Four services on Sunday were held in a centennial church in Shaanxi, in western China.
A pastor in Nanxin Street Church in Xi’an preached the sermon “Prayer Hold Up Life” based on James 5:13–16 in the Sunday service on March 19, encouraging believers to express their situation to God through prayer instead of bearing heavy burdens themselves when confronting various circumstances and challenges. Believers should also learn to look to God humbly and pursue God’s glory in their lives rather than satisfy their own needs.
According to reports, the church was built in 1914 and put into use in 1919. It was built by people including the Chinese Rev. Zhang Ziyi, Yue Wenqing, who was a Xi’an Christian celebrity, and so on following the introduction of the Baptist Church in England. With the help of Shao Boqing (Chinese name), a British Baptist pastor, as well as others, the church and its attached houses were initially built with more than 20 rooms and covered an area of more than 1.65 acres.
After liberation in 1949, the church was used for religious activities and as the office of the Shaanxi Christian Three-Self Patriotic Movement Committee and the Xi’an Christian Three-Self Patriotic Movement Committee. During the Cultural Revolution, it was occupied by an art company in Xi'an and returned to normal use in 1980. It established the church management committee in 1984. There are three pastors and three elders in this church at present, with more than 11,000 believers.
The church has been visited by Rober A. K. Rancis, Archbishop of Canterbury; Kjell Magne Bondevik, former Norwegian Prime Minister; Donald Louis Evans, former US Secretary of Commerce; a delegation of major assistants of US congressmen; and so on since 1983.
Nanxin Street Church was repaired in 2004 with its own funds. Declared a “Protective Building in Xi’an” in 2005, it was awarded the title of “Place of Civilized Religious Activities” by the Xi’an Municipal Religious Affairs Administration.
At present, apart from the four services on Sunday, the church also has a prayer meeting on Wednesday mornings and activities such as catechism classes and Bible study classes in different periods.
- Translated by Stephen Huang
