China (MNN)–The Chinese government regulates religious groups to prevent them from becoming so-called ‘sources of authority’.
The fear is that they would be outside of the control of the Government and the Chinese Communist Party. For many unregistered house churches, that amounts to an order for persecution.
Last year, the government carried out a survey of unregistered house churches using members of the Protestant Three Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM) churches who had contact with unregistered Christians.
The results showed there were several thousand unregistered meeting points in Beijing, with over 100,000 members. The numbers alarmed government authorities and may prompt a crackdown in the run up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
As scrutiny of church work grows more intense, outside ministry support may become much more difficult. But, OMS International’s David Long says there’s good news.
“Increasingly, opportunities are being presented in China. Opportunities for business seminars and opportunities for the training of church leaderships and some very limited partnership relationships there.”
Long believes the Chinese church is more than capable of evangelism, however, “We are looking for opportunities to help the church to become more deeply rooted and deeply established. One benefit of that is to help the church in China respond to the attacks that come from the numerous cults that exist in China.”
Pray for the team members as OMS continues to develop culturally sensitive evangelism, training of national leadership for ministry and church planting in China.
