Lisu Church is a Christian church of an ethnic minority of southern

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

Myanmar Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John C. Wells, Joh ...

Thailand Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is bo ...

and a part of

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

. The Chinese government's

State Administration for Religious Affairs The State Administration for Religious Affairs (SARA) was an executive agency directly under the State Council of the People's Republic of China which oversaw religious affairs in the country. Originally created in 1951 as the Religious Affairs ...

has proposed considering Christianity the official religion of the Lisu.

History

Christian missionaries worked in the

Lisu Lisu may refer to: *Lisu people, an ethnic group of Southeast Asia *Lisu language, spoken by the Lisu people * Old Lisu Alphabet or Fraser Alphabet *Lisu syllabary * Lisu (Unicode block), the block of Unicode characters for the Lisu language. *Lisu ...

area from the early 20th century. The first to work among the Lisu, in the

Yunnan Yunnan , () is a landlocked Provinces of China, province in Southwest China, the southwest of the People's Republic of China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 48.3 million (as of 2018). The capital of the province is ...

province in China, was

James O. Fraser James Outram Fraser (Chinese: 富能仁; 1886–1938) was a British Protestant Christian missionary to China with the China Inland Mission. He pioneered work among the Lisu people, of Southwestern China, in the early part of the 20th century. ...

with the

China Inland Mission OMF International (formerly Overseas Missionary Fellowship and before 1964 the China Inland Mission) is an international and interdenominational Evangelical Christian missionary society with an international centre in Singapore. It was founded i ...

; he also developed the written

Lisu language Lisu (Fraser alphabet: , or ; New Lisu script: ; zh, c=傈僳语, p=Lìsùyǔ; my, လီဆူဘာသာစကား, ) is a tonal Tibeto-Burman language spoken in Yunnan (Southwestern China), Northern Burma (Myanmar) and Thailand and a ...

and the

Fraser Alphabet The Fraser or Old Lisu script is an artificial abugida invented around 1915 by Sara Ba Thaw, a Karen preacher from Myanmar and improved by the missionary James O. Fraser, to write the Lisu language. It is a single- case (unicameral) alphabet. It ...

, which has been officially adopted by the Chinese government. Reading and writing in Lisu was mainly developed by the church and, in some villages, the membership of the Christian church comprises far more than half the population. The Lisu Church has both the

Holy Bible The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of a ...

and a Christian hymn book in its own language. As an originally orally-based culture, Lisu hymn singing has become a centerpiece in Lisu Christian worship and practice. The Chinese Lisu Church has training centers for evangelists in Fugong and Lushui. Lisu pastors are trained at the Theological University of

Kunming Kunming (; ), also known as Yunnan-Fu, is the capital and largest city of Yunnan province, China. It is the political, economic, communications and cultural centre of the province as well as the seat of the provincial government. The headquar ...

. There is a shortage of pastors in the Lisu churches, according to representatives of the church. The church is part of the official Protestant Church of China, the

Three-Self Patriotic Movement The Three-Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM; ) is the official government supervisory organ for Protestantism in the People's Republic of China. It is colloquially known as the Three-Self Church (). The National Committee of the Three-Self Patriot ...

. Sunday church services take place mainly in Lisu. Of the 18,000 Lisu who lived in

Fugong Fugong County () is a county located in Nujiang Lisu Autonomous Prefecture, in the west of Yunnan province, China, bordering Myanmar's Kachin State to the west. Administrative divisions Fugong County has 1 town, 5 townships and 1 ethnic townshi ...

in 1950 - 3,400 adhered to the Christian faith. As of 2007, it was estimated that 80-90 percent of the 70,000 professed the Christian faith. It is estimated that there are now nearly 300,000 total Lisu Christians. More than 75,000 Lisu Bibles have been legally printed in China following this growth.

References

{{authority control Christian denominations founded in China Churches in Myanmar Lisu people Ethnic groups officially recognized by China

History

See also

References