Last Saturday, a live-streamed house fellowship was suddenly ended. The participants, belonging to a campus fellowship in China’s eastern-coastal Jiangsu Province, were forced to end their worship service on Tencent Meeting, a popular video conferencing service in China similar to Zoom.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many house churches choose to gather online for safety reasons. The leader of the 20-person unregistered fellowship said that several members told him that the Sunday service was discontinued once. He also revealed that the online service held by another fellowship was suspended three times.
The reason might be the frequent mention of the word “Christ” during the service, he added. He revealed that if more and more webcast gatherings are shut down, live-streaming service restrictions might be entering a more restricted phase.
The leader also said online gatherings are not as well attended as in-person worship. However, they have been the best alternative.
In regards to the future, he has no idea what the small fellowship should do in order to continue gathering online. Instead, he would take a wait-and-see attitude.
