How to grow a church

Make it illegal to meet in groups of more than twenty-five.

That’s what the Chinese government has done. So whenever a Chinese house-church tips over to twenty-six, they are forced to split. Suddenly there are two churches where there used to be one, and there’s space for twenty-five new Chinese Christians.

On last night’s LNL I heard a very interesting interview with John Micklethwaite, author of God is Back (see last week’s post). You can hear the audio here – it’s worth a listen just to hear Philip Adams writhing in discomfort.

Among many excellent points, Micklethwaite told us about the Chinese church. There are now far more Christians in China than members of the Chinese communist party, he said. Their numbers are exploding – into the hundreds of millions – not least because house churches are so good for evangelisation. As Michlethwaite points out, It’s exactly the same principle the Roman empire hit upon the last time the church grew at such an astonishing rate.