Source: Asia Stories, June 8, 2014
The house church in China is growing rapidly in the midst of the changing tides of the nation. “Liu Qiang” remembers 12 years ago bicycling past churches in the countryside. Believers met behind boarded up doors and windows.
“Obviously they are doing something bad if they are having to close up everything,” Liu recalls thinking as a teenager. After Liu became a Christian he learned why the house churches’ secrecy was protection. He is now a house church pastor himself.
Times have changed, Liu said. There’s a chalkboard in front of his home where his house church meets—an open invitation to their neighbors to worship Jehovah. Freedoms, at least in some areas of the nation, have grown.
“Zhao Jun,” a pastor and church planter, says the house church is still persecuted in many areas of China, but some provinces have a little more breathing room. Zhao said the faithfulness of Christians under persecution has touched government officials. It’s a good testimony, Zhao believes, for the government to see the church’s perseverance.
Thirty years ago, Liu says, believers had to be careful about bringing out a Bible in public. Christians in this province now buy Bibles in the Three-Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM) church’s bookstore.
» See full story with pictures. Also read Panel Looks at Christianity’s Rapid Growth in China Despite Persecution (Christian Post), or better yet and listen to the three-hour panel discussion (Brookings Institute).