Jing Dianying

Who was Jing Dianying?

Jing Dianying was the founder of the second largest Chinese Pentecostal church movement known as the Jesus Family. Jing was born in Mazhuang of China's Shandong province, the fifth child of an impoverished landlord named Jing Chuanji. His family possessed 120 acres of fertile land and scores of tile-roofed houses. Both his parents died by the time he was fifteen years old and hence the family's economic position deteriorated. In 1905 the Qing Dynasty abolished the imperial examination and hence Jing's chances of entering the bureaucracy was blocked. In an attempt to alleviate this disappointment, he turned to Daoism and believed that he could become a very healthy man through that religion.

In 1912 Jing enrolled in an American Methodist Middle School in Taian and was later hired as a teacher by the Methodist missionary Nora Dellinbeck, a teacher of Mandarin Chinese. Jing became a Christian in 1914 which, some believe, was due to his attraction to this missionary. In 1918 a hospital with connections to the University of Jinan in Shandong hired Jing as a preacher, where he worked for five years. Jing then established the Christian Trust and Saving Society, a Christian cooperative economy. He later became dissatisfied with the hospital job due to his low pay and complained that people with foreign university degrees received higher salaries. After resigning his job, he was invited to become a Bible teacher in his Alma Mater in 1924. There, he was profoundly influenced by the American Assemblies of God missionaries, L. Lesli, M. Anglin and J. Jaston, who had arrived in Taian in 1916. He received the baptism of the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues which were strongly emphasized in the Pentecostal movement. Jing was then ousted from both the school and the Methodist church because he refused to retreat from Pentecostalism. In 1927 he set up the Jesus Family.