RCMI Newsletter November 2021

Missionary Work and Church Planting

RCMI's work began with sending Bibles to China, but at the same time we worked at helping local churches develop.

Missionary to Japan, Ruth Pong -- 30 years preaching the gospel in Japan, planting churches

Guangdong Province, China - Pastor & Mrs. Theta Wai, 30 years of mission work in China and 10 years in China planting churches.

Many come to the Lord through big evangelistic meetings, but many of those converts drop out. Evangelists conduct healing meetings, people are powerfully set free, and many believe on the Lord; but often, many of those new believers don't continue on with the Lord. And some churches seem to reach a saturation point where they stop growing. The best way to keep new people is to put them into cell groups which can divide into new groups where members have a position and a sense of belonging. Church planting and new cell groups afford new opportunities, new positions, and new service to members; and the result is they fit into church easily. Church planting following this pattern is the best way to get new people involved in the Kingdom.

Mission is a long-term investment and a long-term commitment. It's not just financial support -- it's investing your life in someone's ministry; it's not just hoping to understand and cooperate with a missionary's work -- it's being willing to pay the price to intercede for them. RCMI works with many churches and mission organizations; our purpose is to shoulder the responsibilities of spiritual war as we work together with churches and missionaries on the field.

Head Pastors of Revival Christian Church visited Pastor Ruth Pong of RCC's daughter church in Japan.

Pastor Theta Wai says the gospel is no longer going out from the rich to the poor, or from the ‘advanced’ to the ‘backward.’

Let no man despise your youth...1 Timothy 4:12

Pastor Ruth Pong's newsletter --

30 Years Preaching the Gospel and Planting the Church in Japan

Greetings of Peace to all Coworkers, our Pastors, and Brothers and Sisters!

I'm thankful to have the opportunity again to share with you recent news from Revival Meeting Place Christian Church in Osaka, Japan.

Our situation has had its ups and down along with the pandemic situation. Sometimes we meet in person and sometimes online. Recently, since August, the whole pandemic situation in Japan has become more and more severe, and for two entire months we’ve only been able to hold Sunday worship online. However, God’s grace and work is not limited by any environment! Now people are usually busy at home, and it’s not easy for unbelieving friends to show up at a Sunday worship meeting, but they can join in online easily; and brothers and sisters, being all the more eager to meet together, are caring for and helping one another even more than before.

At the end of July, a young man, a university student, attended Sunday worship for the first time; and when he came the second time, He decided to believe in the Lord. Even though the meetings were online, he participated with enthusiasm and has never missed a meeting, reading and praying with us every day, joining in prayer meetings and Bible study classes, etc.

We just started having in-person meetings again in October. The brothers and sisters immediately began practicing for our Christmas “Music Share” on the street. We’re praying God will keep the pandemic situation mild so we can do what we did last year -- go out and share on the streets the Gospel of the Master of Christmas, Jesus Christ, Amen!

Finally, I want to take this chance to express my gratitude to God and to all of you as well, for constantly supporting me all these years in so many ways, encouraging me and praying for me. October 7th of this year was the 30th anniversary of my arrival in Japan; and looking back over these 30 years, there have been so many, many experiences -- and God has had a good plan in every situation and showed His grace and His leading. I can only be grateful -- I could never list all the things I have to thank Him for. All I want is to let Him use my life to the fullest, to keep on proclaiming His great love!

‘What shall I render to the Lord for all His benefits for me? I will take up the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the Lord.” Psalm 116:12-13

The Lord’s Servant, Pastor Ruth Pong

Revival Meeting Place Christian Church, Japan

More Than Thirty Years of Mission in China; Ten Years of Service Planting a Church in Guangdong Province, China -- Pastor & Mrs. Theta Wai’s News

Mission and Church Planting

I’ve been serving in China throughout the past ten years, and sometimes I take a little time to think about what God has done. I’ve been in Revival Christian Church for more than 40 years now, and ever since the beginning I’ve had my own place -- and I’ve certainly seen God’s grace. Mission to China was the vision that Pastor Balcombe received through prayer. At first, we just supplied physical things (Bibles and training materials, etc) for the needs of mainland Chinese churches, and I never thought about planting a church. It wasn’t until 2011 that the pastors of RCC decided to establish daughter churches.

