Witness Lee

Witness Lee
Photograph of Witness Lee, circa 1960
Born	1905 (1905) Yantai, Shandong, China
Died	June 9, 1997 (1997-06-10) Anaheim, California
Chinese name
Chinese	李常受
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Lǐ Chángshòu

Witness Lee (Chinese: 李常受; pinyin: Lǐ Chángshòu; 1905 – June 9, 1997) was a Chinese Christian preacher belonging to the Christian group known as the local churches (or Local Church) in Taiwan and the United States. He was also the founder of Living Stream Ministry. Lee was born in 1905 in the city of Yantai, Shandong, China, to a Southern Baptist family. He became a Christian in 1925 after hearing the preaching of an evangelist named Peace Wang and later joined the Christian work started by Watchman Nee. Like Nee, Lee emphasized what he considered 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 recognized 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."

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.

Lee was brought into contact with his mother's Baptist Church in Yantai where he studied at a Southern Baptist elementary school and later at a mission college operated by American Presbyterians. Although Lee attended Southern Baptist church services and Sunday school in his youth, he was never converted nor baptized by them. After her conversion, Lee's second sister began to pray for him and introduced him to a Chinese pastor who paid Lee many visits and encouraged him to attend his Sunday morning services. Inspired by the preaching of Peace Wang, Lee dedicated himself to serve God for the rest of his life in April 1925 at the age of 19.