The Establishment and Perfection ofOrganizations of Churches in Line with theThree-self Principle
The establishment and perfection of National committee ofThree-Self Patriotic Movement of the Protestant Church in Chinaand its institution for routine affairs provided a solid foundationfor the smooth running of their work. More than 1700 nationalor local branches of the "China Christian Council‘ and "committeeof Three-Self Patriotic Movement‘ have been established. From1980 to 2002， the Chinese Christian Churches held four nationalconferences， namely the fourth National Conference onChristianity in 1986， the fifth in 1991， the sixth 1996 and theseventh in 2002. At the seventh conference， Ji Jianhong waselected chairman of the National committee of the Three-SelfPatriotic Movement of the Protestant Church in China， and CaoShengjie was elected president of the China Christian Council.
To promote all kinds of church work， the "Nationalcommittee of Three-Self Patriotic Movement of the Protestant Church in China‘ and the "China Christian Council’ （referred toas two organizations in the paragraphs below） also set up differentspecial committees， including： committee for Management ofthe Churches， committee for Promoting Self-Reliance，committee for Research on Self-Development， committee forTheological Education， committee for Publishing the Bible，committee for Publication of Christian Works， committee forChristian Music， committee for Women"s Affairs and committeefor Ethnic Affairs， etc. Led by the two organizations， all thecommittees carried out a series of works to promote theconstruction of the churches in an all-round manner. For instance，based on their actual needs， the committee for Publishing theBible printed more than 30 million Bibles in different versionsby the end of 2002， including the Old Testament and NewTestament in both the simplified Chinese writing style and theoriginal writing style. To provide convenience to ethnic minorities， Bibles in their languages were also published.
Besides， to meet Christians‘ needs of reading an English Bible，it also published Chinese-English Cross-Reference Bibles andBible Encyclopedias， etc. Wind of Heaven is a magazinepublished by the two organizations， and since it resumedpublication in the summer of 1980， its circulation has been onthe rise year after year， becoming a monthly in 1985. Whilepublicizing the three-self patriotic movement， it also carries articles on such subjectsas religious training andhow to operate churcheswell. It often reports andanalyzes the important orhot issues in Christiancircle， and carries plainbut moving stories ofChristian life in order toinspire people"s love. By2001， its circulation hadreached about 100，000.
The publication work ofthe churches has also made great progress. The circulation of Hymn （the New Edition）
had reached over 10 million， a quarter of which were works byChinese Christians. Besides， many Bible tapes， Bible poetryselections， and books about Christian theology， history and culturewere also published， which included works written by ChineseChristians， translations of the European and American works，and books by theologists from Taiwan， Hong Kong and otherplaces. These publications meet needs of Christians at differentlevels and were well received.
Great achievements have been accomplished since the threeselfpatriotic movement was launched in the 1950s. It has becomea new task for the Chinese churches concerning how to adhere to the guideline of the three-self patriotic movement and how tooperate under the new social circumstances. The Work Reportof the Fourth National Conference of the Chinese ChristianChurches pointed out that "our work concerning three-self is notonly self-rule， self-reliance and self-development， but also howto do them well. We should be aware that we are far from therealization of the task of running churches well under the threeselfprinciple. To be frank， we are just standing at the verybeginning of the task and the way ahead is still long and rugged‘。
And the fifth national conference in 1990 clearly put forwardthat "we should run churches well under the three-self principle‘。
