Spotlight

Abel (not his real name) goes to Sunday school and church every week. At Sunday school he learns many songs and Bible verses. Some of the favorite verses of his classmates are John 10:28 and John 3:16. One of the songs they sing regularly is based on Psalm 133. At church Abel and his friends pray and listen to the preacher.

“I have been coming to Sunday school for 10 years,” Abel told a worker from The Voice of the Martyrs. “My mother introduced me to Jesus.”

Abel’s story might not sound unusual. Many Christian children around the world could tell similar stories about their Sunday school and church.

But Abel attends a house church in Guangzhou, China. Guangzhou policemen have not been kind to house-church Christians who will not join China’s “Three-Self Patriotic Movement” (TSPM) churches. Many house-church members refuse to join these official churches, because the government controls what the people in the churches do and say. Like the apostles in Acts 5, the house-church leaders say, “We must obey God rather than men.”

Pastor Li

Li De Xian is a well-known pastor from Guangzhou. Pastor Li has been arrested many times for preaching at “illegal religious gatherings.” He keeps a bag of clothes packed, because he knows he could be arrested again at any time. Chinese police have raided and disrupted Pastor Li’s house-church services repeatedly.

The police also took away all the Bibles and songbooks, and even the chairs, from his house church. His congregation is not surprised or shaken by their struggles. (See 1 Peter 4:12.) Once after the police came and arrested Pastor Li, the believers simply went back into the house and finished their meeting. They sat on newspapers, since the police had taken their chairs.

Another Risk

Abel has been attending house-church Sunday school for 10 years in the same city where the police have persecuted Pastor Li. (See the photo above of Abel at his Sunday school class. His face has been covered to protect his identity.) But Abel and his teachers face an additional risk. Chinese officials do not allow adults to teach children under 18 about God and Jesus.

Parents at many TSPM churches have to take turns attending church while one parent stays home with their child. (The government of China does not want couples to have more than one child.) Parents, teachers, and students at some locations in China have been taken into custody by the police because the students went to Sunday school.

In the face of such risks, why do Abel and his Christian friends continue to go to church? “Because I believe in Jesus Christ, and church is where other people are who believe in Jesus,” said one of Abel’s classmates.

Please pray for Sunday school students in China. Pray for Chinese children whose families are afraid to take them to Sunday school and church. Pray all Chinese children will learn about God’s love for them.