Chongyi Church

While I was in Hangzhou last weekend, I thought I’d go somewhere a little off the beaten path for tourists.

I went to one of the largest Christian churches in China: Chongyi Church (崇一教堂), which means ‘worship one’.

Shortly before the service started on the upper level. It appears half the church arriving during the opening songs is a cross-cultural thing.

It’s the first mega-church I’ve been too, and it fills my heart with joy to know that mass gatherings of 5,000 twice every Sunday in a country where crosses are being taken down from some churches.

Interestingly, it’s the first church that I’ve been to (admittedly I haven’t been to many) that has both a band and choir. Also, with their Bible reading, the congregation read every 2nd verse.

The sermon was on 1 Kings 17. I admittedly only understood about 40% of it since it was in Mandarin. But it was interesting that the pastor related the drought to China’s stock market crash and used an example of people saving their limited supply of candles for Bible reading during the cultural revolution (when religion was prohibited) to show God’s providence.

I’ll post on the actual Hangzhou trip later, but I thought this was a cool aside.