How many American Christians gathered at daybreak for corporate prayer, or went door to door witnessing for Christ and winning souls, or regularly saw God heal the sick in miraculous ways in answer to prayer?

Numerous Chinese were more mature in faith, further advanced in Bible knowledge, and more zealous in the service of Christ than I was. They were much further along in spiritual growth than most of the foreigners who had come there with an attitude of superiority to set them straight. We ignored the fact that churches had been active in China for more than a hundred years. That many renowned apostles like Dr. John Sung had returned after graduate study abroad to conduct great evangelistic campaigns among their people. And that competent teachers like Watchman Nee were leading believers into a life of spiritual maturity beyond that found in the West.

Another major insult to Chinese intelligence were the branch operations of foreign denominations which we set up all over their country. I met Presbyterians—U.S. and Presbyterians USA. Also Bible Presbyterians, Australian Presbyterians, Canadian Presbyterians and United Presbyterians. There were Lutherans of the Missouri Synod and Lutherans of other synods. At least a dozen different kinds of Baptists had branches in China, plus several kinds of Methodists and a host of independent missions with branches named after their foreign parents.

Is it any wonder that God allowed Mao Zedong and his fellow communists to come along with a big broom and sweep all the colonial denominations out of China?

Now I don’t want to imply that foreign missionaries did not win souls, plant churches and disseminate the gospel in China. Many fulfilled an important role in sowing the good seed of God’s Word in the fertile soil of Chinese hearts and minds. But just as surely as there was a time when foreign missionaries served a useful purpose, there also came a time when it was better for us all to leave.

After 150 years of foreign missionary activity, we guestimated that perhaps a million Chinese were professing Christians when I left there in 1949. Less than half of those would have been born again evangelicals. And after they had gone through fiery trials of great tribulation, possibly only 250,000 survived to pass on the torch of faith.

But the torch was passed. A new generation grew up without any knowledge of the foreign denominations that had been a stigma on the cause of Christ in China. The Chinese believers had only the Word of God as it gradually became available in many forms: hand copied, Xeroxed, imported by mules from India, shipped in by businessmen from Hong Kong, carried in the luggage of tourists (especially foreign students from Africa) and, eventually, downloaded from the internet.

Soon after the communists took over. They rounded up all "ordained ministers" of foreign denominations and sent them to labor camps. Church buildings were converted to warehouses, stores and communist propaganda centers. Without ministers or buildings the Lutherans, Baptists, and Presbyterians weren’t able to have church "services" any more. But the New Testament type house churches went right on meeting together and planting new assemblies. And even though they had been despised and rejected by colonial missionaries, the house churches welcomed true believers from the now defunct foreign denominations into their fellowship. In the late 1950’s I received word out of China that the number of house churches had doubled within five years after the communists took over.