Editor’s note: For security reasons, place names, church names, and some identifying details in this article have been obscured.
At Christmas in 2023, I went to a Three-Self church in my hometown to watch a performance by the fellowship group my mother belonged to.
Before the service began, the national anthem was played in the sanctuary, followed by a government-produced video. Sitting there, I quickly reached a conclusion: This had become the Communist Party’s church, not God’s church.
At the time, I judged churches that quickly.
I wanted to know who was truly following the Lord, who had compromised out of fear, and who might have other motives for being in the church. But the harder I tried to sort people out, the less I knew whom to trust.
Looking back now, I know some of what I saw was real. But I also see that I understood it far too simply.
I Used to See Only the Church’s Compromises
The first church I attended regularly was a Three-Self church. My mother was there too. She did not serve up front. Most of what she did was pray for people and care for those in the church who were sick or elderly.
The church held several gatherings each week, each attended by several hundred people. But most were older, and very few were under thirty. Many of the brothers and sisters believed in Jesus, but their children did not.
I had always wanted to share the gospel with young people, but the church had no ministry for them. Minors could not simply come to the gatherings either. The pastor told me that if they allowed children in, the government might shut the church down.
At the time, I thought he was afraid.
I thought that if church leaders really depended on the Lord, they should not be afraid of the government. All earthly authority was in God’s hands. We should simply do what the Bible said.
Only after I had been around more churches did I slowly begin to realize that I was seeing what was on the surface. A pastor might be facing a very different question: whether the entire church could continue to exist.
Over the years, I have also gotten to know many aunties and elderly women in Three-Self churches. They may not know what it means to be Reformed or charismatic, or what people mean when they talk about house churches. They may have no idea what churches elsewhere are debating. Some do not use the internet and have nowhere else they can attend church.
They simply know that they believe in Jesus.
For them, having a church to go to, someone to preach, people to pray with them, and someone to visit when they are sick or facing difficulties is something very practical.
I still disagree with many aspects of how the Three-Self system is managed. I also do not know what motivates every pastor’s choices when facing pressure. But I no longer lump the system, its pastors, and ordinary believers together and dismiss them all.
There were things I once thought I understood clearly.
Now I realize that perhaps I had simply never tried to see them from someone else’s perspective.
House Churches Were Not Another World
Later, I left the Three-Self church and began attending a Reformed house church in N City.
To be honest, my reasons were not very complicated. I simply wanted a church with more young people and more opportunities to serve.
At my previous church, most people were aunties and older adults, and the main ways I could serve were cleaning and cooking. I wanted to be around people closer to my own age. I also wanted a church involved in evangelism, missions, and youth ministry so that I could take part.
At the time, I also had an idea that now seems childish to me: The more I did for the Lord, the more the Lord would like me.
I even thought that if I did things that pleased God, perhaps he would reward me with money, good health, or a beautiful girlfriend.
After I joined the Reformed church, I met some young Christians who really challenged me. Some had left well-paying jobs in order to pursue the truth and serve. Others had set aside their studies or their own plans because they wanted to serve.
Their lives affected me deeply.
I gradually began to see that although I said I was seeking God’s kingdom, I often still wanted the good things of this world. Some things I called serving God were also ways of hoping to get something from God in return.
That made me start asking why I was serving in the first place.
But entering the house church world brought another kind of disappointment.
Some of these things I experienced myself; others were told to me by people around me. I cannot judge every detail or say who was right or wrong. But disputes over church elections, money, decision-making, and relationships among leaders showed me something I had not understood before: Leaving the Three-Self system did not mean leaving behind power, personal interests, or human weakness.
What I considered sounder theology and a more developed church structure did not automatically produce a church without problems.
Later, another brother I served with, and I left that meeting place and began attending another one. The elder there did not have much money, but he often helped people who were struggling.
We trusted him not because he had an impressive education or a big reputation, but because we saw how he treated actual people.
Why Couldn’t They Just Come Together?
Later, a brother who was leading us in ministry arranged for a coworker and me to visit rural churches in A Province.
There were more than ten meeting points in the area, with several hundred believers altogether, perhaps even more. Most were elderly. Many had little education and no regular preacher. They could only read the Bible and gospel tracts themselves, or occasionally invite pastors from elsewhere to come and help.
