Nov 7 marked the celebration of 17th Founding Anniversary of Yu-Xuan Church, Hu'nan Bible School. Wen Shuang-Cheng, the Senior pastor, reviewed the development of the church, counting the blessings.
According to Pastor Wen, the chapel has been conducting the activity of "Night of Yu Xuan" on the evening of Nov 7 each year since 2010. The aim of the activity is to restate the chapel's vision, review its development, look into its future and inspire the believers to move ahead together and jointly participate in the building of the church.
Pastor Wen divided the church's development history of 17 years into the following three stages:
1999 - 2006: At the beginning of the church, only the students of the Bible School and several surrounding believers attend. By 2005, the number of believers increased to about 300. During this period, the senior pastors were frequently changed and it was difficult for the church to have a unified direction of development.
2007 - 2011: The church entered a stage of stable development. It officially registered "Yu Xuan Church" as its name, and had a clear direction of development,namely "building Yu Xuan Church into a healthy, pure, united and developing church". In this stage, the number of believers increased rapidly, resulting in difficulties in shepherding. September
2011- 2016: The church transited to the model of cell-group for shepherding. Although there were only a small number of pastors, the brothers and sisters in the group could receive support and shepherd. The five-year work of group transition has been completed this year, and Yu Xuan Church will usher in the fourth stage of development.
The focus of the new phase, Pastor Wen added, is to continue promoting the building of co-worker team, build a lively group in an all-around way, lay special emphasis on equipping the believers with gospel and increase investment in the ministries as to youth, family and sacred music.
The chapel is located in Furong District of Changsha City. In 1999, after the completion of construction of the teaching building of Bible School, Yu Xuan Church held its first Sunday Worship Service on Nov 7. There were only a handful of surrounding Christians participating except some students of the Bible School. Today, there are four meetings on the Lord's Day, with nearly a thousand people attending it.
