I've been reading about Brother Yun's amazing testimonies. He was called at the age of 16 yrs old and on his first year(1974) he led 2000 people to Christ. In 1974 there were relatively few Christian in China, today there are well over 100 millions Christians -- more than any other country.

The full story of Brother Yun can be found in the book, The Heavenly Man, which he wrote with Paul Hattaway in 2002. The book was awarded best book of the year in 2003.

How Yun Started

In brief, this man had no training, there were no pastors, even no missionaries in the country, to teach him. He received a simple command from Jesus saying "Yun, I am going to send you to the west and south to be my witness." At that point, when it was just a matter of months after the miracle of acquiring the Bible, he had memorized the book of Mathew and Acts 1-12. So he obeyed Jesus and recited the scriptures he memorized. Only with that he brought many to Jesus on the first year.

The Moving of the Holy Spirit

In 1980 the Holy Spirit moved in a mighty way, and the Church in Henan Province saw phenomenal growth. Yun writes, "We remember it as the year when God constantly did outstanding miracles and divine healing, and the words of Jesus came supernaturally to many people." (The Heavenly Man, p. 49)

In a remote mountain village called Fen Shuiling, an unbeliever was dying of disease. He had never heard the gospel. But one evening, Jesus appeared and said, "My name is Jesus. I have come to save you."

When Yun arrived there some time later to preach the Gospel, he was surprised to find that dozens of families had already become Christians, all without a church or pastor. Jesus had already preached the gospel to them, and the people were eager and ready to hear more. Fen Shuiling was healed in the name of Jesus.

It does not take long to convert a nation when the Lord intervenes directly.

Persecution

Often an outpouring of the Holy Spirit occurs just before a major persecution which tests the hearts of the believers and allows them opportunity to share in the sufferings of Christ. That persecution would come in mid-1983. The authorities had not learned the lesson of Rome that persecution only spawns more Christians. "Our blood is seed," Tertullian said in the third century. Persecution destroys denominations and religious organizations, and it weeds out nominal and lukewarm Christians, but it increases the number of real Christians, for it cannot stop the Holy Spirit from changing the hearts of men.

China wanted Yen to join one of the state-controlled denominations called the Three-Self Church.

"In the house churches we simply couldn't adhere to such control and interference. We believe that Jesus is the head of his church, not the government. We broke away from the Three-Self Church and took a firm stand against all attempts to bring us under its control."

"At this time I started my career of 'fleeing evangelism'. That is, we preached the gospel and then had to flee from one place to another being pursued by the police, just like Jesus had told his followers to do: 'When you are persecuted in one place, flee to another.' Matthew 10:23."

Because Yun had to flee so often, the gospel spread rapidly to other villages throughout China. The government issued a warrant for his arrest for "disturbing the social order." His picture appeared on posters in every bus and train station, telegraph poles, and walls.

He was captured, imprisoned, tortured, beaten, etc.. was near death many times. Jesus sent angels for him to escaped prisons many times so he could continue to be a witness.
Yun in Prison Part 1
Yun in Prison Part 2

Communism lost face and The Spreading of the Gospel

On June 4, 1989 the infamous Tiananmen Square massacre took place, which served to discredit Communism in the eyes of many Chinese people. Up to that time, the Gospel had exploded among the elderly farmers, but 1989 saw the beginning of the Gospel going to educated students and government workers. Fewer people became Communists, while more people became Christians. In Brother Yun’s home village, several Communist Party members withdrew their memberships, became Christians, and began to preach the Gospel. The authorities saw such a powerful move of the Holy Spirit, accompanied by such great miracles that they remained in their police stations, afraid to do anything about it. Yun led meetings in other provinces as well, where the blind saw, the deaf heard, and the lame walked.

Second Wave of Persecution

But after two years of huge successes, Yun began to feel burned out from having too many meetings and not enough prayer. In May 1991 another wave of persecution hit the house church movement. The government had announced in early 1991 that all house church leaders who did not join the Three Self Patriotic Church were going to be arrested. A law was passed making all house church meetings illegal.

How they trained Missionaries

Brother Yun's Bible School was a cave on top of a mountain. Worship and Prayer time began at 5:00 a.m. and classes began at 8:00. God showed them that the priority was to train people to send workers into the poorest and most needy areas of China, where people had never heard the name of Jesus. The new trainees dedicated themselves to the spread of the Gospel. Within a few weeks, on January 16, 1994 the elders laid hands on the young workers and sent them out into all parts of China as missionaries.

Meanwhile, a new goal was set in one of the house church movements in South China. Each believer was encourage to lead at least three people to Christ during "Gospel Month." Church leaders were to lead at least five people to Christ during the month. At the end of the month, 13,000 new believers had been baptized. Within two years, 123,000 new believers were baptized. After that, they ceased keeping records, because it was beyond measure (Gen. 41:49).

The Split of the Church caused from Western Christian Literature

The Church in China has experienced exponential growth since then to the present day. During this time, of course, Bibles from the West began to arrive, beginning in the late 1980's.

