Starting from the New Year's Day of 2018, Christians in Changsha North City Church are in a prayer chain campaign that requires 16-hour prayer time every day. The movement has been ongoing for five months.
"Now Christians meet great challenges in their life. People hardly quiet down and spend time with God," said Rev. Ren Xia from the church.
The aim of the campaign is to help the congregation grow spiritually so as to imitate Jesus in social life. Rev. Ren stated that rare Christians acted according to biblical teachings in society and the church expected the activity to help them achieve the goal. It was better for believers to identify their own problems in prayer and actively seek changes than being pointed out problems through sermons because they got hurt when being directly pinpointed problems.
Participants are divided into seven groups who each pray in one specified day of a week. The daily prayer time is from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. At least one Christian watches and prays in any hour during the time.
The prayer topic includes the revival of church ministries, national safely, relationships between husband and wife, people and things around you. As students will sit China's senior high school and college entrance examinations in early June, a new request is added: pray for these students.
There are other Chinese churches who hold prayer chain movements. Since 2009, Baoji Huoquan Church conducts a 21-day fasting and prayer campaign before Easter and hosts daily services during that time. A church in Heilongjiang has four regular prayers every day and runs a fasting and prayer relay movement for its new church building under construction.
- Translated by Karen Luo
