“Where Faith Costs”

I have a photo of four Chinese Evangelists on my computer. They are all middle aged, ordinary looking chaps who have spent 47 years between them in prisons and labour camps held by the Chinese Communist government because they believe in Jesus. 

They are the product of a movement of the Holy Spirit in one of the nations most hostile to the Gospel message. And now, many in what is referred to as the House Churches (as they have no physical church buildings) have begun to send evangelists beyond China’s borders into the most untouched regions of the world still held captive in the grip of  Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism. As they put it in an excerpt from the book ‘Back to Jerusalem’ :- 

“The Lord has been training Chinese Christians  for the past 50 years through imprisonment, torture, suffering and hardship. Thousands have been treated brutally in prison, thousands more have been sent out across the country as evangelists with nobody to rely on but God himself. They have seen numerous miracles and have come to a deep trust in Jesus that could not have been learned in any other way than through hardship and suffering….We have become soldiers of steel, tempered in the furnace of affliction. We do not fear what people can do to us.” 

If we contrast this with Churches in the free world we see a dismal picture; even in our own denomination we see  nit picking on religious practices like where your hands are during the Our Father,  where to receive communion ,  or whether we should revert back to the Latin Mass (or the silent minority who would like it in the original Aramaic) But how about the lost, does anybody care about them anymore ? 

How the western churches need a portion of this Spirit to revive their drooping fervour; but I wonder if any can pay the cost …perhaps Jesus will also supply the appropriate training to those with a heart for Him.

Fruits of Persecution in the Church in China ...

Chinese Christians imprisoned for their faith are memorizing Scripture passages smuggled to them on small pieces of paper because prison guards “can’t take what’s hidden in your heart,” one former prisoner revealed.

In a recent sermon, Wayne Cordeiro, pastor of New Hope Christian Fellowship in Honolulu, Hawaii, shared an experience he had on a trip to China, where the church went to train leaders.

The pastor shared how 22 Christians from the Hunan Province took a 13-hour train ride to attend the leadership training held at a 700-square-foot hotel room. Out of the 22 Christians present, 18 had been imprisoned for their faith, the pastor revealed.

“If we get caught what will happen to me?” Cordeiro began by asking.

“Well, you will get deported in 24 hours, and we will go to prison for three years,” the Chinese Christians responded.

After beginning his lesson, the pastor realized he only had 15 Bibles to pass around, so seven people went without.

“I said, 'turn to 2 Peter 1, we are going to read it.' Just then one lady handed hers to the person next to her, and I thought ‘hmm interesting,'” he recalled.

As the Christians began reading, he quickly realized why she had given her Bible away: she had memorized the whole book.

“When it was done, I went over to her at a break and said, ‘You recited the whole chapter,’” he said. She replied, “In prison, you have much time in prison.”

“Don’t they confiscate the Bible?” he asked.

She said that while any Christian material is indeed confiscated, people smuggle in scripture written on paper and hide it from the prison guards.

“That’s why we memorize it as fast as we can because even though they can take the paper away, they can’t take what’s hidden in your heart,” she explained.

Following the three-day training session, one Chinese Christian man asked Cordeiro, “Could you pray that one day we could just be like you?”

“I looked at him and said, ‘I will not do that,’” he replied. “You guys road a train 13 hours to get here. In my country, if you have to drive more than an hour, people won’t come.”

“You sat on a wooden floor for three days. In my country, if people have to sit for more than 40 minutes they leave. You sat here for not only three days on a hard wooden floor, in my country if it’s not padded pews and air conditioning, people will not come back.”

“In my country, we have an average of two Bibles per family. We don’t read any of them. You hardly have any Bibles and you memorize them from pieces of paper.”

“I will not pray that you become like us, but I will pray that we become just like you,” he concluded.

China has seen explosive growth in the number of believers over the last several decades. Estimates have even suggested that China is on track to have the largest Christian population in the world by 2030.

About 30 million Christians in China are estimated to attend state-sanctioned churches while many others attend illegal underground house churches that are not registered with the government.

In efforts to stunt the rapid growth of Christianity, authorities throughout China have shuttered a number of prominent house churches and arrested Christians for worshiping without the approval of the government.

