On June 14, police attacked the Sunday service in Chengdu, detaining several elders and members
by Feng Reng
At around 11 a.m. on June 14, 2026, the brothers and sisters of Early RaiCovenant Church in Chengdu, Sichuan, were suddenly surrounded and stormed by a large police force during their Sunday service. According to the church’s urgent prayer request issued at noon that day, as well as additional information later sent out by members on site, police entered a Sunday gathering venue in Jiangyou, Mianyang, registered the ID information of all present, and deployed police cars and buses to forcibly remove multiple Christians from the scene forcibly.
According to eyewitness accounts, roughly thirty SWAT officers were involved in the operation, some of them armed; another sixty plainclothes officers and regular police participated in the enforcement. The atmosphere was extremely tense throughout the police action. Some members reported that officers violently charged into the Sunday service, injuring approximately three brothers.
Photos and videos from the scene show uniformed police standing guard outside the gathering place, while members and children remained inside. According to further reports, aside from parents with children—who were temporarily kept at a restaurant under police watch—the remaining brothers and sisters were taken away one after another in police vehicles. Three police buses and three Iveco police vans were deployed to the site.
At 12:45 p.m. on June 14, Early Rain Covenant Church issued an urgent prayer request stating that, as of that time, Elder Yan Hong, Elder Wu Qing, Brother Liu Yingxu, Brother Nie Bo, Brother Li Benli, Brother Axin, and others had already been taken away by police. Many additional members on site, including several young children, were also being escorted onto buses and police cars. The whereabouts of several detainees remained unknown, and the situation was still unfolding.
According to the church’s prayer request, after registering the ID information of present, the police began forcibly taking brothers and sisters one by one to local police stations. Because so many were detained, the church called on congregations and believers everywhere to pray urgently, paying particular attention to whether those taken away would be allowed to eat, drink water, and rest normally, and whether they might face intimidation, harsh interrogation, or other mistreatment.
In its prayer request, Early Rain Covenant Church asked fellow churches to pray in four specific areas: first, that the Lord would grant peace and protect the elders, brothers, sisters, and children who were taken; second, that He would remember their most basic physical needs; third, that He would restrain the officers involved and stop their violence; and fourth, that He would make the church more united in the midst of trial, not scattered by persecution.
Early Rain Covenant Church is one of China’s most internationally watched house churches. In December 2018, it suffered a massive crackdown, and its senior pastor, Wang Yi, was later sentenced to nine years in prison on charges of “inciting subversion of state power” and “illegal business operations.” Since then, although the church has lost its public gathering venues and many pastors, elders, and members have long been subjected to surveillance, summonses, detentions, and harassment, it has continued to worship, pray, and provide pastoral care in a dispersed form.
Since 2026, Early Rain Covenant Church has faced sustained pressure once again. In January, several leaders and members were taken away in Chengdu, Deyang, and other locations. The June 14 raid on the Sunday service shows that the crackdown on unregistered house churches has not ceased and is even extending in more direct and forceful ways to ordinary members and underage children.
For many Chinese house churches, Sunday service should be a time for worship, prayer, preaching, and mutual love. Yet in reality, many believers must face police knocking at the door, ID registration, summonses, interrogations, disrupted gatherings, and frightened children. What Early Rain Covenant Church experienced once again illustrates the vast gap between the “freedom of religious belief” promised in China’s Constitution and the religious control exercised in practice.
As a Chinese Christian, I felt deeply burdened when reading this prayer request and the additional messages from the scene. I know that for China’s house churches, this is not an abstract “religious policy issue,” but the real suffering of real families, real children, and real brothers and sisters. A person may be taken away by police simply for attending Sunday worship; a child may experience fear in police cars, buses, and under police watch simply for accompanying their parents to a gathering. This reality is heartbreaking.
Early Rain Covenant Church concluded its prayer request with the words: “God is with us in prayer! Lord, help us!” This sentence reflects the shared condition of many Christians in China’s house churches: they have no political power, no public space, and often not even the freedom to worship quietly; yet they still believe that the church belongs to Christ, not to any earthly authority.
At the time of writing, the whereabouts of several detained members remain unclear. Continued attention is needed to their personal safety, place of detention, legal procedures, the condition of the injured brothers, and whether the underage children have safely returned to their families. We also urge the international community, human rights organizations, church groups, and all who care about religious freedom to continue monitoring the situation of Early Rain Covenant Church and to speak up for China’s persecuted house churches.
Feng Reng was a businessman in China and a dissident who escaped the country in 2022. He is currently based in Los Angeles. He converted to Christianity overseas and became a member of Pastor Zhang Boli’s Harvest Chinese Christian Church. He has contributed articles to several newspapers and magazines about the persecution of Christians in China.
