IS HELP NEEDED?

Conservative estimates state there are about three million new believers annually (some say 10 million), and that this growth will continue with its associated need for more bibles.

Millions of believers are still without God’s Word.  

A survey of several house church networks advises an urgent need for 34 million bibles! 
Mission groups in China advise that on average two to three people come to faith in Jesus Christ for every bible distributed. (Some advise at least five).  


First a reminder of how many lost souls there are in China.

Population:       1,400,000,000
Believers:          100 00,000
The lost:           1,300,000,000

Among the Han minority people, OMF estimates that 768 million (more than the entire population of Africa) have never heard the name of Jesus.


The need is greatest in rural areas where people simply cannot afford a bible. To put it into perspective:

  •  The average annual income of people like these in the countryside is less than NZ$1,000.
  • For the hundreds of millions of country folk who have migrated to the cities the average income is about NZ$6,000.
  • A 2010 survey by BCG found that only 150 million people had an income of more than NZ$10,000 per annum.

The vast majority of the population (over 1 billion) remain part of “surviving China”. It is in such areas that we work and know firsthand the incredible joy when we deliver books and Bibles. The video below is not taken by CCSM but it captures the emotion.



A second reason to offer help to the Chinese Church is the critical shortage of resources. Yes we know there are Christian bookshops in the big cities.  (Our teams shop there!).   We know of the outstanding work of the Bible Society through Amity Press in Nanjing. But, we agree with OMF’s statement in their January 2011 Prayer Letter:

"The rapid growth and glitz of China’s cities can cause us to overlook the grinding poverty of so many country people in China.  It means little or no money to support pastors or to buy Christian books etc.  Worse it also means the eager Christians cannot afford to buy the subsidised copy of the Bible freely available in the cities."


But how can people call for help if they don’t know who to trust? And how can they know who to trust if they haven’t heard of the One who can be trusted? And how can they hear if nobody tells them? And how is anyone going to tell them, unless someone is sent to do it?"  

[Romans 10:14 MST]


 CCSM New Zealand can provide bibles
to believers in China for just NZ $3.50 each. 

We invite you to join us in supporting the Chinese church.