Previously, Crazy Love author Francis Chan said he believes the reason the underground Chinese church has grown so large is that Chinese Christians "actually believed they could make disciples and start these gatherings because Jesus was enough."

"I started to think, 'This is what made the underground church in China unstoppable. If you have a group of people that actually embrace suffering, how are you ever going to stop them?'" he asked during the "Rethink Church/Rethink Mission" event at McLean Bible Church in Vienna, Virginia, in October.

Chan argued that the problem with churches in the West is they are "so stoppable the moment it gets too difficult."

"What if you actually go, 'I want to suffer for Christ?'" Chan asked. "Will you suffer to obey these things? Will you actually sacrifice? Because it's a lot easier to come somewhere and be fed than to love [others] as much as Christ loved you, as much as the Father loves the Son, and to break bread with [others] thinking, 'Christ was tortured for me; would I do that for [others]?'"

The pastor urged Christians in the West to embrace suffering for the glory of Christ "because the Church is that beautiful and that important."

The Wall

Occasionally, stories from the Underground Catholic Church in China make it through the bamboo curtain to give us a glimpse of their valour and devotion. One I heard years ago was about a missionary who visited China and stayed with a Catholic family in a rural area. In the middle of night, he heard everyone moving around and asked what was going on. “We are going to the Wall” they answered and he accompanied them as they crept out of the house and made off across the fields to a clearing in a forest.

Many other people had gathered there, coming from all directions, some climbed trees and kept watch in case anyone had been followed by the authorities. One person then approached an old wall (perhaps part of a derelict building) and removed a brick to reveal the Blessed Sacrament.

All knelt in silent adoration for a holy hour, replaced the brick and went home.

No one knows just how much they have suffered at the hands of the atheist Communist government over the last few decades; persecutions are varied, from economic sanctions like fines and loss of work, to harassment by Police and neighbours or torture, imprisonment and martyrdom. The regime has been quite consistent in its desire to control every aspect of the lives of its people and to single out the menace of religion for particularly brutal attention.

When Neville Chamberlain attempted to avoid conflict by signing the Munich agreement with Hitler, I imagine he was sincere, if a little naive as the full horror of Nazism had not yet been revealed but the recent agreement between the Vatican and the Chinese Government over the apointment of bishops is quite incomprehensible: their character is already known.

The faithfulness of the Underground church is an incredible witness to the rest of the Catholic world; let’s hope and pray that the church they love can prove worthy of their sacrifices for it and stand with them now.

Emporer Xi ....

My favourite line from the God Father (part 3) is:- ‘Power wears out those who don’t have it’ words whispered into Don Lucchesi’s ear seconds before he was assassinated with his own spectacles. Earthly power is an intoxicating and often rather brief illusion; made savage when it’s in the hands of frightened men who cling to it.

As President Xi Jinping has now ascended to China’s throne as dictator for life we can expect trouble. Already China’s Christians are feeling the pressure as he declares war on religion and Christianity in particular. In some areas of the country it’s a soft approach, instructing Christian villagers to replace holy pictures with those of Xi accompanied by financial inducements as his cult of personality spreads. Mostly though, he is following in the footsteps of the old guard earning him the nick-name ‘Xi Zedong’ after his ruthless predecessor. 

With churches initially being forced to remove crosses from their spires now being torn down altogether, it’s starting to look a lot like the cultural revolution all over again. Even state approved churches, once willing collaborators of the communist party, are now finding themselves under scrutiny and their key members even disappear into labour camps and the infamous ‘black prisons’ from which there is no return.

The unofficial churches, already familiar with persecution, are going underground again, back to the catacombs but it will be more difficult this time as the state has made its plans and is employing Hi-Tec means in its latest assault. Facial recognition software (like on Facebook) coupled with massive use of CCTV cameras (even in rural areas) can easily identify those attending churches or meetings and track all movement now. Underground Christians can only meet casually in two’s and three’s. 

