One of the greatest miracles of the modern church has to be the explosive growth of Christianity in China.
Despite years of brutal communist suppression under the infamous Mao Zedong and those who followed him, the church has continued to grow and flourish until conservative estimates put its size at more than 70 million people. When we compare it to the estimated figure of one million evangelicals before the Communist revolution began these figures are remarkable. they are made even more remarkable when one considers that virtually the entire evangelical Christian intelligentsia in China was destroyed or silenced and the number of Christians killed by the communists might run into millions.
This means that during the post-WWII period when the Western church has not experienced any significant growth at all (and sadly in many places has decreased in size) the Chinese church has grown some 70-fold. An important point to note is that most of the growth is occurring, not in the government-sanctioned ‘Three-Self Patriotic Movement’ churches, but in the unregistered (and therefore potentially illegal) house churches. this incredible growth has not been without the tremendous sacrifice of Chinese Christians and their leaders, many of whom have been prepared to give up not just their liberty but even life itself for the gospel. One such man was the Chinese pastor who, although sometimes enigmatic and controversial, can truly be said to be one of the great Christian workers of the 20th century – the man known as Watchman Nee.
Watchman Nee was born Ni Shu-tsu or Henry Ni in 1903 in Swatow. He was later renamed ni ching-Fu but after his commitment to Christian work, he called himself ni to-sheng – or ‘Watchman nee’. He came from an evangelical Christian background, his paternal grandfather being a pastor who was a convert of Western missionaries.
This story is from the October – December 2017 edition of Heroes of the Faith.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the October – December 2017 edition of Heroes of the Faith.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
Telling Tales About Canterbury
How those tall stories of pig's bones and gospel heroes contain more than a hint of reality.
Sophie Scholl
The Young Woman Who Defied Hitler
Jonathan Goforth Revivalist Apostle To China
Jonathan Goforth was born, the seventh of eleven children, in February 1859 near London, Ontario, in Canada. His parents were hard-working farmers and, if the young Jonathan learned about the things of God through his devout mother, he also learned hard work from his father, who once went to Hamilton for food and walked all the way back through the bush – a distance of 70 miles – with a sack of flour on his back!
Billy Nicholson The Irish Whitefield
William Patteson Nicholson (1876-1959) was a Presbyterian preacher and evangelist born in Bangor, Co Down. Nicknamed ‘The Tornado of the Pulpit’, Nicholson spent his early years on his father’s cargo ship, but began to preach in 1899 at the age of 23. He was known for his ‘men-only’ meetings and straightforward language. In the Belfast shipyard of Harland & Wolff, a ‘Nicholson shed’ was erected to house stolen tools that newly converted workers returned as a result of Nicholson’s preaching!
The Big Picture
The much-acclaimed film ‘Hidden Figures’ is the heart-warming real life story of three African-American women who worked on the space programme in Virginia in the 1950s.
The Cambridge Seven
How a move of God among Britain’s students answered the desperate prayer of a missionary on the other side of the world.
Ruth Bell Graham
The woman behind the best-known evangelist of the 20th century.
I Have A Dream
On 28 August 1963, American civil rights leader Rev Martin Luther King Jr delivered a speech that has gone down in history. Given during the ‘March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom’ protest, it called for an end to racism in the United States and for civil and economic rights. Delivered to over 250,000 civil rights supporters from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, the speech was a defining moment of the American Civil Rights Movement, summed up by King’s iconic phrase, “I have a dream.”
Tongues Of Fire At 'Stone's Folly'
Often described as the century of the Holy Spirit, the 20th century saw great Pentecostal revivals sweep the globe drawing more people into the kingdom of God than had been converted in all the previous centuries added together. And this revival movement began almost exactly at the turn of the century when earnest men and women were learning that the powerful baptism in the Holy Spirit had not passed away with the Apostles but is for today!
Ten Marks Of The Holy Spirit In The Life Of A Believer
What are the effects which the Spirit always produces on those who really have him? Bishop JC Ryle examines the Scriptures