On June 11, 2024, Xi’an Fengsheng Church issued a statement to clarify and refute a rumor that has been circulating recently. The statement said that a rumor has been circulating in the church: the police found a large amount of cash at the pastors’ home of Xi’an Fengsheng Church, and the pastors have been involved in financial corruption; otherwise, they would not have been arrested.

For this reason, Xi’an Fengsheng Church issued a solemn statement: Pastors and preachers of Xi’an Fengsheng Church never participate in the management of the church’s finance and never touch money. On the afternoon of August 17, 2022, when the church was set upon, the police found 10,000 yuan in cash at Pastor Lian Changnian’s home. At that time, a police officer with the surname Wang told Lian Changnian’s wife: “This is your family’s money, take it and don’t give it to anyone.” Late on the night of August 18, Lian Changnian’s wife took the cash away when she left the police station, and the police did not seize any money. Later, more than 500 yuan in cash was seized from Pastor Lian Changnian, and no money was seized from Pastor Lian Xuliang.

Pastor Lian Changnian’s youngest son received a 90% scholarship during his graduate studies in the United States. The university subsidized part of his living expenses, and church members also helped him significantly.

The family members of Xi’an Fengsheng Church should have ignored the rumors, but their widespread nature caused great misunderstanding among them. Xi’an Fengsheng Church said in its statement that while it does not expect rumormongers to perceive and understand persecutions from a spiritual height, they should not stand on "the side of Satan to slander pastors who are persecuted."

Xi’an Fengsheng Church is under the “China Gospel Fellowship,” China’s largest house church. The church has faced long-term persecution; Pastor Lian Changnian has been imprisoned multiple times. On August 17, 2022, when the church was targeted again by authorities, officers from Xi’an Shilipu Police Station took Pastor Lian Changnian, his son Pastor Lian Xuliang, and co-worker Fu Juan away for residential surveillance at a designated location on grounds of “fraud.” The three were secretly detained for half a year before their families received any news about them.

Since then, police have summoned Christians from the church one after another through both coaxing and coercing methods to force them to betray and frame pastors. Authorities attempted to sow discord between pastors and believers by describing Christians’ regular offerings as fraud by pastors. They also sought to instigate Christians to sue pastors for fraud by promising that more money sued for would be returned by the government in future.