Lisu Church

Lisu Church is a Christian church of an ethnic minority of southern China, Myanmar, Thailand and a part of India. The Chinese government's Religious Affairs Bureau has proposed considering Christianity the official religion of the Lisu. [ cite journal | last = Covell | first = Ralph| year = 2008 | month = Spring | title = To Every Tribe | journal = Christian History & Biography | issue = 98 | pages = 27–28 ]

Christian missionaries had been working in the Lisu area since the early 20th century. The first to work among the Lisu, in the Yunnan province in China, was James O. Fraser with the China Inland Mission, who also developed the written Lisu language and the Fraser Alphabet, which today is officially adopted by the Chinese government. Writing and reading in Lisu has been mainly developed by the church. In some villages the membership of the Christian church comprises far more than half the population, as is told by local and provincial church leaders as well as published by Bin et al. in Chinese Theological Review 19 (2004). The Lisu Church has both the Bible and a hymn book in their own language.

The Chinese Lisu Church has training centers, training evangelists, in Fugong and Lushui. Lisu pastors are trained at the Theological University of Kunming. There is a great shortage of pastors in the Lisu churches. The church is part of the official Protestant Church of China, the Three-Self Patriotic Movement. Sunday service in church is mainly in Lisu.

Christianity is thriving in the Salween River valley where the Lisu live 50 years after the death of missionary Isobel Kuhn. Of the 18,000 Lisu who lived in Fugong in 1950 - 3,400 professed faith in Christ. As of 2007 there are estimated to be 80-90 percent of the 70,000 making the same profession. In Yunnan it is estimated that there are between 100,000-200,000 total Lisu Christians. More than 75,000 Lisu Bibles have been legally printed in China following this explosive growth. [OMF International (2007), p. 1-2]

Further reading

* Isobel Kuhn, By Searching: My Journey Through Doubt into Faith, Moody Publishers (August 8, 1959)
* Isobel Khun, In the Arena, OMF Books (1995)
* Isobel Khun, Green Leaf in Drought, Harold Shaw Publications (June 1994)
* Isobel Khun, Stones of Fire, Shaw Books (June 1994)
* Isobel Khun, Ascent to the Tribes: Pioneering in North Thailand, OMF Books (2000)
* Isobel Khun, Precious Things of the Lasting Hills, OMF Books (1977)
* Isobel Khun, Second Mile People, Shaw Books (December 1999)
* Isobel Khun, Nests Above the Abyss, Moody Press (1964)
* Carolyn Canfield, One Vision Only (1959)
* Lois Headley Dick, Isobel Kuhn (1987)
* Gloria Repp, Nothing Daunted: The Story of Isobel Kuhn
*Historical Bibliography of the China Inland Mission

References

*

Notes

External links and references

* [http://www.lisu-bible-institute.org/ Lisu Bible Institute in northern Thailand, teaching in Lisu]
* [http://www.amitynewsservice.org/page.php?page=1667/ You Bin, Wang Aiguo and Gong Yukuan: Christianity in a Culture of Ethnic Pluralism: Report on Christianity among the Minorities of Yunnan, Chinese Theological Review 19 (2004)]
*Mountain Rain, by Eileen Crossman, OMF 1982. A biography of Fraser with much details on the early mission among the Lisu in China.