underground christians

Found this today on ChinaAid‘s website:

June 8, 2009

BEIJING – On May 19, the Chinese House Church Alliance, a house church network of more than 250,000 members, issued a call to house churches across China. The public statement, “Chinese House Church Alliance on the Initiatives of Integration of House Churches in Life and Truth,” exposes and acknowledges problems the house churches are facing in the 21st century from within which make them more vulnerable to persecution, difficulties and moral compromise. The Chinese House Church Alliance proposes specific initiatives; calling house church Christians back to loyalty to Jesus, the Bible and to each other.

The following is the full text of the call from the Chinese House Church Alliance to house churches across China:

CHINESE HOUSE CHURCH ALLIANCE
ON THE INIATIVES OF INTEGRATION OF HOUSE CHURCHES IN LIFE AND TRUTH

May 19, 2009

In the past 30 years, God has continuously been opening up the gate of the Gospel in China. The house churches in China quietly emerged and experienced a great revival at the end of the last century, which caught the attention of the church worldwide. However, after they entered the 21st century, many new problems and new directions have emerged as the house church movement continues to develop. They are mainly reflected in the following areas:

1. Leaders of house churches lack humility and a kingdom perspective. Regional separations are a serious issue.

2. Different backgrounds in faith and theological ideas have caused confusion regarding truth and created disputes in doctrine.

3. Some leaders of house churches are morally compromised, which has seriously affected the credibility of house churches.

The emergence of the above problems has dislocated the house churches from their foundation, so much so that they are rendered vulnerable to the impact of the persecution by outside forces, tribulations and temptations. As a result, many ministries that used to have a great vision are now split and have collapsed, and the testimonies, integration and development of house churches are seriously hampered. For these reasons, the Chinese Christian House Church Alliance proposes the following initiatives:

1. House churches should reject the disruption caused by various new schools of theological ideas and should return to the Bible and adhere to the pure faith with Apostles’ Creed as our basic principles.

2. House churches should contact each other in peace and strive to protect the hearts of one another through the fellowship and blessings of the Holy Spirit. We should all be connected to our supreme leader, Christ, establish ourselves in love and be integrated in life and truth.

3. House churches should follow the ways of Christ and regard Christ’s heart as our heart and discard the scepter of possessions and authority, and instead pursue the spiritual scepter. May the kingdom of God descend upon us,as we greet the second coming of Jesus Christ.

4. House churches should make progress hand in hand in this new era and establish spiritual organizations on the solid rock, so that house churches become the ever-burning golden lampstands in the hands of God. “And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.”
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Pray for the house churches in China. I have friends involved in house churches in China, both local Chinese people, as well as foreigners. It’s a HUGE church in terms of numbers across the nation. It’s really encouraging to see, but they do face major problems as you can see above, when it comes to things like moral compromise, incorrect teachings, and downright heresy. But if you look in the book of Acts, the Chinese church is facing a lot of the same things the 1st Century churches faced.