Revival in China - Old report from Dennis Balcombe

Revival in China

Dennis Balcombe

Dennis Balcombe is senior pastor of Revival Christian Church in Hong Kong and regularly ministers in China. This article is edited from newsletters sent early in 1996.

____________________________________

a supernatural outpouring of the Holy Spirit

____________________________________

We saw the Holy Spirit fall with great joy similar to what some refer to as the 'Toronto Blessing.' This has swept many parts of China without any teaching from the West, but in many places has been a supernatural outpouring of the Spirit.

In Asia many Pentecostal denominations are trying to be more acceptable to the denominational church world through more emphasis on theological education and degrees than prayer, fasting and the power that comes from the baptism of the Holy Spirit. The opposite is true in China, for the house churches are more than ever turning to the Pentecostal roots of our faith.

We also arranged for many other well known ministry teams to teach the leaders in several parts of China. Among them were Lester Sumrall, Ulf Ekmann of Sweden, Reinhard Bonnke of Germany, Marilyn Hickey of the US and many others. One overseas preacher was excited as he was able to preach to a crowd of 6,000 in Northeast China. There has been such a revival there that nearly 360,000 were saved in a few years time.

We took on several new full time local Chinese in the China Ministry. We have encouraged the rest of the Chinese congregation to get involved in ministry in China. Of the 1,000 plus churches in Hong Kong, ours is possibly one of the few who openly advocate and participate in ministry in mainland China. Most pastors are fearful to do so for possible repercussions against them in 1997. We have made our position very clear, and though it has caused a very few to have reservations about our stand, most of the Chinese congregation know where we stand and are prepared for whatever might happen.

Thus towards the end of the year we organized three ministry trips to Yunnan, Sichuan and Guangdong provinces, and nearly 20 local Chinese participated in each trip. They all came back burning with the fires of revival as they met with house church leaders who have been greatly used of God to perform miracles resulting in mass conversions. They also realized clearly the intense persecution against Christians in China and thus are better able to prepare for possible persecution in a year or so. Their testimonies excited so many others that the next scheduled trips around Chinese New Year are all full of applicants. Never before have local Chinese responded to the

China ministry in such a positive manner.

Persecution of Christians is severe and widespread throughout China and the situation with human rights is worse than any time since China opened in 1978. The hard-liners are firmly in control and there don't seem to be any moderate voices. In addition to long prison sentences being given to proponents of democracy, daily scores of people are executed through China, many for what we would call 'white collar crimes' or corruption. In elections for the Hong Kong Legislative Council in September, the pro-democratic parties won by a landslide. This was a great insult to China who considers these men as 'counter-revolutionary' and 'subversives'. China has vowed to dismantle the whole elected government and will not allow any of these legally elected councilors (who are like congressmen in the USA) to remain in office after 1997. They have also strongly attacked the local 'Bill of Human Rights' and say they are not obliged to honour human rights in any way, for they have not signed the Bill of Human Rights in the United Nations, though they are signatories to the UN Charter.

People are now extremely pessimistic about the future here and many are saying that the only ones who got it right are those who immigrated years ago. It is quite difficult to do so now at this late date, and people don't even know if the present travel document (British Nationality Overseas passport) or the passport that will come in next year (Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the PRC) will be recognized by foreign governments. It is not certain Hong Kong people will then be able to travel overseas without difficulty. In addition to the above, the economy has started to decline and unemployment is at an all-time high.

I continually teach the people that whatever happens we should not even consider leaving Hong Kong, for our nation will need us. But through the cell group system we are attempting to disciple everyone and prepare them for persecution, if it comes to that. Also many more people are willing to come into the ministry now than in a booming economy. We may possibly start a full time intensive Bible School in which people work together and study for preparation of ministry in China as well as Hong Kong.

In December Pastor David Kiteley of Shiloh Christian Fellowship in Oakland, visited Hong Kong and with David Wang of Asian Outreach ordained Kathy Balcombe also a 'pastor' in RCC. She has been operating in the capacity for many years as I am away from Hong Kong much, but this will give her more authority to make decisions when I am away and deal with other matters. The church is growing rapidly and many are finding the Lord almost weekly. The goal for this new year is 'Revival' and we are believing for 50% growth this year. We usually have close to 500 people actually attend on any given Sunday, but like any church there are many more who don't always come except a few times a year. On special meetings we might have over 600. We are not only believing for more numbers, but for an increase in the gifts of the Holy Spirit and evangelism. Several sister churches have been planted by our own Chinese or missionaries working with the church.

We now have nearly 130 full time missionaries under the visa sponsorship of RCC, and many more who now have their own visas (which are given after 7 years in Hong Kong). We have set up special intensive training for all the missionaries, and hope that many more new missionaries will be granted visas to come here, which it may be impossible after the change of sovereignty. None of them plan on leaving though the laws about overseas foreign church workers after 1997 is still very ambiguous.

