God draws people to Himself in many ways; for me, He used YouTube, among many other things.
My parents immigrated to Canada from China in 1999, and I was born the year after. Being new immigrants with the desire to integrate better into Canadian society and seeing the United Church helping the poor, they decided to join.
We moved frequently as my dad sought better employment, and we shifted to attending Chinese Baptist churches. I could tell church people were kind, but I never absorbed anything in Sunday school. However, I do recall while I was six or seven, there was one night I was really terrified of the dark, and spontaneously thought, “maybe I should try praying, like they talk about in church.” So I prayed, completely on a whim without any expectation. All of a sudden, my sense of fear vanished, and I was shocked. Sadly, I just went to sleep and didn’t think much about God afterwards despite my answered prayer.
My parents always went to church consistently despite never believing the Gospel. My dad saw the church as a place for great moral education, and nothing more. I had a similar attitude: the adults made up these stories just so kids would behave. My mom and I went to church mainly to socialize. I would find myself occasionally moved by the sentiments of God’s love and mercy in worship lyrics, but once church was over, I would brush all those emotions away, because I was never intellectually convinced.
Then in 2008 we moved back to China following my dad’s new job there. We went to international churches, which were gatherings held in hotel conference rooms and restricted to those with foreign passports because the Chinese government only allowed its citizens to attend government-supervised churches. For me, church became a trendy thing – a special privilege I delighted to take part in because it was fancy and exclusive. Around junior high, I started attending youth group, which was the first place that I encountered deeper discussions about faith and where I received my first Bible. I started to pray every night, but still didn’t really understand the Gospel. I would thank God for the good things he gave me and continue to ask for more, like he was a genie. I called myself a Christian because I did all the things Christians seemed to do – went to church, youth group, prayed, even took communion – but my heart was unregenerate. High school was a really tumultuous time, full of conflict, but God was starting to open my eyes to the gravity of my sin.
Then in 2016 we moved back to Canada, to a new city that was somewhat shabby, and the church we settled at was the polar opposite of the fancy hotels I was used to. Abruptly, everything superficial that I liked about church was stripped away, and I began to hate it. I realized that I had never actually gone to church for the message, and I didn’t really believe. I stopped going to church and was at a crossroads – I felt compelled to find out whether Christianity was objectively true before deciding whether to return to church.
By God’s grace, that summer I got to visit my old church friends I grew up with, and at their Sunday school we listened to a sermon by Francis Chan. I was captivated, realizing for the first time how personal and all-encompassing one’s relationship with God could be. Francis communicated the Gospel in a way that was starting to make sense to me and appear glorious and real. I took Francis’ advice to read the Bible for myself, and the Holy Spirit illuminated my mind to begin to understand it. God’s character revealed in the scriptures completely blew my mind. At the same time, I began consuming sermons on YouTube nearly every day and delved into research about the Bible and the evidence for Christianity. After about six months, I was convinced of the truth of the Gospel, my identity as a sinner in need of grace, and that God was calling me to Him. I got baptized that Christmas.
I quickly started serving in youth group, continuing into college. I continued to listen to sermons from reputable pastors and teachers on YouTube, and was content in the Baptist/non-denominational circles where I first found faith. However, as my faith deepened and I developed a stronger interest in theology, primarily through discovering Calvinism through Desiring God ministry. I started to sense that something was missing in mainstream evangelical Christianity. The non-denominational churches that resembled rock-concerts with flashy lights, smoke machines and preachers in casual attire were the first signs to me that there was incongruity between the mainstream contemporary evangelical church and the universal church which had existed throughout the centuries.
“Tradition” always seemed to me a dirty word, synonymous with “man-made” or “artificial”, the very thing that Pharisees idolized above the essence of the Gospel. I felt very suspicious towards denominations that emphasized tradition, but the irreverent style of worship, shallow teaching and cult of personality that was common in churches without tradition made my heart yearn for it. Even when I was at a non-denominational church that had good, Biblical preaching, the shallow worship lyrics and gym basement setting still felt out of place. On the other hand, in recent years, many once-reputable, popular pastors had been exposed as hypocrites. Although I did make a point to read from multiple commentaries on Bible Hub and not rely on a single pastor’s interpretation, I found myself wondering if there would come a day when one of the pastors that had been influential in my Christian walk would be outed. From my brief interactions with some Catholic classmates, I knew they had their official Catholic Catechism. What did we Protestants have that was timeless and trustworthy? Once again I was at a bit of a crossroads, except this time it wasn’t a simple yes or no question; I didn’t know what choices I had at all.
