Missionaries made the difference

Joe Westbury

China’s newest church was dedicated on May 29 with an overflow crowd of 5,000 in attendance. The congregation has grown from 40 just 16 years ago to 3,000 members today. The church is located in the bustling metropolitan city of Weihai, about forty miles from where Georgia resident Lottie Moon served in Tengchow (now Penglai). The church plans to launch a second building project which will provide dormitory and educational space for individuals entering the ministry.

WEIHAI, China — Lottie would be proud.

Just shy of a century from when she died of starvation and exhaustion from a 40-year ministry, Christians in her adopted Shandong Province gathered on May 29 to dedicate that nation’s newest church building.

As strains of “Living for Jesus” filled the sanctuary, balconies, and overflow rooms scattered throughout the church, 5,000 believers came to hear the Gospel proclaimed through word, song, and pageantry befitting of any Woman’s Missionary Union gathering in the United States. The Fumen congregation of Weihai Christian Church, which didn’t even exist 16 years ago, has grown to 3,000 members today.

While not a direct link to Lottie Moon, who ministered to the poor while a member of First Baptist Church of Cartersville, the church is a spiritual descendent of her ministry and those of other missionaries who served in the area.

The church began with 40 worshippers in 1989, just 13 years after the end of the Cultural Revolution that banned all forms of Western worship. Today its sanctuary seats 3,000 and two overflow halls seat 1,000 each. A second addition to the church will include a training center and an 80-bed dormitory to provide housing for individuals studying for the ministry.

Moon served just 40 miles away at Tengchow (now Penglai), another coastal city, and most likely traveled to Weihai on her mission trips throughout the countryside. Her legacy remains deeply embedded in the church where she served and which will be featured in a special Christmas centerspread in the Dec. 22 issue of the Index.

Joe Westbury

Children sing Living for Jesus during an afternoon-long pageant celebrating the dedication of the mammoth building. The children are growing up in a China that is more open to the Gospel than what their parents experienced decades earlier.