Bibles

Lastly I would appreciate your prayers that we have sufficient funds to purchase Bibles. For nearly 15 years we received Chinese Bibles free of cost or at a discount from other organizations. However due to different philosophy in ministry, they will not provide us any Bibles at discount, so we have to pay to have them printed in Sri Lanka. The price last year was about US $1.50 per Bible, but now we can get them at $1.35 per Bible due to offerings from Norwegian Christian. It is still not safe, economical or logistically possible to print and distribute large amounts of whole Bibles in China, though many (including ourselves) have printed limited amounts of other types of materials including New Testaments. The sale of Bibles through the official channels is severely restricted as everyone knows, so the only way most of the church leaders in the rural areas can receive Bibles is through ministries like ours.

Due to the lack of funds there were a few occasions last year when our workers had no Bibles to take to China, and we were only able to provide teaching materials. However we want to keep the ratio of Bibles to teaching materials of 80% to 20%, for we are primarily providing these to Spirit filled church leaders who are actively involved in church planting all over the nation. We have direct contact and relationship with about 50 large evangelistic teams which are ministering to about 10 million believers. These are all people who are baptized in the Spirit, speak in tongues and exercise gifts of the Holy Spirit. They in turn reach out to the lost in which their ministry is confirmed by mighty gifts of the Spirit, as in the Book of Acts. They also reach out to the small percentage of non-Spirit filled believers, for almost every Christian in China greatly desires the power that only the Holy Spirit can give.

Therefore we desperately need a large supply of Bibles to supply these growing Spirit filled congregations. We were also saddened to hear recently that a large shipment of 85,000 large study Bibles taken in by container through other organizations were confiscated by the PSB police a few weeks ago in Liaoning Province. These study bibles are very expensive and not really that necessary as most of the rural church leaders are not trained to use such comprehensive materials. They basically only need the whole Bible and a few good study books such as 'The Shepherd's Staff'. Rather than teach them doctrine or give them study Bibles with all kinds of exposition and sermon outlines, I personally believe it is best to teach the leaders how to study the Bible and allow them to dig out the treasures themselves. I have been amazed over the past 18 years of ministry in mainland China to see how Spirit filled leaders almost speak the same message and preach pure doctrine. The Holy Spirit will 'lead us into all truth'.

Concerning these large operations, we have found over the years that it is very difficult for such big projects to succeed due to the restrictive situation in China. It is best to take in the Bibles in smaller amounts by several dozen people daily and maintain a continual flow of distribution throughout the nation. We have done this and met with little difficulties. In fact last year only a few bags of literature were confiscated, and this was due to spot checks of the mainland Chinese Christians on the road or train. To facilitate such a ministry, you need many workers both in Hong Kong and mainland China and a safe reliable tested method of distribution throughout the nation. We believe we are this position as we have been doing this for the past 18 years and have probably distributed over four million books in this way. However we thank the Lord for everything others are doing and don't want to be critical when things go wrong, for we are in 'warfare'. Even so, the need is so great and resources are so limited, it is essential such ministry is effectual and economical.

We are expecting an increase of at least 100% in 'Donkey's for Jesus' workers who carry Bibles into China, and desperately need the funds to purchase the Bibles. Revival Christian Church has invested heavily in this ministry and last year purchased a floor for the China Ministry Offices at nearly US $300,000 and monthly rents a warehouse for US $1,300. Therefore please pray with us that overseas Christians will help us to purchase the Bibles. We still have not found anyone who will donate them, though several have talked about this possibility. Yes, it is possible to print Bibles in China, but it is much more expensive now as it cannot be done in large quantities for safety reasons and they don't have the equipment or paper to print on thin bible paper, making the transportation more expensive, dangerous and difficult. Only Amity Press (associated with the Three-Self-Church) prints on thin paper, but their total output is severely limited by the government, as it is an official press. It still it has not been possible for house church leaders to purchase large amounts of Bibles from them.

Please pray with us that 1996 will break all records for safe and responsible distribution of hundreds of thousands of Bibles and teaching materials in conjunction with many training sessions for the house church leaders. Thank you for your prayers for the work here. I hope this information has been helpful. Below are some recent testimonies relating to the ministry we are involved in.

China testimonies

From 3-9 December, 1995, together with Rodney Kingstone and Ian Rowlands from England, we went to two cities in Henan Province to minister to the brothers and sisters there. They both move in the prophetic and prophesied over 180 people. They also taught on the gifts of prophecy and the Church exercised the gift right after the teaching. Below is their testimony from this trip:

Our expectation as we arrived in China was not that we had come with all the answers but that we have a lot to learn from our brothers and sisters. We wanted to encourage and release them in the area of the prophetic ministry, with the anticipation that they would do the same for us in other areas. So at all the places we ministered at, we asked them many questions and made sure that they prayed and laid hands on us!

At one of these times we were really encouraged by one of the prayers that one of the leaders prayed for us. He prayed that wherever we traveled we would take and impact the

Get your free registration and log in to view entire article