# worship in China



## Scott (Nov 10, 2005)

Does anyone know anything about how the house churches in China worship?


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## Jie-Huli (Nov 11, 2005)

It is a very mixed picture. If you asked about how the churches in the West worshipped, imagine all the different answers you could get. Well, the house churches in China have "worship" styles across the entire spectrum as well.

Some sing traditional-style hymns, mostly translated from English.
There are a few that sing only the psalms.

These days, though, many of the house churches are unfortunately influenced quite a bit by the "contemporary worship" movement, singing modern praise and worship refrains either translated from English or imported from "Christian pop" groups in Taiwan.

One unique feature of many Chinese house churches is the use of a book called "Songs of Canaan", which contains hundreds of songs written by one young Chinese woman. When you hear about this woman, people often emphasize that she had no previous music training or high educational levels, and often seem to imply that she was specially inspired to write these songs. The content of the songs is fairly simple, and the style is generally more of a traditional style Chinese sound, although some of them do veer towards modern flavours. Unfortunately, I do not believe some of the content is very sound, nor should churches be singing songs written by women. But this songbook is used very widely, including among some relatively conservative churches.


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## Puritan Sailor (Nov 11, 2005)

Jie-Huli,
How would you desribe the music styles predominant in the Chinese church? Even though Americans vary on style, there is still a predominant use of the Western scale and rhythms, though at varying speeds. I know instrument wise the house churches may not have much, but is the style predominantly imported western type music? Or is it more natively or cultural influenced and composed? I think it's China that has the 22 tone music scale right? Is that reflected in the worship music at all?


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## Jie-Huli (Nov 14, 2005)

> _Originally posted by puritansailor_
> Jie-Huli,
> How would you desribe the music styles predominant in the Chinese church? Even though Americans vary on style, there is still a predominant use of the Western scale and rhythms, though at varying speeds. I know instrument wise the house churches may not have much, but is the style predominantly imported western type music? Or is it more natively or cultural influenced and composed? I think it's China that has the 22 tone music scale right? Is that reflected in the worship music at all?



I am afraid you may be asking the wrong person, Patrick. I am unfortunately not versed in the technical mechanics of scales and rhythms. 

You are correct that in most house churches there is not much instrumentation. Among churches that do have instruments, it is normally just a guitar for the churches that use "modern worship". and a piano/keyboard for those that use traditional hymns. Of course, many house churches do not use instruments for the practical reason that instruments are quite noisy and would draw attention unnecessarily.

I would say it is really a mixture as far as Western vs. Chinese styles. I believe the majority of songs used in China (whether hymns or the "modern worship" songs) are translated from English, or at least based on Western styles. Still, as mentioned above, there is also a popular indiginous song book which is much more Chinese in flavour, similar to traditional Chinese folk songs, especially as they are normally sung without instrumental accompaniment. I cannot vouch for whether they contain 22 tones or not, but I know they do contain some rather sharp changes in tone compared to Western music, going from high to low more frequently and without the regularity of Western music.

I am not sure if this helps your understanding or not, but it is the best I can describe it.

Blessings,

Jie-Huli



[Edited on 11-14-2005 by Jie-Huli]


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## Puritan Sailor (Nov 14, 2005)

Thanks! Being the ignorant American that I am, the only Chinese music I've heard is from Kung-Fu movies. Not a reliable source though


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## Scott (Nov 14, 2005)

Jie-Huli, Thanks for the insight. Below is an excerpt from a magazine article on Christianity in China. Is it accurate from your experience?



> Lao San, supervisor of some 50 house church leaders, traveled 10 hours on a night train to tell his story. A preacher since the age of 12, he has devoted himself to the rural Christian community, which comprises mostly uneducated farmers. He described the average church service, two to three hours long, which includes much singing and loud praying and a sermon that averages an hour in length. The churches move from home to home and keep to small, discreet groups.


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## VirginiaHuguenot (Nov 14, 2005)

> _Originally posted by Scott_
> Jie-Huli, Thanks for the insight.



 Jie-Huli, How accessible are Bibles in China? How about Psalters? Reformed theological writings? And what are the quality of the translations available? 

