Chinese Christians

Before coming to China our local Church in Florida had always talked about the ‘underground’ churches in China.  These churches were the only way that the citizens of China could hear about Jesus and worship him.  This made my expectations of Christianity here in China to be non-existent.  Well, I’m happy to say that my expectations were very wrong.  I’m not saying that you see a churches like you do in the USA but there are some. 

Abundant Grace International Fellowship

There are some rules about going to church here, like to go to certain churches you have to be a non-Chinese.  This requires you to show your passport at the door (I’ve never seen someone have to show theirs yet).  I don’t believe that Catholic churches require this but the non-denominational churches are for foreigners only.  This is because they preach about the real ‘saving’ power Jesus.

Inside AGIF Saturday Night Service

The most encouraging and awesome sign of Christianity that we’ve seen is the grassroots believers.  These are the Christ-followers that do meet in eachother’s homes and are more underground than not.  Our A’yi is a strong Christian who is also a teacher at her ‘church’.  Even though Christians are less than 10% of the population of China, they are 3^rd on the list for total number of Christians in a country. 

Open-air church service.  The preacher was in front of the 100 or so
spectators.  

We were able to watch a local preacher in a public square near our home.  This area of town is a very poor part where the residents live in single room apartments and share kitchens and bathrooms.  We were definitely the ‘different’ people in the square that day.  There were about 75 – 100 people gathered around him listened to his open-air sermon.  We watched in amazement and were visited by many local children passing us tracts.  We received 20 pamphlets that described who Jesus was and what Christmas was all about.  It was pretty cool!