What God Has Done

When one hears of a people group in China known as “a Christian people,” it is surprising to say the least. Yet that is how officials in the Nujiang Lisu Autonomous Prefecture in far southwestern China refer to the Lisu people. More than half of the total Lisu people group embrace Christianity and at least one Christian church will be found in every Lisu village.

A century ago, such a development was almost beyond belief. China Inland Mission, the first group to work with the Lisu, reported 25 believers in 1900 and that was the result of 20 years’ work. In was not long before Methodists, Baptists, Pentecostals and others joined in trying to reach the Lisu.

These early missionaries understood theirs was a spiritual battle and made prayer a primary strategy. Of course, missionaries preached widely but always bathed each activity in prayer. They fought the grip of spiritualism and demon possession upon the Lisu. When one made a profession of faith, discipleship demands were hard. Families were required to rid themselves of all the idol worship of their past and to reform their lives according to biblical standards.

One writer wrote, “One of the more notable fruits of conversion was the new order and stability to be found in the Lisu villages as people found new life and a new lifestyle in Jesus Christ.”

After several starts and failures, missionaries came to understand that reaching families for Christ was the most effective way to reach people in the Chinese culture. One missionary wrote to a  prayer group, “When these tribespeople turn to the Lord ‘in families’ it does not necessarily mean that every member of the family is wholehearted about the matter — indeed this is seldom the case — but it does mean that the responsible members of the family turn from Satan to God with a definiteness otherwise lacking.”

This strategy began to pay dividends. In 1949, when missionaries were forced from China, 20,000 Lisu people identified themselves as Christians. During the dark days of Communist persecution of Christians, faith among the Lisu continued to grow. When the new century dawned, the number of Lisu Christians had increased more than 15 times in 50 years. The majority of the half million plus member people group claimed Christ as Savior.

The story among the Lahu people group is almost as dramatic. Work began among this people group when representatives went to western missionaries and asked them to come to their villages. The Lahu lived in villages that stretched across the border of China and Burma (now Myanmar) which presented logistical problems from the first.  A missionary force at first thought suspicious by the Lahu people became a group the Lahus wanted to know. Nearly 6,000 Lahus were baptized in 1905–06. The political turmoil in China and later in Burma made life difficult for the Lahu. Christian work was slowed. Still, some observers estimate that today as many as 40 percent of this people group are Christians.

In the area of China where the Lisu and Lahu people groups live, it is estimated there are more than a million Christians. And what is true of this area is true all over the Middle Kingdom. A study by the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention placed China alongside such places as Canada, Australia, Denmark and Sweden in the percentage of evangelical Christians in the population. It seems astonishing that China has a higher percentage of evangelical Christians than most of Europe, according to the IMB study.

In an analysis of the concentration of lostness, China was again in the same category as Canada, Australia, Denmark and Sweden. There was a higher concentration of lostness in most of Europe, Mexico, Argentina and a number of western South American countries than in China.

That is not the usual picture of China. Most people think of China as a closed society hostile to the Christian gospel. That is true in part. But God has done a marvelous work in China despite the opposition and the work continues. New churches are being planted in China at such a rate that IMB officials chart at least three different church planting movements going on among various people groups there.

Christian historians note that the most marvelous story of the 1800s was the evangelization of the United States. The century started with about 6 percent of the population identified with the Christian faith. It ended with that number being nearer 60 percent.

The most amazing story of the 1900s may well be the work God has done in China. And it happened largely through the methods of families coming to Christ just as missionaries discovered at the turn of the century. Today, official numbers are not available and estimates on the number of Christians vary widely. Still, it is possible that the number of Christians is nearing 100 million.

Let us pray that God will continue to open doors to the gospel in China, in Asia and around the world. More than 60 percent of the world’s 6 billion people live in Asia, making it a vital place to preach the saving gospel of Jesus Christ.

And let us be sensitive to see what miraculous work God is about in this new century. If the Lord delays His return until then, who knows where historians will point at the end of this century and marvel at what God has done?