A Self-supporting Indigenous Church Developed

       Pastor Wang went out there, but his wife refused to go.  She hated the church and the bishop, and talked against them.  As a result, their little adopted son grew up to become a communist.  Twenty-some years later, when I was in communist China, in Chungking, Pastor Wang's son was a communist leader there.  But Pastor Wang Shan-chih went to Kingtehchen and built up the church from a dozen members to a hundred communicants, with over two hundred attending.  He also led three denominations in evangelism.

       Then entirely with Chinese funds, and no American mission aid, they built a three-story brick building, with a preaching hall and reading room on the first floor, sanctuary on the second (and a room for the visiting missionary) and children's school on the third floor with quarters for the women teachers.  He had a young men's gospel team, mostly his own converts, who went everywhere preaching through the countryside.  The last I heard, about 1967, Pastor Wang Shan-chih, then over 80 years of age, was still preaching in that self-supporting church under the communists.

       But Pastor Wang was not the only one: Whatever is left of our work in that part of China is the result of the Holy Spirit working in that first great meeting of Dr. Sung's ministry.  This is true in many other places in China and throughout the Far East.  But it was in Nanchang in 1931 that the Holy Spirit fell in a new way on Dr. Sung and our students, teachers and preachers, and on all of us who were present.

       That was the beginning of the "Door" period of Dr. Sung's ministry, of which Jesus had told him in his seminary room in New York City.  He later said it was in Nanchang that the Lord gave him his special anointing.  It was the first of many great meetings he held all over China and Southeast Asia.  It was not planned by Dr. Sung, nor worked up by anybody.  It was a great surprise to him, as it was totally unrehearsed and spontaneous.  It showed Dr. Sung and us that there is a Holy Ghost power far beyond man's ability.  It is no glory to any human, but it is available to anyone.