Whilst we certainly need to pray for the protection of our brothers and sisters in China and that those destined for Martyrdom will be given the grace to die well, there is great hope too. Since Mao’s time Christians are a 100-million strong. He failed, as did Stalin, Nero, Herod and Ramses and all the others who stood against their God and saviour throughout the ages. 

God never tires, and He holds the lives of dictators in His hands too. Every beat of their hearts has been counted, the day of their departure known and their fate as they too will kneel at his feet to give an account of their lives. It’s President Xi we need to pity the most and pray for, perhaps the inexhaustible and relentless Divine mercy of God can reach him as it did Saul of Tarsus and so many others throughout the ages.

A missionary Journey ..... a story from Vietnam

When the Americans came I saw a lot of people die; at night we would get under the bed as the helicopter gunships raged above us, I saw many dead bodies every day. When I was a young man I did not know much about politics or really understand the war. I felt very sad that many innocent people died and we did not understand why the war was happening in our country.

When I was growing up, the church meant everything to us. People came to the parish for sanctuary, for help, for prayer and safety. The local priests made a great impression they were very caring men whom the people loved. After the communists took over, I could not study any longer, so I went to work in a labour camp. If you had no job and were a Catholic you were forced to work. We dug canals 8 hours a day I worked at this hard labour for 2 years. The food was poor and there was no medical care, but it was the same for all of us   you had to work for them-you had nowhere to run.

I left Vietnam in 1980, everybody wanted to get out. My escape was organised secretly and cost $2000 for a place on the boat. When I first saw the boat, I thought it was too small, not the right sort of boat for the sea, it was more of a river boat. I asked the man in charge how many it could take and he said 30, but in fact there were 77 of us on board. I will never forget the words of my mother as I said goodbye to her for the last time. She said  Here take this rosary and pray. You dont have much money but trust in God We set sail from Cantho, South Vietnam, in the dead of night.

After 3 days the engine broke down and we just drifted in the south China sea. We had no maps, no compass, nothing at all. The man who organized our escape had given scant attention to food or water for us and before long we were hungry, thirsty and very tired. We steered the ship in the opposite direction to the sun. We thought a foreign ship would see us and have pity. Some got so thirsty that they drank their own urine or squeezed rain water out of blankets they left out overnight. People looked after each other. We knew we were going to die and wanted to die with dignity and respect. We drifted for 17 days without food or water. We prayed all the time. The children kept asking for food. There was a lot of weeping and crying. I kept my hope alive by praying, in the morning, afternoon and evening and even more when the sea turned violent as it often did. I thanked God for my 22 years of life, for my family and asked for the forgiveness of my sins.


There was a young married woman on board who gave birth to her baby (I helped deliver the baby) and I pray to the Lord, Lord, I dont want the baby to die on the first day of his life. I promise you if we survive, I will be a good man Two hours later a British cargo ship, came out of nowhere and rescued us. I knew then that God answers prayers !


(Eventually arriving in England, Michael Ho, became a priest, currently based in Coventry, UK)

“Trained by war and betrayed by peace”

In 1916, at the age of 17, my great-uncle Tom was killed during the battle of the Somme along with all of his ‘pals’ and another half a million or so boys and young men. Some 70 years later, the medals he had been awarded posthumously were stolen from his elderly sister’s house by teenagers of a different generation.

It’s odd how in those times the young possessed a sense of duty, courage and honour, a long forgotten innocence perhaps that drove them to sacrifice for their country, kin, and the freedoms they sought to defend. What was lacking in their leaders does not lessen their qualities.

How quickly the collective memory fades though, even with another war in between, all is taken for granted, unappreciated, mocked even. A Victorian scholar came to the conclusion that “War is the foundation of all the high virtues and faculties of men” and “that all great nations learned their truth of word and strength of thought in war; that they were nourished in war and wasted by peace, taught by war and deceived by peace; trained by war and betrayed by peace; in a word, that they were born in war and expired in peace."

This is especially true in the Christian life if the daily spiritual warfare we must engage in is not attended to.

The poor and persecuted church, dressed in rags with calloused knees from supplication, knows it’s at war. And it leans in hard to prayer, clings to its saviour, knows it’s only source of hope and strength. And strangely, through those times of strife, the persecuted become more and more open hearted to one another too; in similar fashion to those who lived through wars do; they reminisce about those days when people pulled together, looked out for one another. They are growing ever stronger in faith and virtue.

