Qingcheng County of Qingyang is located in the eastern part of Gansu Province, with a main traffic route crossing its southern suburb.
It is recorded that the gospel had already spread to Qingcheng, which was then called Qingyang, in the early period of the Republic of China by a missionary from America whose Chinese name was Qi Delai. At the time, Rev. Li Xiude was sent to Qingyang to spread the gospel through the council of Shaanxi and Gansu branches in 1933. When Li came to Qingyang, he lived in a rented house, for there was no church and few Christians. Zhang Hui, a Christian from the south of the county, donated two mu (about 1333 square meters) of land for building a church (in the north of Qingcheng Middle School today). Fifty or sixty Christians worked together to build a church which consisted of three houses.
For some reasons, the church was closed in 1958. Soon afterwards the houses and land were occupied by a production team from the county (a unit of the socialist agricultural economy during the early period of the PRC) as a place to store carriages. In August of 1974, with the permission of the local authorities, the land was requisitioned by the catering service company from the county. In 1978, the Chinese government started to implement policies for ethnic minorities and religions, and freedom of belief was restored. In 1982, Christians were allowed to come together to worship God, but only in a Christian sister's home.
In 1986, the number of Christians there increased as the religious policies were further implemented. In June, the prefecture-level communist party committee allowed the church to open. Pastor Li Xiude, Elder Ma Chongyi, Deacon Zhu Changkuai, and others who ran the church applied to the government for reconstruction of the Qingyang Church. On March 23, 1990, the prefectural government bought the two mu of land and gave it to local Christians to hold activities and allocated funds of 3,5000 yuan for building a five-storey, flat-roofed church for the about 200 local Christians at that time.
On July 29, 1990, the TSPM of Qingcheng County was founded, and six gathering places for Christians were permitted. Now, there are more than 800 Christians and 10 church staff of which two are elders and 8 are preachers, in the Christian Church of Qingcheng county.
On May 4, 1998, Christians donated funds to enlarge the chapel inside the church to 220 square meters (0.05 acres). In November 2015, the church was once again requisitioned because of the city planning of the county. Christians rented a temporary place to worship. On July 22, 2016, the county government's standing committee met and decided to allocated 4.24 mu (0.69 acres) of land near a highway to build a new church in the county. The construction of the new church was completed on September 5, 2019. It occupied an area of 2,601 square meters (about 0.64 acres), with a building area of 1,295 square meters (0.32 acres), and a cost of 4.2 million yuan.
- Translated by Lin Changfeng