"At the start of 1994 God showed me that the different house church networks must be unified before he would truly pour out his power on China." (The Heavenly Man, p. 232)

He continues, telling how in the early days suffering and persecution had broken down any denominational walls in the Church in China. But then in 1988 and on, when Bibles began to arrive from the West, many packages also included other books.

"These booklets told us we must worship in a certain way, or that we must speak in tongues to be a true believer, or that only if we were baptized in Jesus' name (instead of the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) could we be saved. Other teachings focused on extreme faith, still others argued for or against the role of women in the church."

"We read all these booklets and soon we were confused! The churches started to split into groups that believed one thing against groups that believed another. Instead of only speaking for Jesus, we also started speaking against other believers who didn't conform to our views." (The Heavenly Man, p. 233)

"In their zeal to help, our foreign brothers were actually causing the house churches to split and be weakened. . . . The leaders could no longer walk together in unity before the Lord. We felt that to do so would be to compromise our new beliefs! " (p. 234)

The Church Re-unification

The first breakthrough came in 1994 when Brother Xu and his group were the first to join the new unity movement. Brother Yun considered Brother Xu to be his pastor and closest friend and co-worker. Thus, Brother Yun was represented by Brother Xu in this unity movement. Even so, Brother Xu wrote,

"Bother Yun is a servant of God and is one of the five elders of the Sinim Fellowship of the house churches of China. . . In 1996 the Lord used him to start the Sinim Fellowship of the house churches of China." (The Heavenly Man quotation of Brother Xu, p. 309)

They soon arranged to meet with Brother Zhang, but Xu received a word that he was to wash the feet of Brother Zhang at the meeting. When he obeyed this word, unity was achieved:

"Zhang was praying with his eyes closed when Xu knelt down in front of him and started gently to take his shoes and socks off. Zhang opened his eyes and was amazed. He couldn't believe the great Xu Yongze, leader of the largest house church movement in China, would ever kneel down and wash his feet! Zhang cried out and wrapped his arms around Brother Xu in a warm embrace." (p. 237)

Over 100 Millions in the Sinim Fellowship

These two house church movements unified in what they called the "Sinim Fellowship." Sinim is considered to be China in Isaiah's prophecy of 49:12, "Behold, these shall come from afar; and lo, these will come from the north and from the west, and these from the land of Sinim ." This is also why in modern politics, relations between China and America are called "Sino-American relations."

"In October 1996, five men were elected to be the first elders of the Sinim Fellowshp. They were Brother Xu Yongze, who was voted the Chairman, Zhang Rongliang, Wang Xincai, Shen Yiping and myself. Each man represented a different church network." (p. 239)

"The unity movement continues to this day, although in 2002 the leaders decided to drop the title 'Sinim' and just meet as brothers in Christ without an official name. Several more house church networks have joined. At a special meeting in January 2000, the leaders for the first time estimated the number of believers in their networks. The combined total was 58 million." (p. 240)

This total has at least doubled within a few years and now stands at well over 100 million.

Some Reflections (by Stephen):

It appears that China is moving toward becoming a Christian Nation, while America is moving in the opposite direction.

I believe that God removed His hand of protection from America on Sept. 11, 2001(see Jonathan Cahn, message of repentance to America relating to 9/11 http://isaiah910.com/harbinger/harbinger.html)., and that this condition will continue until the Church repents in America. It's not the non-believers that have to repent in order to turn around this situation. 2 Chron. 7:14 makes it clear that "IF MY PEOPLE" repent, then God will heal our land. When the American Church repent of their lawlessness, then God will again bless and protect America. As Brother Yun wrote on page 295,"Before I travelled to the West, I had absolutely no idea that so many churches were spiritually asleep. . . In the West many Christians have an abundance of material possessions, yet they live in a backslidden state. They have silver and gold, but they don't rise up and walk in Jesus' name. In China we have no possessions to hold us down, so there's nothing preventing us from moving out for the Lord."

Meanwhile, in China the Church has been refined and purified in the fires of persecution. They are not perfect, of course, as they themselves would attest, but nonetheless, they are not nearly as decadent and obsessed with materialism and the pursuit of prosperity as is the American Church. It seems to me that, at least in part, China's current prosperity is due to God's blessing upon that nation for the sake of its Christians who pray for their nation daily.

The Back to Jerusalem Project

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tezudRm6-cY&feature=related

The Sinim Fellowship in China has what they call the "Back to Jerusalem" project. The Gospel began in Jerusalem and went West until it reached China. Now the Sinim Fellowship feels called to bring the Gospel to the Muslim countries between China and Jerusalem to complete the spread of the Gospel around the world.

The training of missionaries is not exactly a Bible College curriculum. They teach three things:
(1) How to suffer and die for the Lord;
(2) How to witness for the Lord;
(3) How to escape for the Lord.

The first 39 Chinese missionaries left China in March 2000. Thirty-six of them were arrested. A year later, there were over 400 Chinese missionaries in more than ten countries.

I believe that God is working with them to complete this mission. And this is part of the blessing that God is currently pouring out upon China.

"Thus, Brother Yun was represented by Brother Xu in this unity movement."

Some things about this cause me to wonder if this could be the start of a false revival?

I'm not following you. Could you explain?