At first, there was one thing I could not understand: If everyone believed in Jesus, why couldn’t they just come together?
Once I actually spent time there, I realized it was not that simple.
Some meeting points worried that joining with others might affect what they believed. They were afraid they would not be able to tell what was true and might end up believing something wrong, so they were hesitant to join with other churches.
There was also a very practical issue. Each meeting point had always managed its own offerings. If they joined together, who would be responsible for the money? How would it be used? What responsibilities would the existing leaders still have? All of these questions affected trust.
From the outside, it is easy to say that they are “not united.” But for local believers, there were also relationships built over many years, real concerns about truth, and very practical questions about money and leadership.
They lacked people with formal theological training, and their resources were nothing like those of churches in the cities. But the faith and hope I saw among them moved me deeply.
Some could barely read and had no pastor teaching them regularly, yet they were still seriously seeking the Lord.
I used to connect theological education, well-developed church structures, and spiritual maturity very closely. These rural churches showed me that it is not that simple.
W City Showed Me Another Kind of Church
The brother who was leading us in ministry had once left a stable job to take part in gospel work in different places. Through him, we later went to W City and met some local pastors and ministry workers.
Some of their churches were under a great deal of pressure. They could only meet in smaller, scattered groups, and much of their ministry moved forward slowly. But I also saw many young people serving there. Many Christians were in business and were willing to use their resources to support the church.
I would not say that I truly understand the churches in W City, much less that W City is somehow better than N City. I only encountered a few churches. But there were some differences I could actually see.
In some of the Reformed churches I encountered in N City, the form of worship was very strict. Some sang only psalms and did not use musical instruments. In W City, I heard different hymns and worship songs, and I saw bands taking part in worship.
Some preaching in N City placed a strong emphasis on theology, doctrine, and logic. Without a certain level of education or theological background, it could sometimes be difficult to follow. Some pastors I heard in W City preached in a way that was closer to everyday life. Even people who could not read or had little formal education could understand what they were saying.
In N City, participating in certain ministries usually meant first becoming a church member, receiving theological training, and then being recognized by church leaders. There are reasons for such structures. But for someone like me, who had no formal church role and had never studied theology, it was difficult to become involved in some kinds of ministry.
In W City, some pastors knew that I had no formal position but were still willing to let me come along, learning by doing.
I also saw preachers in some W City churches rotate among different meeting points, while local elders provided long-term leadership and pastoral care. Different churches would sometimes plan ministries together instead of each meeting point focusing only on its own work.
Some Christian business owners also gave money to support churches, poor families, and other community needs.
By comparison, the churches I encountered in N City put many of their resources into theological education and training pastors and preachers. I do not think one choice is necessarily right and the other wrong. But they showed me that churches can have very different understandings of what the most important needs are.
I used to want to find the one correct model of church.
After spending time in these different places, I began to realize that every model may see some important things and miss others.
Why Do Only the Leaders Know?
After encountering churches in different places, several young brothers and I increasingly wanted to do one thing: help Christians from different regions and backgrounds know about one another.
We noticed that many church leaders knew more about churches in other regions and traditions, while ordinary believers knew very little.
We kept asking ourselves: Why do only the leaders know? Shouldn’t ordinary believers also know what other churches are going through?
This was not simply about curiosity. There was a large gap between needs and resources.
What one church in N City might spend on a single event could sometimes be enough for a rural meeting point in A Province to buy a projector, sound equipment, tables, and chairs. A trained deacon in a city church might be able to help a rural church that had gone a long time without a preacher.
But if they did not even know about each other, they could not help one another.
We also worried that when information stayed in the hands of only a few people, ordinary believers could not see needs beyond their own churches or know how they might help. When problems arose, they could also be difficult to see.
In 2025, some young Christians from different churches and I began forming a very loose network.
We had no formal organization and no complicated structure. When a need came up somewhere, we would simply see whether anyone was willing to give time, effort, or resources. Some gave money. Some joined short-term ministry trips. Others simply wanted to understand how the work was done.
Through youth fellowships, camps, and different ministry activities, we gradually got to know young people from different churches and different parts of the country.
