The most stressful thing for Pastor Luo this year was that a Christian man intended to serve full-time, but Luo worried all night and couldn't sleep due to the church’s stretched finances.
Sermon is usually the most crucial part of Sunday services in Protestant churches, as it provides believers with spiritual nourishment. Therefore, delivering a well-prepared Sunday sermon is a key aspect of pastoral work.
In Shanxi's mountains, a county church held a New Year gathering on the first day of the Chinese Lunar Year. Yet, this event held a deeper meaning—a story of revival, rising from the pandemic's shadow.
On the first Sunday after the lunar new year, I visited a rural church which can accommodate 100 people at least, but there were only 11 people attending the service.
Zhang Guiyan, Wang Mingdao's chief assistant, once shared the story of Wang's later years, who was a representative figure of the house churches in China's Christian community.
Through observation and analysis in 2023, Christianity in China became the same as it was before the pandemic, but many differences also emerged, resulting in far-reaching changes.