A Gospel Prayer for the Chinese New Year
Pray for the Word of God to be known in China
Pray for China
Invest in China
Invest in ChinaEditor’s Note: This year, the 15-day celebration of Chinese New Year culminates with the traditional Lantern Festival on March 6. The new lunar year is a festive time in China, but many Chinese believers find themselves enduring deep suffering in one of the worst government crackdowns on house churches in years.
This article is written by a Chinese Christian praying for Chinese believers to remain faithful under persecution and joyful in their trials.
The annual return of the lunar new year is always accompanied by many traditional and popular New Year songs, wishing people health, wealth, and happiness during the new year. But for many Chinese house church Christians, their hearts are filled with a different tune.
They often think of a hymn called By Gracious Power, written by Dietrich Bonhoeffer from a Nazi prison on New Year’s Day, 1944, about four months before his execution. The Christian theologian suffering in prison wrote this:
By gracious powers so wonderfully sheltered
and confidently waiting, come what may,
we know that God is with us night and morning,
and never fails to meet us each new day.
And when the cup you give is filled to brimming
with bitter suffering, hard to understand,
we take it gladly, trusting though with trembling,
out of so good and so beloved a hand.
If once again, in this mixed world, you give us
the joy we had, the brightness of your sun,
we shall recall what we have learned through sorrow,
and dedicate our lives to you alone.
It’s not difficult to see the parallels between Chinese house church Christians and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. During this Lunar New Year of 2026, many Chinese pastors are locked in prisons. Some, like Pastor Wang Yi, have been there for several years. Some, like Pastor Ezra Jin, are waiting to be tried and almost certain to be condemned.
So during this Lunar New Year, let’s also tune our hearts to the hearts of our Chinese brothers and sisters, and join them in this prayer that Wang Yi’s church wrote during Lunar New Years in 2023:
O Lord, who grants us strength for war, we pray to you.
On this spring festival, as your children are like sheep among wolves, scattered among every city and town, may we enter a deeper place in China’s culture.
Especially watch over the faith of every one of your children, that we would pray unceasingly with soberness, and serve you in the midst of tears and suffering.
O Father, since you have chosen us the lowly and the weak, you are able to save our whole family.
Grant us a heart of prayer to pray for our family and friends, because each one of their souls is precious. Use us to fulfill the great needs of the gospel.
As time goes by, when the homeland is no more, when the dirt enacts the tragedy of “you are dust and to dust you shall return,” we see that true life and joy arise from the body of the crucified Christ, and they will also arise from us.
May the Lord win over China and may the whole earth be filled with the Lord’s songs and praise.
