China Sees Revival of Small House Church Meetings

During the pandemic, official churches were shut down and many of those that attempted to meet online were raided, so the church in China has gone back to their roots – the underground house church.

In 2017, there was a strong trend in China for house churches to meet in buildings that accommodated larger groups. Five years ago there was a growing trend in large metropolitan cities like Beijing, Shanghai, Zhengzhou, Guangzhou, etc for Christians to meet in buildings that were dedicated for weekly worship meetings, but today the trend is reversing.

Small clandestine groups meeting in simple homes is growing again in China. “We are meeting in smaller groups at home,” reported one BTJ partner living in a major city. “We leave our phones and do not take them to the meetings. We know that the government uses them to track our movements and to listen to our conversations.”

BTJ partners are reporting a significant increase in home groups with less than 10 people, so that the authorities are less likely to notice. Believers are even meeting during lockdowns, by sneaking off into the forests in the middle of the night, so that they can travel under the cover of darkness and return home again before the sun comes up.

China has a long history of seeing explosive church growth through the house church model and now it looks like it is happening again.

Dr. Eugene Bach is a known trouble-maker with an active imagination and sinful past. He has a PhD, but is not a real doctor, so please do not call for him during a medical emergency on an airplane when someone is having a heart attack. Eugene started working for Back to Jerusalem in the year 2000 after a backroom deal involving Chinese spies, the NRA, Swiss bankers, and a small group of Apostolic Christians that only baptize in Jesus’ name. He spends most of his time in closed countries attempting to topple governments by proclaiming the name of Jesus and not taking showers. From time-to-time he pretends to be a writer. He is not good at it, but everyone around him tries to humor him.

One Comment

  1. Mary Elllen Gilvey

    These are rhe best! Cozy and enjoying God together. I love going to home Masses and home prayer cennacles. Many people thoughout the World during rhe course of History had to do masses and pray in hiding. Often called the Underground Church. Jews did that too when praying and when the Soldiers came by they hid their praying by taking out the dreidal pretending to play the dreidal game to not get caught praying. Praying and attending Mass or services and reading the Bible or the Qran must never be done in secret but in everyone’s place of Worship whether it be in Church or the Synagogue or the Temple or a Mosque.

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