Samuel Lamb (Lin Xiangao) was the son of a Baptist pastor and preached his first sermon at age 19. A little more than ten years later, he was arrested under Mao's Communist regime for "anti-revolutionary activity" and sentenced to 19 years of hard labor.
Twenty Years in Labor Camps
In spite of "honey-bucket" duty at labor farms or backbreaking work in coal mines, Lamb continued to teach and share his faith. He spent over 20 years in labor camps for refusing to join the Three-Self Patriotic Movement.
Church Growth Under Communist Persecution
After his release in 1978, Lamb revitalized the church in Guangzhou. What happened next became his famous testimony:
"Before I was arrested, my church had only 200 members. After I was released from prison the first time, I found the church had grown to 900 members! Then came the confiscation of the church. Before the government confiscated our church, the church numbered 900 members. After the confiscation, the church had grown to 2,000 members!"
The pattern continued. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, police arrested or detained Lamb several times, raided his church, confiscated materials, and harassed members. Yet the church kept growing—eventually reaching 4,000 members with multiple services each week.
"More persecution, more growth," became Lamb's motto. It wasn't defiance—it was simple observation of what God was doing.
Samuel Lamb's Lasting Legacy
Lamb published over 200 booklets in the "Voice of the Spirit" series and welcomed hundreds of foreign visitors to his church. When he died in 2013 at age 88, news outlets reported that between 10,000 and 40,000 Christians clogged the streets of Guangzhou to pay him homage.
His life proved his message: persecution cannot stop the church. It can only make it grow.
