Witness Lee

Witness Lee (Chinese: 李常受; pinyin: Lǐ Chángshòu; 1905 – June 9, 1997) was a Chinese Christian preacher belonging to the Christian group local churches in Taiwan and the United States and was the founder of Living Stream Ministry. He was born in 1905 in the city of Yantai, Shandong, China, to a Southern Baptist family. He became a Christian in 1925 through the preaching of Peace Wang and later joined the Christian work started by Watchman Nee. Like Nee, Lee emphasized the believers' subjective experience and enjoyment of Christ as life for the building up of the church, not as an organization, but as the Body of Christ. He was honored by Hon. Joseph R. Pitts of Pennsylvania in the US Congress on April 29, 2014 for his "extraordinary impact far beyond the Chinese-speaking world."

Biography

Early Years

Witness Lee was born in 1905 in Shandong Province in China. Lee’s great-grandfather was a Southern Baptist who brought Lee’s mother into Christianity. Lee’s mother studied in an American Southern Baptist mission school and was baptized as a teenager joining a Southern Baptist church. In order to provide her children with an education in Chinese and English, she sold her inheritance. Lee’s father was a farmer who died in 1923.