China Update

China Update

Greetings everyone from the People’s Republic of China. As to what extent it belongs to the people is a debate for another time.

I want to share some of what is going on here with the understanding that I have to choose my words carefully. There is an enormous amount of government interference in the normal channels of communication. China has about 2 million censors who comb emails and websites looking for disloyalty to the current regime. They block over 300,000 websites they don’t approve of. I have to choose words to protect people as much as I can and still give you an accurate picture of what is going on.

Let me begin with something that has been widely published in many news sources. A Washington Times article this week began, “Chinese security agents swept through cities from Beijing to the coast this month, raiding the Zion Church network and detaining its founder, pastor Jin “Ezra” Mingri. The point was plain: In Xi Jinping’s China, devotion that isn’t Communist Party-approved is treated as a political problem for police to solve. The article goes on to report that the government licenses clergy, edits Scripture, censors online worship, bars minors from religious life and restricts contact with fellow believers abroad. Officials enforce these rules by raiding services, charging pastors with “fraud” or “illegal business” and blocking them from leaving the country.

Jin and a number of his fellow church members are currently being detained by the police. The procedure for prosecuting Jin is currently unknown.

So do the Chinese Marxists have Christianity contained? Hardly. The Roman Empire was unable to contain the early church and Beijing is having no better luck. Operation World puts the number of Christians in China at over 100 million. That’s 100 times more than there were 50 years ago.

I spoke at a legal gathering of Christian college students. My topic was the cultural power of Christianity. Most of the group understood English but there was an interpreter just in case. I have now spoken over 20 times to groups of students.

I attended a dinner party hosted by a family my daughter knows. It was attended by about 15 people and was in a downtown hotel. We sat at a large round table with a turntable in the middle that was loaded with exotic Chinese cuisine. We had no more gotten seated than the host asked me a question, “Why should I be a Christian and not some other religion?” That started a conversation that lasted nearly two hours. There were a number of non-Christians in attendance, including the host, and it was a marvelous opportunity to share the Gospel.

I met with the pastor of an unregistered church. I asked him what it was like to live under the constant threat of arrest. He said that when he became a pastor he knew what he was signing up for. He is an adult convert to Christianity. His own father bitterly opposed his decision to go into the ministry. So he faces the hostility of both family and government. But he soldiers on. I was astonished at the number of people he has baptized in the past year.

I have now interacted with about 50 Chinese nationals. It is amazing how many have become believers in the past year or two. They come from every age bracket. Youth, adult, and the elderly. The life of the Spirit is vibrant in China. We praise God for this.

I will try to check in again in a couple of weeks. Please pray for me as I seek to serve our Lord in this place. May the Lord richly bless you all.

More: I Am In China: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlLGje66aaU

The Crackdown on Christians in China: https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2025/oct/27/chinas-war-religion-matters-us/

Operation World’s entry on China: https://operationworld.org/locations/china-peoples-republic/