God-Dependent Missions
Tim Melton
Acts 1:8
In the late 1940s and the early 1950s Mao Zedong and the Communist party came to power in China. At that time the church was well established in China. It was modeled after the churches in the west because of colonization and western missionaries. There were approximately 700,000 protestant Christians in China and 2-3 million Catholics. One goal of Mao Zedong was to purge the Chinese society of religion. This purge of religion was filled with horrific persecution. Historians are still putting together what happened next because of the secrecy of how it was done. First, Mao Zedong forced all foreign missionaries and ministers to leave China. Next all church property became government property. Mao then had many of the leaders tortured, imprisoned and many were killed. All other Christians were threatened with great persecution if they continued to meet together. At that point the door seemed to close on Chinese Christianity and those on the outside thought that surely Christianity in China would cease to exist.
This persecution lasted until the end of Mao's reign in the late 1970s and the door opened to missionaries again in the 1980s. It was at this point that it became known that in China there were now over 60 million Christians.
What had happened? God happened. There is no way that growth should have occurred but yet it did. When God's people were stripped of the buildings, the programs, the security and the organized religion all that was left was God, His Word, prayer and the work of the Holy Spirit. It was in this setting that the power of God was unleashed. God had left them with nothing else to trust in, but Himself and that made all of the difference.
It was as if they had wondered out into the center of the rushing river of God's Spirit and been caught up in the movement of God.
This was not the first time that it had happened. We find a similar story in the book of Acts 1 and 2. After Jesus' ...
Tim Melton
Acts 1:8
In the late 1940s and the early 1950s Mao Zedong and the Communist party came to power in China. At that time the church was well established in China. It was modeled after the churches in the west because of colonization and western missionaries. There were approximately 700,000 protestant Christians in China and 2-3 million Catholics. One goal of Mao Zedong was to purge the Chinese society of religion. This purge of religion was filled with horrific persecution. Historians are still putting together what happened next because of the secrecy of how it was done. First, Mao Zedong forced all foreign missionaries and ministers to leave China. Next all church property became government property. Mao then had many of the leaders tortured, imprisoned and many were killed. All other Christians were threatened with great persecution if they continued to meet together. At that point the door seemed to close on Chinese Christianity and those on the outside thought that surely Christianity in China would cease to exist.
This persecution lasted until the end of Mao's reign in the late 1970s and the door opened to missionaries again in the 1980s. It was at this point that it became known that in China there were now over 60 million Christians.
What had happened? God happened. There is no way that growth should have occurred but yet it did. When God's people were stripped of the buildings, the programs, the security and the organized religion all that was left was God, His Word, prayer and the work of the Holy Spirit. It was in this setting that the power of God was unleashed. God had left them with nothing else to trust in, but Himself and that made all of the difference.
It was as if they had wondered out into the center of the rushing river of God's Spirit and been caught up in the movement of God.
This was not the first time that it had happened. We find a similar story in the book of Acts 1 and 2. After Jesus' ...
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