Editor’s note: In 2019, we published this interview with a Chinese pastor. We are happy to re-publish it this July as we pray for the city of Chengdu. In this conversation, the pastor describes his city, and explains how prayer connects his young church with the global heritage of faith. Through prayer, he has fellowship with other believers, and encouragement on the sometimes lonely road of ministry. He also issues a stirring call to prayer, asking the Western church to pray for the church in China. We pray that this interview helps you come to know Chengdu, and moves your heart to pray for the city and its people.

This interview has been slightly edited and condensed from its original version.

Chengdu: Relaxed and Unique

CP: Can you briefly describe Chengdu?

Pastor: Chengdu is western China’s largest city. It is ancient, with a history of three to four thousand years. Among cities with more than a million people, it is arguably the world’s oldest.

Chengdu’s culture is unique, different from other Chinese cities. People enjoy a relaxed lifestyle and live comfortably. The weather is not particularly great. People believe heaven is closer to them, so they rarely look to faith for help.

Prayer is especially important to the Chinese church because we are spiritual infants.  The shorter the church’s history… the more we need the spiritual promises and supernatural guidance God grants through prayer.

Prayer’s Importance for the Young Church

CP: Why is prayer crucial to the Chinese church?

Pastor: God gives us prayer as a way to communicate with him. It is the most important way our eyes are drawn away from the visible world to God’s invisible kingdom. It is also the most important way we turn from seeking our own will to seeking God’s will.

But prayer is especially important to the Chinese church because we are spiritual infants.  The shorter the church’s history, the more rudimentary our relationship with God and our understanding of his word, the more we need the spiritual promises and supernatural guidance God grants through prayer.

The Chinese church does not have a long history; our spiritual maturity and grasp of God’s word are elementary. So, we especially need prayer. The greater the difficulties we face from our social environment, the greater need we have to pray.

CP: Have you experienced the Chinese church coming together to pray? 

Pastor: There have been many such occasions: it has happened within a [single] church, and there are also times different churches gather in a city.

As society changes, church leaders from different areas have more opportunities to meet. These opportunities are especially cherished to us – perhaps unlike with Western churches – because it is not easy for us to be together.

When it happens, we see prayer that is of one heart and one mind.

CP: Can you describe how you feel when you experience prayer on such a large scale?

Pastor: First, through praying with others, I experience more deeply that God is present among his people, not only with me. Second, serving the Lord can be hard at times, especially in China. When one faces difficult, complicated social situations, it is easy to have Elijah’s attitude, feeling alone and wondering: “Am I the only one here fighting for the Lord?”

When people gather to pray, God takes away those feelings of loneliness and tragic heroism. Through his church, Christ’s visible body, he binds you with his grace. This is also the process of our being healed and forgiven.

Serving the Lord can be hard at times, especially in China…When people gather to pray, God takes away those feelings of loneliness and tragic heroism.

God of All Nations

CP: When you hear that American brothers and sisters are praying for the Chinese church, what are your feelings?

Pastor: Once, I met an official from the Bureau of Religious Affairs. He said to me the Chinese church had been growing too fast, whereas society and its policies changed slowly. “You should be patient,” he advised. I replied that we were able to be patient, because our church had been in existence for over two thousand years, while their government had only been around for a little more than half a century. I said, “We can wait another thousand years.”

My church has a short history. But when I know that Christians in America, in other countries, and in every part of the world are praying for us, I know we belong to a two-thousand-year-old church that reaches the ends of the earth. God is not only God of his people in this nation, but he is God from the rising of the sun to the place where it sets. This gives us great comfort and encouragement.

CP: Do you have any suggestions how to pray for China?

Pastor: There are many things to pray for, but two come to mind as most important. First, the question of whether the Chinese church can continue to develop and grow. (This seems to be reality, since our church has been growing very fast. God has worked in amazing ways.)

Second, the question of whether the Chinese church can remain conservative and evangelical. As we grow and face the kinds of monumental changes God has orchestrated in Chinese society, can we fully trust biblical authority? As we continuously take in theological and biblical knowledge from the West, how will we face contemporary culture?

My church has a short history. But when I know that Christians in America, in other countries, and in every part of the world are praying for us, I know we belong to a two-thousand-year-old church that reaches the ends of the earth.

My utmost concern is whether, as the church grows, she can remain steadfast on the path of the cross. This path is characteristic of persecuted church theology. Not only does the Chinese church have to develop and grow, but she also needs to be faithful to God’s inerrant word.

In the final part of the interview, the pastor exhorts American believers to remember and lift up the church in China. Below is a video of that passionate and eloquent call to prayer.

Wang Jianguo is the collective pseudonym for a group of Chinese house church pastors thinking about writing about issues related to the spread of Christianity in their nation. They are committed to preaching a grace-centered gospel, developing resources for the church, and loving China’s urban centers.

Pray for believers in Chengdu to experience fellowship with global believers through prayer. Pray Chengdu Christians will know they are not alone, but that prayer brings them together with the Lord and with their fellow Christians.