Inside the world of house churches
Jun 22, 2006
by Marvin Olasky

CHINA -- The government here tells Westerners to stay away from the illegal "house churches" spreading like wildfire throughout this officially atheistic country. But through contacts I was able to visit two churches made up of urban professionals this month, with the agreement that locations of meeting places remain unspecified and individual participants unnamed.

A word of definition: All Chinese churches are supposed to register with the government and place themselves under its authority, so "house church" means a non-registered church and not necessarily one that meets in a home. Most do, but some in the countryside meet in caves and some in cities meet in auditoriums. One I visited meets in a non-descript conference room -- chairs behind long white tables -- in one of the numerous buildings where foreign companies have offices, so my entrance did not alarm the government police at the door.

At that church, the service, conducted entirely in Mandarin Chinese, began promptly at 9 a.m., with 44 women and 16 men in attendance. First came a recitation of the Apostles' Creed and then a responsive reading of Psalm 53. The first half-hour included prayer, congregational reading from the Bible (plenty of copies available), and hymns sung from pages downloaded from Internet sites in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and California. the rest