In recent years, the Chinese Internet has coined the term Tang Ping (躺平), which means “lying flat.” Although the phrase reflects a negative mindset of giving up because you can’t get what you want, I’ve been thinking about this mentality from a Christian perspective as we enter the most responsible for the calendar year.
What if, this Christmas, we freed ourselves from the pressure of doing too much for the sake of holiday activities? What if we understood that part of living our faith in difficult times might be about “staying flat,” that is, accepting our limitations and accepting freedom from our own inadequacies in the very moment? where are we asked the most?
Activity harms spiritual health
Our days are busy: we sing Christmas carols, rehearse plays and sketches, and prepare sermons. We clean and decorate our homes for church gatherings, buy gifts, and gather with friends and family, all with the goal of celebrating Christmas.
Additionally, for many Christians in China – where I live – evangelism is heavily emphasized at this time of year. As the holiday becomes increasingly commercialized, many churches want to redeem the spiritual significance of the season and are therefore eager to evangelize, invite more people to church, and lead seekers to faith in Christ .
These are all good ideas. However, the problem is that we often invest so much time and energy in these activities that our daily lives and spiritual well-being are affected. For example, many siblings take time off work or sacrifice time away from family to rehearse Christmas programs. Many churches assign tasks directly to small groups, causing the group’s normal Bible study and prayer time to be occupied by evangelistic activities and disrupting the group’s regular pastoral work.
When I served in an association during my college years, during the Christmas season the number of people attending prayer meetings often declined sharply, as did the willingness to participate in regular services, small groups, and community life. the church. When campus ministry leaders expressed concerns about this, students explained that they were preparing for their final exams. But this had something to do with the fact that they were spending too much energy on holiday activities. And immediately after winter break, when the school year started again, many of them stopped coming to the fraternity.
The younger students on our scholarship told me they were under a lot of pressure with Christmas preparations. They were already very involved in their studies and, on top of that, music or theater rehearsals took up a lot of time. But they thought they shouldn’t complain, because they were all doing it for the Gospel and for God.
When I asked them if they had ever thought about celebrating Christmas differently, one of the students said no; In the church where he grew up, Christmas was all about shows and programs. When he left his hometown to go to school in another town, his new church also celebrated Christmas the same way. It had never occurred to him that there were other ways to celebrate Christmas, and he even felt guilty if he didn’t celebrate Christmas in this programmatic way.
For years, growing up in a Christian family, I also believed that Christmas was just a big church holiday. When I was a child, other Christians took great care in preparing for the festivities, and I was only responsible for eating, drinking (soft drinks), and having fun. However, when I later found myself in charge of the event, I was physically and mentally exhausted. At the end, I felt an emptiness in my heart.
Ultimately, these (often carefully organized and well-produced) programs and activities have nothing to do with the true meaning of Christmas.
Games give us peace
Where I come from, a region still alive with many local popular religions, there are all kinds of idols whose birthdays are celebrated. People kill pigs, slaughter goats, and hold festivals to celebrate the birthdays of their gods. Judging from these celebrations and the chaos of Christmas, if this holiday is all about celebrating our God’s birthday, we may be giving people the false impression that we are no different from those who worship idols.
Christmas is much more than celebrating the birthday of Jesus Christ. We not only celebrate the arrival of Jesus, but also try to recognize the ramifications of his incarnation, contemplating his birth but also his death and resurrection. This is why in Chinese we call Christmas Eve “the Night of Peace” (ping and yes, 平安夜). The meaning of the baby Jesus’ arrival on this planet was entirely different from that of others’ (including idols’) birthdays because he brought salvation to a sinful world and shalom to a suffering humanity.
Therefore, dear brothers and sisters in Christ, when we are busy organizing sermons or evangelistic conferences on Christmas Day, and when we sing within earshot of the researchers of our church who “Yesu ci ni ping an» (Jesus gives you peace), did we receive peace ourselves first?
If we have dark circles under our eyes and are tired and troubled, will people see peace in us when we tell them about this great message of peace? When we cry, “Come to Jesus, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and you will find rest,” are we still carrying many burdens ourselves that prevent us from resting?
Are we so busy during this season that we have no time for devotions, that our regular small group pastoral care is disrupted, to the point that we fall into a prolonged spiritual crisis?
I am not trying to downplay the importance of Christmas events in the church. I want us to understand that before all actions and activities, we must return to the grace of Jesus and the peace he gives. Jesus Christ became incarnate, died for us and rose again for us; he paid the full price to give us this peace. What we need is to receive this peace and live it in our lives so that it can be felt by others. We might even say that we must practice some kind of spirituality Tang Ping.
As believers we can recover Tang Ping as a call to “lay flat” in our hearts and rest in the peace brought by the incarnation of Jesus. This is not passive indulgence or inactivity. Rather, it is about unloading ourselves of our insecurities, our thoughts that we can earn God’s blessing, and our fear of being punished by God for not doing enough things. We can unburden ourselves of all this and accept the grace of Christ.
Traditional Christmas programming does not bind our hearts, and end-of-year evangelism KPIs should not make us feel guilty. When we have peace in our hearts, we will not easily get carried away by restlessness and anxiety, no matter what we do. When we have freedom in our heart, we have a way out of our exhaustion.
As the author of Psalm 4:8 says, “In peace I will lie down and sleep, for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in security.” »
Sayah Tu is a church leader living on the east coast of China.
Translation by Sean Cheng
