China Aid Association July 11 2013
(July 4, 2013) It has been 8 years since the China House Church Alliance was established.
As the China House Church Alliance celebrated its eighth anniversary, 40 pastors and church co-workers from various places in China such as Sichuan, Hubei, Jiangxi, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Anhui, Shandong, Shanxi, Beijing, and Henan successfully held a three-day worship service in Baihe, Nanyang, Henan. During this special occasion, the participants carefully studied the Scripture. Church co-workers shared their experiences about the growth and development of their churches in recent years. They also exchanged their own knowledge about recent persecutions of various churches by the department of religious affairs and the local police. Rev. Jingxiang Lu from Anhui shared his experiences of being persecuted by the local police; Rev. Wu from Wuhan, who served many years in a Three-Self church, claimed that the police expelled him from the church he built with his congregants and then occupied the church. Sister Xu from Xianling told a similar story. Rev. Tieling Zhang from Fanxian, Henan, experienced persistent persecution ranging from forced closure of his home to his wife’s being beating and arrest.
Rev. Mingxuan Zhang highlighted that even now, eight years after its establishment, the China House Church Alliance has routinely been oppressed by the local police and the department of religious affairs. The authorities have harassed them more than 40 times and have also launched cyber-attacks against the churches. Yet, in the Lord, they have withstood all the persecutions suffered. For the past eight years the China House Church Alliance has helped many churches defend their rights by legal means and have kept close contact with churches across the country. The alliance provides a network through which churches are mutually encouraged and offer help to each other, seeking to glorify God in all their actions. To defend their values and principles, they engage in rational discourse with various local governments in order to legally protect their rights to freedom of religion.
At the conclusion of the meeting on the afternoon of July 4th, the participants prayed in one voice. They asked God to open doors to the future of China, that the Gospel of Christ would be preached across the nation. They also prayed for the newly inaugurated leaders of China. They thanked God for guiding them with His power and to help them to be truly repentant for their sins. They prayed that the government will respect and acknowledge their rights to freedom of religion as provided in the Chinese constitution, so that every Christian can openly and peacefully worship the Lord and freely preach the Gospel to the ends of the earth.
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