As the persecuted church is tested by such trials; the western church has a far greater test to endure; prosperity. The peaceful unhindered practice of faith, lives of relative opulence, slumped on the sofa, remote control in one hand and a mug of tea in the other. Smooth knees and calloused hearts ? It takes us on a downward path to complacency and even to an illusory sense of entitlement. This weakens souls and eliminates virtue. It’s an invisible war, but an eternally dangerous one.

Our memory has faded too, we forget what Jesus did for us, fail to appreciate it and take it for granted instead of developing a renewed sense of duty, courage and honour. Called to be vigilant; to pray like our lives depended on it (they do), make sacrifices for others, pass the test of generosity to those in need, be in solidarity in practical helpful ways with our suffering brethren. We are all required to show up for battle each morning, and fight all the day long, for what we believe in, cherish, hope for.

Healed in Jail Cell

In 1993 Philip, a house church leader in China, was thrown in prison after he and a number of believers were arrested. His ‘welcome’ to prison was a savage beating from the guards. They kicked him viciously with their steel-capped boots, beat him with batons, and tortured him with electric cattle-prods, designed to shock his body with high voltage.

Philip was left unconscious with a broken collarbone, arm, and ribs. The prison authorities then threw his bloody and bruised body into a small cell that already contained 28 prisoners. The cell had just one bed and a bucket, used by all the prisoners as a toilet. The cell leader was a rough man who had already formed a gang inside the prison. No one was allowed to sit on or touch his bed. When Brother Philip’s lifeless body was thrown inside the cell, however, even this hardened criminal had compassion on Philip and lay him down on his bed.

At around 2 a.m., according to the testimony of the other prisoners, a supernatural light or glow appeared over Philip’s body. It shone on him for several hours. The other prisoners were absolutely terrified and backed up against the corner of the cell. They cried for the guards to come and let them out. The guards also saw the supernatural light and were terrified, but they refused to let the prisoners out.

By sunrise, Brother Philip was much better and had regained consciousness. At no time did he actually see the light, but all the other prisoners did. Surprisingly for the serious injuries he had received the previous night, he was feeling much better and his broken collarbone and ribs seemed to be healed. Not surprisingly, the first question the prisoners asked him was “Who are you?” He replied, “It doesn’t matter who I am, but let me tell you about Jesus Christ.” He led all 28 of the prisoners to faith in Christ!

Today Brother Philip continues his ministry and is responsible for hundreds of house churches across China. He is a godly, humble and committed Christian who is willing to die for the Gospel. He receives no income and often goes hungry. Believers sometimes give him love gifts, but most rural Christians in China are so poor that their sacrificial gifts are barely enough for Philip to buy a train or bus ticket to the next town. There are thousands of Gospel-warriors like Philip in China and in the surrounding nations of Asia.

The Wall

(A story from the persecuted church in China by a lay missionary)

“on the second night of his visit, he was awoken in the middle of the night by the noise of people moving around the house. A little scared, he got up out of bed and went to his door. Opening his door he grabbed one of the men living in the house and said to him “what is going on ?” The Chinese man replied “we’re going to the wall”. He inquired further “ What is the wall ?” The Chinese man replied “Come with us and we will show you”

He got dressed and ventured out into the night with this group of people, walking for miles. On the way they were joined by 2 other groups until they numbered about 120 people. They came to a forest and he noticed that some of the male members were climbing up the trees. (it turns out that they were look-outs).

They got to a clearing in the forest and there was a small half-built wall from an old derelict building. As they came closer, everyone fell down on their knees before the wall.

Moments later, one man got up and walked towards the wall and reaching forwards removed one brick, behind the brick was reserved the Blessed Sacrament. They adored the Blessed Sacrament for one hour in silent prayer. Then the brick was replaced, the men came down from the trees and they went home.

Two or three times a week they would go to the wall in the middle of the night, risking imprisonment or even their lives, to spend an hour with Jesus, their greatest friend.”