Xiaonan Church is located in Changchun, the capital of northeast Jilin Province, where the gospel was spread as early as the 1990s.
The church is composed of bungalows with Northeast China characteristics, with houses within houses and connected buildings.
Pastor Ma Li, who is the person in charge, also studies at Jilin Bible School and is responsible for the student affairs management. According to him, Xiaonan Church originated from a family gathering point. The gathering place was in a restaurant in 1992, where church members led several Christian women in worshipping, in the barbershop of a believer in 1993, and in the homes of two believers for the next four years. By that time, the gathering had a hundred people. Later, they bought three old houses with civil structures for nearly RMB 30,000 for renovation and repair and held the inauguration ceremony in August 1997. Four years after the dilapidated house renovation, they held the dedication ceremony.
At present, there are more than 400 believers, including one ordained pastor, five ministers, and one preacher, most of whom are about forty years old. In addition to the normal church gatherings, there are several fellowship gatherings.
Among them, the couple fellowship includes more than 100 families, while the youth fellowship has its own gatherings and organizes camps and other regular activities.
At present, the "love" fellowship consists of more than 40 elderly church members, helping the church take care of the believers and make regular visits. There are about 100 members in the co-worker fellowship, which mainly focuses on internal training, team building, and internal construction.
They have a special team of about 20 volunteers, mainly sisters in Christ, who sew "funeral clothes" for believers that are about to return to heaven. Their ministry covers believers in northeast China.
(The article was originally published by the Gospel Times.)
- Translated by Oliver Zuo
