The house church of Changsha Grace Light Church, Changsha, Hunan, China, traces back its roots to the Changsha Christian Presbyterian Church, which was established by foreign missionaries way back during Qing Imperial times. After the communists took over the country, Changsha Christian Presbyterian Church was forced into the Chinese Communist Party-controlled religious association. However, a group of the members resisted and decided to worship in secret and become a clandestine house church.

Then it joined together with multiple house churches, and from the merging of them became the Grace Light Church, under the leadership of a blind Christian, Zhang Zhongliang. Later elders joined as well, who were expelled from the state-controlled seminary because of their opposing views to the communist party. As of today, the church became the largest house church in Hunan, having more than 1,000 members.

The first raid in the long history of persecution of the church was carried out in 2018. Despite the police raid and the ban on the church, believers continued to gather in various places. These meetings were banned in 2019 as well, but members of the church still continued them. The same year, a gathering and baptism of the church were raided, as was the house of the elderly Zhang Zhongliang.

After the raids in 2019, the church members decided to gather and worship in smaller groups to avoid unwanted attention from the police. However, it still did not stop the police from raiding one of their gatherings on November 3. During the worship, the police raided the conference room where the meeting was held, confiscated the members phones, and identified all of them. Even though the police did not arrest anyone this time, the church leaders fear for the safety of the community.

Source: Bitter Winter