Seventh-day Adventist Church in the People's Republic of China


The Seventh-day Adventist Church is a major Christian denomination with a significant presence in the People's Republic of China with over 455,683 members as of June 30, 2018. Many of its pastors in China are women. There are or used to be more than 350 SDA congregations in Jilin Province. Pastor Jan Paulsen, the Adventist world church president, visited China in 2009. There he said "so many things have changed in China over the last two decades, and while freedom -- the increase of freedom -- is difficult to compare, I am very, very grateful for the fact that so many changes have taken place in this country."

History

In 1888, a Seventh-day Adventist layman named Abraham La Rue began selling publications to people in Shanghai and Hong Kong. He also arranged to have the first Adventist tracts to be published in Chinese.
In 1902, Jacob N. Anderson and his wife were sent to Hong Kong where they opened a school for Chinese children. When the Andersons arrived in Hong Kong they found Abram La Rue still selling church publications. They ministered to him in his last illness.
Edwin H. Wilbur arrived in Canton and eight people were baptized in 1903.
In 1905, Dr. Harry Willis Miller began publishing The Gospel Herald and later established four large hospitals.
By the end of the Second World War, there were twenty-three thousand Seventh-day Adventist members in China with two hundred and sixty one churches.