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About a week and a half into my trip to China, I was feeling pretty good about my ability to get around. I had learned how to communicate with taxi drivers, find my way by bus, and more importantly, navigate a Mandarin menu.

But pride comes before a fall. Early one evening, while hunting for a Three-Self church, I dropped straight into an open, unguarded manhole. It was in the midst of a crowded pedestrian walkway in a busy shopping district of Taiyuan in Shanxi Province. The Chinese know to look for such hazards, but I didn't even consider the possibility.

I caught myself before going all the way down—12 feet to jagged concrete and mud—but I emerged quite shaken, bloody, and embarrassed. Soon, a young woman and her parents offered to help, and a group of well-meaning people surrounded me in a tight circle. I did my best to explain what happened, and was soon escorted to a waiting squad car with a policeman holding the door—offering to drive me to the church.

This experience gave me a new glimpse into the world of the Chinese and the rapidly emerging Christian presence in China. I went there with my camera to gain a better understanding of its church. I came back with a sense that the Spirit of God is moving in a special way. It seemed that nearly every Christian I met had become a believer in the last six years. I visited state-registered churches (Three-Self) as well as unregistered house churches. It's tempting to think of the registered church in a Socialist country as being compromised and neutered, but the churches I visited were vibrant and alive. Unregistered congregations are typically labeled "underground churches," but to me this term no longer fits very well. Younger believers increasingly move easily between the two.

With China's changing economy, its society is also changing. China's young, middle-class population is seeking new meaning, and the older population, having given up Marxism, wants to fill the void.

My first stop was at a house fellowship in a large city in central China. This church began 15 years ago in the living room of a woman I'll call Yen. She had early childhood memories of her grandparents' connection with British missionaries. In the 1980s, she became intensely curious about the Bible. Yen and her family started a worship group on Sundays in their small apartment, and soon others joined them.

Today Yen is a pastor's wife, and the couple's church has 800 people. On Sunday mornings, they meet in the brightly lit lobby of a large public building. The meetings open with song. They pray for the government, asking God to bless its leaders and give them wisdom to lead the nation. The Sunday I attended, outsiders wandered onto the mezzanine to watch and listen; at the end, nine people made new commitments to Christ.

After the service, church members spent hours visiting mentally and physically challenged young people, orphans, and a home for elderly people suffering from dementia. Some members are adopting disabled children—a challenging commitment that's rare in Chinese culture.

Later, while traveling through the outskirts of Beijing, I visited a school for children of migrant workers, and then an orphanage. (There are 5 million migrants in Beijing alone.) House-church believers founded and staff both facilities, which are extremely modest by Western standards. The children seemed happy, well educated, and focused. My camera was hardly a distraction.

In Beijing, I met a young intellectual whose first step of faith was reading the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard. He is now preparing books that explore the Christian faith for the academic market. Another Christian, a human-rights activist on his way to Beijing, told me about a case he is preparing to establish equal legal treatment of disabled Chinese persons. In still another conversation, an influential economist described his conviction that Christian faith fuels innovation and provides a framework for the just use of money.

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May 2008, Vol. 52, No. 5