It was not a large network. But for the first time, we saw that ordinary believers could begin where they were and create connections between churches that had previously known little about one another.
For a Month, I Was Afraid to Send Messages
By 2026, the environment had become more tense, especially for ministries involving young people, university students, and connections across different regions.
One brother who had been leading us in ministry was visited and questioned by the police because he had previously been in contact with Christians overseas. We were also told that someone might come looking for us.
During that time, I did not dare answer calls from unfamiliar numbers. I also stopped contacting some Christians overseas.
For almost a month, I did not even dare send messages.
Later, the youth network and some of our cross-church activities were suspended. We could not tell when we might be able to start again, or whether our original plans could continue at all.
Of course I was disappointed.
I thought about everything I had already given up. I had not worked properly or gone out to make money. I had spent so much of my time serving. Why was everything still so difficult? Why, just when something had begun to take shape, did we have to stop?
But I did not conclude that because everything had stopped, we must have been going in the wrong direction.
We often prayed:
Lord, I do not have enough wisdom or discernment. If what we are doing pleases you, please open the way. If it does not, please stop us.
I still feel sad sometimes, and I still ask why. But I am beginning to accept that when a ministry stops, it does not mean God has left us.
Serving is not about proving that I chose the right direction. And not everything we begin has to succeed according to our plans.
From “Doing Something Big” Back to the Dinner Table
After the youth network was suspended, we put more of our energy back into smaller gospel work.
We would meet people online whom we did not know and invite them to dinner or to a reading group. We would spend time together, talk, and build relationships before gradually beginning to talk about faith.
Through this, we met a young woman suffering from kidney failure. Her family had abandoned her, and she faced many practical difficulties in daily life.
As we shared the gospel with her, we also spent time with her, gave some money to help her, and tried to meet some of her practical needs.
This did not suddenly give me a new “method of evangelism.” To me, sharing the gospel was never supposed to mean simply telling someone a set of ideas.
If we say that we know the Lord, but people cannot see from the way we treat them what kind of people Christians are, then how is she supposed to come to know the Lord we believe in?
I used to want to take part in more ministries. I wanted to do things that looked bigger and more influential.
Later I began to realize that sometimes ministry is simply a dinner table, spending a long time with someone, or not leaving her alone when life is at its hardest.
These things may never become a large project. Many people may never know about them.
But they are still part of the life of the church.
I Am Beginning to Understand Commitment
Church elders used to tell me not to keep moving from place to place, but to commit myself to one church.
I really did not like hearing that.
I thought, We are all brothers and sisters in Christ. Why can’t I go to different churches? Why do I have to be limited to one place?
I understand it differently now.
We have physical bodies. We live in particular places, and we are limited by time and distance. Loving God and loving people cannot remain only an idea. Eventually, that love has to take shape among a particular group of people.
If I really want to know some brothers and sisters, stay with them when they are struggling, and also let them know my weaknesses, that takes a long time.
The same is true for pastors. If someone is here today and somewhere else tomorrow, it is difficult for a pastor to really understand that person’s life or care for him over time.
So now I understand that committing to one church does not necessarily mean rejecting other churches. It can also mean learning how to love one particular group of people over the long term.
But I do not think commitment means closing the door and caring only about my own church.
There are still elderly believers in A Province who lack pastoral care. There are still things we can learn from churches in W City. There are also many trained people in N City who are willing to serve. If we know nothing about one another’s needs, it is difficult for churches to truly help one another.
I no longer think that committing to one church and connecting with different churches have to be in conflict.
Perhaps I need to learn to stay with one particular group of people, receive pastoral care there, and take responsibility for them. At the same time, when I can, I still want to help believers in different places know what others are going through.
There are still things some churches do that frustrate me, and I still make judgments. But I no longer believe that moving on to the next church will allow me to escape human weakness.
I also no longer put Three-Self churches and house churches, Reformed churches and traditional churches, urban churches and rural churches on a simple scale from better to worse.
The more places I have been, the more I realize that what I see is always only part of the picture.
I still have not found a perfect church.
But at least now, I am willing to move a little closer, look a little longer, and only then come to a conclusion.