At the start of 2024, when I moved and needed to find a new church, I came across a YouTuber called Redeemed Zoomer, whose real name is Richard. He explained Christian denominations, different schools of thought, and theological concepts in witty and accessible short videos. For the first time, I learned that reformed Baptists (which I identified as) weren’t really reformed even though they agreed with Calvin’s soteriology, that there was so much more to Calvinism, and it was only recently that Baptists took on this label. I was opened up to the world of Classical Protestantism and the history of the Magisterial Reformation. I was fascinated to learn how Christianity evolved into the form it’s in today and that everything I felt was missing in my familiar circles actually existed in the mainline denominations. Moreover, I was glad to learn that I was right to yearn for tradition and a sense of connection to the historic church. The creeds and confessions throughout church history and from the reformation were the timeless cornerstones of orthodox continuity and theological heritage that I was looking for. I tried going to an Anglican service for the first time and the liturgy blew me away. Although tradition could become an idol, I realized that which conforms to scripture, aids in reverent worship and points to Jesus is good spiritual nourishment and important to preserve. After months of discernment, I decided to become Presbyterian.
Aside from education, another important aspect of Richard’s channel is his initiative – “Operation Reconquista”. Its whole objective is to revive and “retake” the mainline churches, since they have largely fallen to theological liberalism and are dying out rapidly. Although some may find the name distasteful for its connotations of war, OR seeks to carry out its mission by peaceful, spiritual means, not violent ones. The mainlines, despite their widespread abandonment of sound theology and foundational confessions, still contain precious heritage that’s worthy of preserving. Richard urges young faithful Christians to join mainline churches that are still conservative or moderate and keep them going, and to let the extremely progressive churches gradually decline, thus reforming the mainlines back to orthodoxy. This goal is not just for the good of the church, but also to evangelize to our wider society, since the mainline churches have the most established institutions and great ability to influence our culture.
Liberal churches were always in my periphery, but I never knew how they came to be this way, nor did I know that the situation could be helped at all. Richard makes compelling cases from church history and from the principle that this is a cause worthy to fight for. In just a year’s time, he had not only gained a huge following, news coverage, and made significant progress in his denomination (PCUSA), he had also inspired many Christians across all mainline denominations to start their own branches of OR. OR is not an official organization, nor is Richard our official leader; he is only an initiator of this lay-led movement, with the goal of inspiring others to spread this movement in their own denominations. I was ignited with passion to do my part in preserving the historic Presbyterian Church in Canada, and seeing that there was no PCC branch yet, I started it with an Instagram page, under PCC Renewal. We’re currently a very small group of young Presbyterians, but we’ve already seen some growth this year and are hopeful about the future.
Our vision is the same as OR. We not only work towards reviving the PCC with orthodox theology, we would also like to bring back Presbyterian distinctives. It is deeply unfortunate that the church founded upon precious truths such as predestination, covenant theology, and Christ’s spiritual presence in the sacraments, has totally watered down these doctrines and barely mentions them at all. These doctrines are not some nerdy, obscure, trivial nuances and details, these are important teachings from the scriptures and faithfully handed down to us throughout church history. There are many misleading sayings such as, “doctrine divides”, “no creed but Christ”, “denominations are unnecessary, just be Christian”, however these are doctrines and creeds in themselves. Non-denominationalism desires to not be associated with any existing denominations but paradoxically became its own denomination. The hyper-individualistic and anti-institutional sentiments of modern evangelicalism have led to a harmful disconnect from Protestantism’s theological and historical roots, leading to many disastrous results we see today. While we recognize the good and unique purposes God carries out across all denominations and acknowledge all genuine believers as fellow workers in the faith, we believe that restoring the mainlines is the ideal form of preserving, reviving and uniting Protestantism and influencing the culture.
I felt great urgency when starting PCC Renewal, and a bit of fear, knowing the immense task ahead. By God’s providence, through connections in another church, I was introduced to Renewal Fellowship. It was a huge relief and a humbling reminder that the faithful Christians before me had already been fighting to preserve God’s truth. I felt a great sense of camaraderie with the RF board, which I had the privilege to meet, and it was a joy to connect with the past members of PSALT online. I learned a lot in a brief span of time and am eager to continue this shared mission together.
Contrary to what older generations think, Gen Z is yearning for tradition. Many are converting to Eastern Orthodoxy or Catholicism, because the loudest voices that seem to represent Protestantism are the least historically rooted. Classical Protestantism is scarcely known, and even if it is, it’s mainly seen as a lost cause. OR believes that it’s the duty of Christians to preserve the historic church, including its theology and institutions, instead of passively letting false teachers hijack what the faithful have poured their lives into building. Gen Z is also severely lacking in community and purpose, which the Gospel, the church and OR are great answers to. In a culture that is increasingly subjective and pluralistic, the desire for stability and connectedness is even greater.
There is a lot of work ahead, but we trust in the Lord to sustain us. We realize this is still an early movement and there is still much to learn, but we are convicted that our actions are consistent with the heroes of the faith, and are crucial in building a stronger witness to Christ in our world.