) Other estimates that include the house churches place this number anywhere between 70 and 110 million.
All estimates aside, I do know one thing for sure-- I have never had to get to church 30 minutes early to wait in line in the US.
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