Ten Thursdays of Prayer for China’s Church

Faith McDonnell
January 21, 2010

So far, 2010 has not been a good year for the Chinese House Church movement. On January 8, 30 leaders of the Chinese House Church Alliance were detained by the authorities in Handan City, Hebei province, according to our friends at China Aid. A few days later, 3 of the pastors were released, another 3 received short sentences of “administrative detention,” but the fate of the remaining pastors is yet unknown. Around the same time in Xinjiang autonomous region, officers from the Public Security military office broke into a worship service at the home of a Han Chinese house church Christian and arrested 14 people. The Christians were detained and interrogated for conducting an “illegal religious gathering.”

Not ones to think too much about their public relations image, Chinese communist authorities in Xinjiang also attacked Christmas Day worship services, arresting and mistreating several elderly Christian women. In one home, the police dismantled and burned the furniture of an elderly Christian widow, Sister Wang, after throwing her against a police car “like a sack of garbage.” They also raided the home of Sister He, a partially paralyzed elderly Christian woman confined to her bed. The officials confiscated 30 Bibles and Christian books and burned them in a bonfire outside the home.

These are just the latest in a series of outrages by the People’s Republic of China government against Christians. Also in December, a Ugyhur Christian convert from Islam was sentenced to fifteen years in prison for his faith. In November, house churches in both Beijing and Shanghai were closed by the police, leaving thousands of Chinese Christians to worship outside, at times in the snow! And in Shanxi province, where authorities demolished the Fushan House Church’s building in September 2009, the church leaders were recently given long prison sentences.

In response, I am launching a special focus on China. During Ten Thursdays of Prayer for China’s Church, we will highlight an area for your prayer and intercession every Thursday. Ten Thursdays of Prayer for China’s Church will be posted directly on IRD’s website, beginning next Thursday, January 28, and each one will have a specific focus of prayer for which I would ask your aggressive intercession!

We see the inability of good intentions and legislation to stop the persecution of Christians around the world. We see what appears to be a juggernaut of policies and politics crushing freedom and democracy. But have we seen the power of God released in these circumstances by faithful and constant prayer? We must get serious about praying for the persecuted church, and for the next ten Thursdays, we will get serious about praying for the Church in China…and seeing the power of God released.