During these forty years, China has undergone earth-shaking change, and the way ordinary people live is completely different from before. Even the preaching of the Gospel is no longer from the rich to the poor or from the ‘advanced’ to the ‘backward’; now, wherever there’s a need is where we go, plant, put down roots, and sprout. So in recent years we’ve seen China rising up to preach the Gospel, revival happening in many places, and Chinese missionaries going out to different places and establishing flocks for His Kingdom.

Modern Guangzhou

Usually missionaries don’t try to look at their work based on differences between their own culture and that of the place or people group where they work, but actually they can’t avoid making judgments based on what they were accustomed to where they came from. We need to believe God is a God who will do “A New Thing,” since He makes “a road in the wilderness and streams in the desert” (Isaiah 43:19). Therefore, let’s not evaluate the changes in China based simply on our own perspective! “He who is spiritual judges all things” (1 Cor 2:15). A spiritually-minded person doesn’t evaluate such things based only on history, or on experience, but can also discern God’s purpose in them and understand the new direction that history is taking. For example, when the gentiles were coming to Christ, the apostle Paul went to Jerusalem to meet with all the other apostles and believers to discuss a problem. They settled the issue at hand by requiring believing gentiles to obey four requirements of the Law (Acts 15:20) but didn’t force them to follow the Law’s other requirements.

In today’s world, the gospel can be preached widely everywhere and churches can be established (and that is partly due to Paul’s perseverance in his time). Hong Kong and Guangzhou are geographically not far apart, but people’s thinking and culture in the two locations are different. As soon as we think, “My way is the right way,” it’s very hard to avoid running into a brick wall! My wife and I have both thoughtlessly made such mistakes in the past, which led to many misunderstandings which made everyone tired, including ourselves; but we were fortunate to be able to correct the problems soon afterwards. Some Bible principles cannot be sacrificed; but some habits and viewpoints have nothing to do with salvation, so why not let them go? After ten years of close contact here, we pretty much know ourselves as well as the people we’re here to serve.

Revival Christian Church, Guangzhou, China

In the early years, our church didn’t have much understanding about planting churches; but increasingly, people have seen the construction of a church building as the measure of planting a church. As land is scarce in Hong Kong, it’s not surprising that people have this idea; but in China -- speaking of Guangzhou -- there’s seven times as much land as Hong Kong has. If we should build a church building in a certain place, we would see members coming or leaving all the time unless we could plant our groups in many different places at once.

The pandemic has been very hard, but we see God opening up another way -- people from different places can meet online, even people that are overseas -- so the pandemic has actually been a blessing in disguise. The rise of the internet has made the world a very small place. No one can deny that advances in technology have been a great help to mission work. Our God can use technology, and He knows how to abandon the old in favor of the new; so preachers and pastors indeed need to think twice! Now, worship services can use the internet both conveniently and effectively; but church members absolutely must have fellowship ... and the internet is especially suited for small group sharing for this need. When the original church was just beginning, they couldn’t have Sunday meetings every single week; but they always had small group sharing: “So continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart...” (Acts 2:46). If we invest less in our buildings and more in training small group leaders, so that everyone is shouldering the important responsibilities of the church, we’ll get twice as much done with half the effort.

Continuing Daily With One Accord in the Temple...

Finally...the operation of the church is somewhat different from that of a business organization (but we don’t divide our work like this, between ‘holy’ and ‘secular’). After we’ve been serving for many years, an important question is, Should the church change leadership to give the brothers and sisters some different teaching? After taking a sabbatical year for studying, a pastor will resume his position. Now the world’s ways are changing so fast that it’s very difficult for one leader to meet all the church’s needs; and if he tries, the church will seem old and decrepit after a few years. Paul and Barnabas were leaders of the church in Antioch, but they were able to lay down their leadership positions and go off to do missionary work -- there was a good reason for that! My prayer today is that the church will have new anointing and filling of the Holy Spirit and will be renewed every day as it serves the community.