On November 26, 2016, Guanxiang Church of Fuzhou held the thanksgiving worship service to celebrate its 100th anniversary with about 1000 people in attendance, Fujian.
Presided by Rev. Huang Chaozhang, associate chairman of Fujian CCC, the service included parts of responsive reading, scripture reading, prayer and hymns singing by choirs. Rev. Yue Qinghua, president of Fujian Theological Seminary preached a sermon, encouraging the believers to build the church filled with brotherly kindness, love and fervor for God's kingdom.
In 1863, a western ministry of the Congregational Church of the United States sent two missionaries to conduct mission work in Fuzhou and took charge of Foochow College, originally founded in 1848. One year later, the mission center constructed a building, where all the male students of the college attended the classes. In 1881, the preaching station of the center was enlarged into a church named "Taiping Street Church." The believers increased more and more until 1915 when the church couldn't hold the congregation anymore.
Then two sons of a pastor donated a large sum of money and believers gave donations. The mission allocated a land of 2617 m2 to build a large church that was completed in 1916. It was named as "Rev. Liu Mengshi Memorial Church", the largest church in the province at that time. Meanwhile, it received a giant pipe organ made in U.S. from a church of the United States, known as the third organ in China. Since then, large meetings, concerts, and ceremonies of the church in Fuzhou were held in the church.
In Oct 1948, a team of 100 vocal music elites selected from the local colleges and church choirs presented the worldly classic "Messiah" in a concert. After the Cultural Revolution, the church was reopened and held the first Sunday service on July 5, 1992.
Becoming shabby after decades, it was reconstructed in 2005 and a new church was completed on Nov 25, 2006.
