History of BOL Church Global Movement

The 13 storey Building of BOL Taipei


I guess it will be good to know the History of the BOL movement, who started it and why etc....

History of Bread of Life (Ling Liang) World-Wide Evangelistic Mission
(Note: Ling Liang is the word in the Chinese Bible for “Bread of Life”. Ling means Spirit & Liang means the Word - hence we can also call it the Spirit and the Word church )

Ling Liang World-Wide Evangelistic Mission – A Brief Historical Perspective (By Rev. Edwin Su)
In 1908, Rev. Timothy Dzao was born in Shanghai and answered God’s full time service calling in 1925 during the time of Shanghai Great Revival. Around 1949, he became the most widely traveled evangelist and is also the first pastor starting the world-wide mission from the base of an individual local church. He is like the modern day Apostle Paul of the Chinese church.
IN 1936 and 1938, while he was pasturing in the ??? Church of the Shanghai Covenant Church denomination, and after twice conducted evangelistic meetings in South East Asia island, Rev. Dzao deeply felt that “now is the time for Chinese Churches to GIVE … we sincerely hope that Chinese Churches can organize a mission organization dedicated to give our ability and financial resources to God for foreign missions” (Rev. Dzao, “Journey of Mission”. Vol. 1, page 69). After the Pacific War of Pearl Harbor attack on December 8, 1941, the ministries in China which used to receive supports from foreign missionary organizations faced great difficulties. This situation inspired Rev. Dzao and his co-workers to be even more determined to establish a non-denominational Chinese church based world wide missionary organization. In a night of June 1942, Rev. Dzao and other 5 other co-workers, after keeling down and praying in an empty yard of Huang JiaSha garden, they decided to name this missionary organization as “Ling Liang Church”. In August 1942, the Ling Liang Church started Sunday service using the auditorium of Xiejin High School, and used its classrooms as the Seminary and Bible School for training the ministers. This Shanghai Ling Liang Church later became the parent church of the Ling Liang World-wide Evangelistic Mission. After September 1942 when the first Ling Liang Church was set up in Shanghai, other branches of Ling Liang Church were also established in Nanjing, Hangzhou, and Suzhou.

Since October 1942, Shanghai Ling Liang Church had started spreading gospel to the twenty thousand Jewish refugees who escaped from the Nazi and Hitler’s prosecution and came to Hongqao region. Many member of the church offered financial assistance to these Jewish refugees, and two female co-workers Esther Wang and Minyuen Lee led these Jews in bible study conducted in English. As to Rev. Dzao, he would hurry to lead the Sunday worship services for the Jewish people in Hongqao every week after he finished the Sunday Worship service at the Ling Liang Church, until the end of World War II in 1945. During that period, Rev. Dzao also provided financial and other assistance to some of the foreign missionaries who were kept in the Japanese Concentration Camp.

In 1945 when the Sino-Japan war was over, the Ling Liang World-wide Evangelistic Mission was established in Shanghai. The goal of this Mission is “Wishing God will also use us Chinese ministerial workers to spread Gospel in foreign counties, starting from Shanghai (Jerusalem), expand to the whole China (the Land of Judea) and countries in Far East (Samaria), till the end of the world” (Rev. Dzao, “Journey of Mission”. Vol. 1, page 115). According to this goal, the Ling Liang World-wide Evangelistic Mission was preparing to expand its ministries from the original Ling Liang Churches in and surrounding Shanghai to major cities in Southern, Northern and Western China, then to rural villages, and to set up Kindergartens, Elementary Schools, Orphanages, Elderly Care Centers, and Eastern China Seminary in Suzhou to train ministers for pasturing and missionary ministries.

In fall of 1947, Ling Liang church ordained Rev. Chuanzhen Lan and Rev. Moses Chou as two pastors to be missionaries and dispatched them to overseas mission fields. Rev. and Mrs. Lan to branch of Ling Liang Church in Calcutta, India and Rev. Chou to Jakarta, Indonesia. They would preach gospel to local people as well as the overseas Chinese there.

After 1949, Ling Liang World-wide Mission expanded to outside of China, setting up branch Ling Liang Churches in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Philippines, Indonesia, Japan, North America, UK, and other places. In 1955, Rev. Dzao founded the Christian Cimoeiel University in Jakarta, Indonesia, in February 1956 he also established a Missionary College there. Rev. Dzao himself would traveling all over the world to lead evangelistic meetings, to bring spiritual revival to Chinese churches as well as churches in foreign countries; especially in May to June 1965 he lead over 200 evangelical meetings in five major cities in Korea, and spread Gospel to over half million Korean people, as an example of one of his many cross-culture missionary efforts.

Over the past decades, Ling Liang World-wide Evangelistic Mission has been using church planting as the major way of missionary work. As an example since 2003, Torrance Bread of Life Church has been involved in the Mexico Outreach Missions (Ling Liang para Mexico) to participate in setting up churches to spread Gospel to local Mexicans. At the present time, there are many Ling Liang Churches or Bread of Life Churches planted in many nations; and these churches again are planting new churches in their own country or expanding by planting new churches in other countries. These are evidences, as declared by Rev. Dzao in his book “Journey of Missions” Vol 2, page 87, that Ling Liang World-Wide Evangelistic Mission is a evangelical organization and not a denomination, all our missionaries are not salaried workers but are dependant to God’s provision by faith. All local Ling Liang Churches or Bread of Life Churches are independent in its own decision making regarding its policy or financial matters. Therefore, although the Ling Liang Churches or Bread of Life Churches in the world may have different ways of ministering the congregations, praising the Lord that all churches have one common vision to conduct evangelistic mission in accordance to the Great Commission from Jesus Christ.

(Author: Rev. Edwin Su. Note: The sources of this article are mostly from the book “Journey of Missions: by Rev. Timothy Dzao and verbal sharing by Minister Esther Wang.)