On October 1, 1949, Mao Zedong, the chairman of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) stood atop the Gate of Heavenly Peace in Beijing. There, at the entrance to the Imperial Palace, home of the emperors of China since the 1300s, Chairman Mao declared the founding of the People’s Republic of China. “The Chinese people have stood up,” he proclaimed, signaling to the thousands gathered that China’s century of humiliation at the hands of foreign imperial powers was over. The Communist Party would restore Chinese sovereignty to the Chinese nation.

At that time, it is estimated that there were some seven hundred thousand Protestant believers in China. Sensing what was to come for religious believers under Communist rule, many departing missionaries feared for the survival of the nascent church.

No one expected what happened next.

Far Beyond Survival

During the 1950s, as the CCP established control over every corner of society, it sought to rein in religious life. Churches were consolidated and denominations eliminated. Churches could remain open if they registered with the approved state-sponsored organizations. The house-church movement began at this time, as many believers either could not travel to the newly consolidated churches or refused to do so for doctrinal or political reasons. Divergent views of how the church should relate to the new Party state also emerged. The church went into survival mode.

In the 1960s, the CCP shifted its stance toward religion from consolidation and control to eradication. Persecution intensified. All religious venues — temples, mosques, and churches — were closed. Religious leaders were jailed or killed as the Cult of Mao took hold during the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976). Churches went underground, often at great risk.

Yet it was during this period that the Chinese church experienced explosive growth. When Chairman Mao died in 1979, information began trickling out of China that indicated the number of Christians had grown to around ten million. In other words, during three decades of persecution, and with no foreign missionary presence, the number of believers grew over 1,300 percent! The CCP’s efforts had been for naught.

Out of the Shadows

The next three decades saw the gradual expansion of space for religion in China. No longer driven by a desire to eradicate religion, the state adopted a posture of “reluctant tolerance.” The church, invisible for so long, stepped out of the shadows. Registered churches began to grow and flourish. The house-church movement expanded and moved into the cities as migrant workers from rural areas sought work.

Many Chinese students who studied abroad found Christ and returned to lead the vanguard of a new urban house-church movement made up not of rural peasants but of educated elites. These churches were more willing to push the invisible boundaries of their newfound space to test what was permissible. They engaged in civic activities such as orphan care and AIDS relief, and they participated in disaster relief following the earthquake in 2008. Christian publishing companies also sprang up, publishing translations of the works of popular authors such as Philip Yancey, Henry Blackaby, and John Piper.

Foreign Christians also found opportunities to work in China, not as religious workers per se, but as committed Christians working in legitimate jobs. They taught English, enrolled in Chinese universities, started businesses, and ran social enterprises to help local officials meet some of China’s most pressing social needs. In their home countries, they engaged in ministries with Chinese students on local university campuses. Evangelism was primarily done in the context of relationships, living out Paul’s admonition in Colossians: “Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person” (Colossians 4:5–6).

Shifting Winds, Sending Church

By 2010, when the political winds began to shift again (away from tolerance), an estimated number of Christians was seventy million. (I say “an estimated number” because there are, in fact, no reliable statistics for the number of Christians in China. The official government number is 36 million, but that only includes those who attend the registered churches that are affiliated with the state-sanctioned Three-Self Patriotic Movement and the China Christian Council. It does not include those who worship in unregistered churches — that is, house churches — which may be equal to or double that number, depending on whom one asks.)

The past decade has seen a gradual contraction of space for religious life as the CCP under Chairman Xi has waged a campaign to bring all spheres of Chinese society back under its direct control. Activities that were tolerated in the previous era are no longer permitted. These include large unregistered gatherings, Christian publishing, and online religious activity. What some have dubbed the “golden age” of church growth and missions has come to an end.

Yet (with China, there is always a “yet”) during this past decade of tightening restrictions and increasingly strident ideological instruction, an indigenous missions movement from China has emerged. Today, Chinese missionaries serve in Southeast Asia, Central and South Asia, Africa, and beyond. If, when I went to China in 1984, someone would have told me that in forty years Chinese churches would be sending missionaries to Pakistan (the country where I was born), I would have laughed. One leader of a missions movement in China has remarked that, “while China remains the largest mission field, it might also become the world’s largest sending country.”

Marks of the Chinese Church

In the past seventy years, the church in China has moved from survival to sending. In light of this remarkable history, consider four observations about the church in China and missions efforts by foreign workers.

1. Chinese Christians are resilient.

Chinese culture is often described as being a bamboo culture — strong enough to be bent to enormous degrees without breaking. During the church’s relatively short history in China, it has been buffeted by extreme winds — association with foreign imperialism, civil wars and revolutions, and attempts at eradication. Yet Christians press on, demonstrating a level of perseverance and resilience rooted in a robust theology of suffering. Most recent conversations I have had with believers in China include some variation of the following: “Yes, things are tighter, there are more restrictions, and everything is more difficult, but let me tell you what God is doing in my church.”

2. Chinese Christians are innovative.

A popular Chinese saying roughly translates as, “The leaders make the rules, and the people find a way around the rules.” Chinese Christians excel at this. When a church is no longer permitted to gather in a large group, it will divide into small groups. When landlords are no longer allowed to rent apartments to these smaller church groups, they meet in a private room in a restaurant. When a registered church is no longer permitted to have Sunday school for the children under eighteen, they rent an apartment nearby and have the parents drop the kids off.

When the government shuts down churches (and other public venues) for Covid prevention, they go online, broadcasting their services on WeChat or other streaming services. When the public streaming of services is prohibited, they move to Zoom. As a friend recently remarked to me, “Chinese Christians are some of the most tech-savvy people in the world.”

3. Chinese Christians are disciple-makers.

Most of the growth of Christianity in China took place with little or no foreign missions involvement during decades of intense persecution. While I believe there will always be a role for foreign Christian workers in China, we are not at the center of what God is doing there, and his work certainly doesn’t depend on us.

Yet God has given thousands of us the privilege to serve our brothers and sisters as they do the bulk of the evangelism and discipleship work. Opportunities abound for those sensing God’s call to serve in China in this new era. Legitimate endeavors that provide work visas include English teaching, studying Chinese, or running a business. In fact, China is actively seeking the return of international students. Now is the time for a young person with a heart for China to enroll in a Chinese university and commit a few years to studying the language. For those outside of China, opportunities to minister among the diaspora will continue apace.

4. Chinese Christians are kept by a faithful God.

God is faithful to his church in China. Yes, Chinese believers are resilient and innovative, and foreigners have been able to play a unique supporting role in the story of the growth of the Chinese church. However, underneath it all is God’s faithfulness.

In 2010, I was traveling in southwest China on a research trip. In one city, we discovered a large American-cast bell hanging in the steeple of a registered church. It had been cast for a Baptist Church in Kansas in 1863. When I saw the bell, I thought of all the twists and turns of Chinese history, particularly the brutal political campaigns under Chairman Mao, one of which — the Great Leap Forward — called for the populace to melt down all metal in their possession to make bombs to retake Taiwan. How, I wondered, had this giant bell survived the Great Leap Forward? When I asked the pastor this question, he replied that officials had tried to burn it, but it was too strong. Just like the church, I thought. All attempts to eradicate the church have been (and will be) futile because God has not, and will not, forget his people there.

Whether the Chinese church continues to grow or falls into a period of decline, we do not know. What we do know, however, is that God’s faithfulness and the power of the gospel will not change.