According to historical records, the Jing Church, which was introduced into Tang Dynasty in 635 AD, was the first Christian religion that entered China. It later died out. When Christianity once again came to China in the 19th century, it unfortunately connected itself with the colonial expansion and invasion of the western world. In the early years of its preaching in China, Christianity grasped privilege as it resorted to force and unequal treaties, however, it met with the Chinese people's repeated resistance owing to the political and cultural conflicts, which led to frequent occurrences of missionary cases. As a result, it developed very sipwiy in China in that period and in the nearly 1 50 years from 1807 when Christianity (Protestantism) was introduced into China to 1949 when the People's Republic of China was founded, it only developed to a Church with 700 thousand believers. In the 1950s, to shake off the old image of Christianity as a "foreign religion", the Chinese Christians launched the Three-self Patriotic Movement of self-rule, self-reliance and self-development, and on this basis established the National Committee of the Three-self Patriotic Movement of the Protestant Church in China.
The Three-self Patriotic Movement not only pushed the Chinese Church to realize self-rule, self-reliance and self-development, but also drove it towards the goal of "Three-good", namely good self-rule, good self-reliance and good self-development.
In June 2004, under the great support and help of the central government, the State Bureau of Religious Affairs and the Shanghai Municipal Government, the National Committee of the Three-self Patriotic Movement of the Protestant Church in China and the China Christian Council (abbreviated as the TSPM/CCC) took over the Trinity Church in Shanghai and its annexed building as their new office building. The TSPM/CCC have set up the following departments: Overseas Relations Department, Training Department, Publication Department, Tian Feng Editorial Department, Social Service Department, Research Department, Administration Office, etc. They are dedicated to the overall development of the Christian Church in China.
There are now more than 1 6 million Christians in China, with more than 55 thousand churches or gathering places and about 27 thousand clergymen. There are 18 theological schools in China together with lots of training centers.
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