The House Church in China: It Began with an Earthquake
Editor’s Note: This article is an excerpt from China Partnership’s podcast The House Church in China, a series about the true story of Chinese Christians who are showing Christ’s mercy to hurting and overlooked people in their cities. Although many believers in China are marginalized themselves, they remain faithful in bringing Jesus’s hope to orphans, widows, the sick, and the poor. This is the story of Christ’s mercy in a broken world.
And he said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable shall we use for it? It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when sown on the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth, yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants and puts out large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.”
—Mark 4:30-32
In the spring of 2008, China was on the upswing. Beijing was getting ready to host the Olympics in August, an Olympics which were to be China’s coming out party on the world stage. The economy was booming. Thanks to the Internet, China’s people had more freedom than ever before, and an increasing number of young people were being educated. The future looked bright.
But at 2:30 one spring afternoon, just after the two-hour lunch break, the ground in Sichuan Province started shaking.
“The natural disaster killed around 90,000 people, injured over 300,000 people, destroyed more than 50 million homes and left millions of others homeless and displaced. Reported estimations of the total cost of the damage vary between 20 and 86 billion dollars.”
The shaking on May 12, 2008, continued for about two minutes. The quake’s epicenter was in rural Sichuan, but people felt it a thousand miles away: in Beijing, Bangkok, even Hanoi.
Liu Jianming: “When you visit Wenchuan, the places I’ve been to, you see everything wiped out. The entire city is reduced to rubble. Everything you thought you had, is gone.”
Pictured: The Wenchuan Earthquake Memorial, photographed by Richard Wang.
The Wenchuan earthquake caused horrific suffering. But God can use evil for good.
Liu Jianming: This suffering, I believe, was a blessing in disguise for the Chinese church. It allowed it to emerge from the underground. Although it seems to be receding underground again, it has grown into a tree. It's no longer a mustard seed.
That’s the story we’re beginning with today: the Wenchuan earthquake moved Chinese house churches to organize and serve their neighbors through acts of mercy. Along with the story of the Wenchuan earthquake, this season we’ll look at different ways house churches seek to walk with the hurting in Chinese society, seeking to serve those forgotten, abandoned, shunned, or avoided by society.
Jesus said the mustard seed of God’s kingdom grows into a tree, a place of shade, offering rest to the weary and respite to the hurting. If Christianity in China is no longer a tiny seed but is becoming a tree, acts of mercy are the fruit that grows from it.
This is The House Church in China. This podcast is the true story of how the mustard seed of God’s kingdom is being planted in China. But it’s no longer a mustard seed. Chinese house churches are, slowly, growing into a tree. The kingdom’s roots are reaching down into the hidden places of society, blessing the desolate, despised, and discarded in local communities.
This season, we’ll trace some roots of the church’s growth in mercy ministry. We’ll see a few ways the church is expressing love to her neighbors. Some of these expressions of mercy include walking with abandoned children, stepping into the world of China’s red light districts, and accompanying the sick and dying in China’s hospitals. Although the house church is still marginalized itself, she is also mighty.
We’ll see Chinese churches practicing what they refer to as lian 2 min 3 shi 4 gong 4, or, “works of mercy.” There are differences in how mercy ministry works in China versus a country like the U.S. In China, because of how the government monitors society, it’s very difficult to form charitable organizations, particularly for faith-based organizations.
Compared to other places in the world, mercy ministry in Chinese house churches may look messy, complicated, and relatively unorganized. But it’s defined by one thing: presence. A growing number of house churches across China’s landscape are seeking to be present with those society rushes past.
Stepping into the lives of the hurting, choosing to be spiritually, emotionally, and physically present with them, is mercy. Many house church Christians are finding ways to walk with those in difficulty, to comfort and care for them. Jesus came to earth, became a person, and accompanied humanity in our pain. So, those who follow him also seek to accompany the hurting in society.
So, although Chinese Christians can’t always build large organizations, they seek to walk with the hurting. A large part of this outward movement into the needs of society began in 2008, when a massive earthquake destroyed the city of Wenchuan.
To hear the full story, listen to The House Church in China here. Or, find out more about China Partnership and their mission.