(Beijing – July 11, 2024) According to reports, on July 5, 2024, Pastor Jin Mingri, the senior pastor of Beijing Zion Church who has been under border control for five years, was again intercepted at customs when leaving Macau. Pastor Jin Mingri was informed that his border control should have ended on March 22 this year. His wife and children live in the United States. After his five-year border control period expired, he hoped to go abroad to reunite with his family. However, he was intercepted at the customs again. The customs police asked him to contact Officer Zhang in Beijing and provided him with Officer Zhang’s phone number. However, when Pastor Jin called the number, it turned out to be an invalid number.
Pastor Jin Mingri became a Christian in 1989 and was called to serve the church in the same year. He has been serving the church for thirty-five years. Pastor Jin Mingri is of Korean ethnicity and is a promoter of the public transformation of urban house churches and urban house church ministry in China. He is recognized as one of the influential leaders of the new generation of house churches, with a congregation of up to 1,500 people.
In 2004, Pastor Jin Mingri also took the lead in establishing the Beijing Pastors Joint Prayer Meeting, hoping to bring about church revival and missionary movements through online prayer. In 2005, pastors in Beijing conducted a prayer walk around eight densely populated districts in the city. Before the prayer walk, dedicated personnel researched aspects such as population, ethnicity, culture, and religion for each district.
The Beijing Pastors Joint Prayer Meeting is responsible for interceding for internal and external affairs of Beijing house churches. With its expansion over time, prayer items and members are no longer limited to just Beijing; many pastors from urban house churches across Beijing have joined.
In November 2020, this prayer network was investigated by government authorities. For many years now Pastor Jin Mingri and Beijing Zion Church have been under government surveillance; consequently he himself has faced restrictions on international travel.
On September 9th ,2018 ,the Zion Church led by Pastor Jin was raided by more than seventy government personnel resulting in sealing off premises where they gathered initially along with closing down affiliated companies such as Jianweitang Culture Company being fined ￥1 .2 million yuan (~$165105 USD). Civil Affairs Bureau announced “banning according law” which included confiscation illegal propaganda materials too.
Pastor's daughter graduated from University California Los Angeles (UCLA) followed Hebrew University Jerusalem before joining Washington Lee School Law US facing similar restrictions while leaving country due "potentially endangering national security".
In response pressure domestic environment back home pastor's wife moved abroad accompanying their sons seeking better educational opportunities however selling property restricted requiring legal assistance resolving issue eventually .
Despite challenges banning Zion Church evangelists continued gospel ministry across cities like Shanghai Wuxi Suzhou among others often detained including summoning holding lectures baptizing human rights lawyer Yu Wensheng wife Xu Yan August eighteenth two thousand twenty-two possibly contributing reasons ongoing border controls after five years.
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