Chinese people are very busy during Spring Festival - traveling home, shopping, etc. Church workers are also quite busy, according to a pastor in Jieyang, Guangdong. They visit and care for senior believers and financially-challenged families while preparing for the New Year's revival, rehearsals, and sermons.
Pastor Xue knows much about churches in Chaoshan, in the east of Guangdong Province. There are revival meetings from the 1st to the 3rd on the lunar calendar. These revivals were rather frequent when the church first resumed services, sometimes everyday, according to Xue.
There are three reasons for the "liveliness."
First, believers consider going to church in the beginning of the New Year a blessing, so people donate most in these few days.
Second, since so many people in Chaoshan work in other places, when they come home for reunion, the family elders urge the whole family to go together to make up missed meetings. That's why some people are called Spring Festival believers or "chreasters."
Third, churches hold revivals to set them apart from secular habits like gambling and superstitions. In this way, Christians' lives are filled with holiness instead of loneliness.
Local churches primarily invite famous pastors to preach for the revivals, and the rest is the same as usual. Of course, things are different nowadays as the society develops. Some churches have changed the three-day revival meetings to two days or one day; others changed the one-day to half a day.
However, churches in the Pearl River Delta don't have any special celebration. Most people would choose to travel during Spring Festival because they have better economic conditions.
In recent years, the church added some activities for migrant workers who are not able to return to their hometowns. Churches host dinner for these believers to make them feel at home. Unbelieving friends are also welcome at the church dinner.
Dongshan Church has been doing this for two years and around 500 people ate together this year.
New Year's sermons are all about "new," such as "去旧迎新" which means "biding farewell to the old and ushering in the new." Chinese characteristics are also shown, such as preaching God's blessing and pastors giving blessings.
"It is a land the Lord your God cares for; the eyes of the Lord your God are continually on it from the beginning of the year to its end." (Deuteronomy 11:12)
This verse as well as Psalm 90 are often quoted.
In addition, churches have "love campaigns," which mainly focus on their own believers and visiting seniors. Churches with more financial strength visit local nursing homes and give them some money and goods.
-Translated by Grace Hubl
