Each week ChinaSource readers are treated to a roundup of news from in and around China in ZGBriefs. Politics, persecution, and prayer ranked as high interest topics this year; along with modern culture and church history.
The ChinaSource team was walking right alongside and sensing the pulse of our readers—publishing a roundup of news articles and resources titled the “Zion Church Crackdown,” as well as ChinaSource founder, Brent Fulton, sharing “Receiving the Gifts of Advent,” which highlights the Advent Prayer Calendar and a reminds us of the hope and anticipation of what is to come.
Explore 2025’s Top 10 ZGBriefs Links
Find out what resonated with our ChinaSource readers in 2025 by exploring the top 10 links clicked from ZGBriefs and letting these topics lead you to pray as you read.
1. Pastors and staff from underground church are arrested in China (October 13, 2025, NPR)
Ezra Jin, founder and pastor of Zion Church, a large “underground house church” with congregations across China, was arrested Friday while at his home in Beihai in the country’s Guangxi region, his daughter Grace Jin Drexel told NPR.
2. How China’s Persecuted Reach China’s Marginalized (October 3, 2025, The Gospel Coalition)
“Who is my neighbor?”—Two thousand years ago, a young Jewish leader brought this question to Jesus. The query still resonates today: In a world of such great need, how can anyone make a dent in the scale of suffering? Whom should we serve?
3. China Detains Influential House Church Pastor (October 11, 2025, Christianity Today)
Since Thursday, police have detained nearly 30 pastors and staff members of Zion Church, an influential Chinese house church network, in what many fear is the beginning of a new wave of persecution against Christians in China.
4. A town in northeast China has shrunk by a third since 2010. Here’s one family’s story. (October 30, 2025, NPR)
Families in the US and around the world are having fewer children as people make profoundly different decisions about their lives. NPR’s series Population Shift: How Smaller Families Are Changing the World explores the causes and implications of this trend.
5. Towering History: A Photographer’s Fresh Take on China’s Pagodas (August 21, 2025, Sixth Tone)
Photographer Lin Shu seeks the quiet magic within China’s humble pagodas, capturing their enduring spirit across a changing landscape.
6. China arrested 30 Christians. Some fear it’s the start of a bigger crackdown. (October 15, 2025, BBC)
Last Friday Grace Jin Drexel received a text from her father in China, the prominent pastor Jin Mingri, telling her to pray for another pastor who had gone missing. Shortly, after she received a call from her mom saying she couldn’t contact her dad.
7. China pulls out all the stops to get people hitched and having babies. (July 29, 2025, China Skinny)
China is going to unprecedented lengths to spark romance, marriage, and ultimately, childbirth, as it grapples with a shrinking population, aging society, and a generation increasingly reluctant to have children.
8. The Chinese Christian Behind 2,000 Hymns (December 11, 2025, Christianity Today)
Lü Xiaomin never received formal music training. But her worship songs have made her a household name in China’s churches.
9. Tracing the Hidden History of the Four Beijing Churches (August 13, 2025, The Beijinger)
Tucked away between shopping malls, state offices, and quiet hutong lanes are four of Beijing’s most famous churches. These centuries-old structures, rebuilt after years of turbulence, tell a layered story of imperial diplomacy, missionary persistence and urban survival.
10. On Sino Pessimism, or Junkies of Futility (August 5, 2025, Made in China Journal)
Gary Zhexi Zhang (2021) first coined the term ‘Sinopessimism’ as a speculative counterpart to Afropessimism, imagining a future in which China becomes the object, rather than the subject, of global racialisation.
Additional Resources Often Explored in 2025:
What stands out is that our readers are interested in knowing how to pray for and serve China and Chinese Christians. ZGBriefs lays a groundwork for a better understanding of what is happening in real time and propels our readers toward prayer. Joann Pittman’s articles throughout the year also demonstrate how to use ZGBriefs itself as a prayer guide—calling us not only to read about it but also to be participants in what God is doing.
Below are additional ZGBriefs links that were clicked often in 2025 that lead us all to humble ourselves in prayer and boldly come before the throne for our Chinese brothers and sisters in Christ.
Thriving Turtles Online Courses
ChinaSource Advent Prayer Calendar
Thank you for following along and diving in each week to ZGBriefs. We look forward to what 2026 will bring and how we will respond in prayer!