I have been greatly appreciative of the life and ministry of Jonathan Chao and the work of the Reformation Translation Fellowship but have not kept current with the situation and present needs.

[Edited on 11-14-2005 by VirginiaHuguenot]


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## Jie-Huli (Nov 15, 2005)

> _Originally posted by Scott_
> Jie-Huli, Thanks for the insight. Below is an excerpt from a magazine article on Christianity in China. Is it accurate from your experience?
> 
> 
> ...



While my experience is limited, from what I understand the sort of service described above is not unusual. There are indeed many churches which have services lasting from two to three hours, with the sermon an hour or longer. I would say this is more characteristic of churches which have a significant number of older members, and which are led by elder brethren. And it would generally also be much more characteristic of churches in the countryside or small towns rather than in larger cities. The pace of life is generally slower in the countryside, and there are not as many distractions for people to be running off to.

Churches led by younger people are often (though not always) quite different . . . shorter and less formal services, a lot of singing, less preaching. Similar to the average "evangelical" churches in the West, really . . . as a lot of them have inherited their practices either directly or indirectly from those churches.


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## Jie-Huli (Nov 16, 2005)

> _Originally posted by VirginiaHuguenot_
> 
> 
> > _Originally posted by Scott_
> ...



I am glad that you are all interested in the state of the church in China, and encourage you to keep this populous nation in your prayers. In answer to your questions, Andrew:

1) The Bible: Bibles are fairly accessible in urban areas. Legal cpies of the standard translation (the "Union Version", which was completed in the early 20th century) may be purchased at the state-sanctioned "Three Self" churches in cities which have them, as well as at some large bookstores. It is much harder to get a hold of Bibles in the countryside, so churches there really depend on donations from outside. Many Chinese Christians use Bibles printed from outside of China (particularly Hong Kong) and transported into the country by other Christians, but these are technically illegal since they were printed outside of China, even though the content is identical to the legal versions; so these are often confiscated if a house church comes under pressure from the government. 

As for the quality of the Union Version, the translation itself is generally quite good, I think. But it was based mainly on the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, not the Authorised Version, and so it contains the flaws of the Revised Standard Version's departures from the Textus Receptus.

2) The Psalter: Psalters are not generally available in China. Most house churches would not even know what a Psalter is, as they do not even hold to teachings on the regulative principle of worship. Of the eformed churches I know of (very much the minority in China), there are a few which hold to exclusive psalmnody, but they use their own versions of metrical psalms which they composed themselves, because there are no published psalters. I do own an ount-of-print Chinese psalter which was published in the 1980s in Taiwan (by the Reformation Translation Fellowship, actually), but it is not a complete Psalter; it only contains some of the Psalms, and only portions of some. And at any rate, I would be surprised if there were more than a few copies of this in the whole of China.

3) Reformed theological writings: these are not widely available in China. Outside of the Bible, there are few "Christian" books of any nature published in China due to official restrictions. Many foreigners bring in Christian books published outside (especially Hong Kong and Taiwan), but most of these are nothing close to reformed.

But there are also some publishers of reformed books in Taiwan, most notably the Reformation Translation Fellowship as you mentioned. It is really quite amazing, of my entire library of Chinese reformed books, about 90% of them were translated by one man, the late Jonathan Chao. There are quite a few very valuable reformed works that have been translated into Chinese by this organisation . . . the problem is just that they are not widely available (or for that matter desired) in the mainland. Basically they are only brought in by individual Christians from outside the mainland to distribute to the churches/friends that want them. The translations are quite all right generally, although due to the volume of books translated by this one organisation, the quality is not always consistent. There are also some other individuals doing valuable translation work, though it is very time-consuming to do it well.

One happy exception to my statement above about reformed books not being published within China is that "The Pilgrim's Progress" is quite widely available in bookstores across China. It is put in the literature section with translations of other famous Western literary works, but the translation itself is quite faithful, and even includes Scripture references. I would tend to think it was translated by a Christian, though I do not really know.

I hope this helps you to understand a little more about China's current situation.

Blessings,

Jie-Huli


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