The Protestant Christians, all members of the unregistered -- meaning not registered with the government -- Shouwang Church were picked up by police as they gathered to hold an outdoor service in a central public park.

Upwards of 1,000 members were gathering to worship but police moved into the crowd, picking out groups of people and taking them to waiting vans, witnesses said.

The church has no choice but to congregate outdoors and will remain defiant, pastor Jin Tianming said.

Until last month members took turns gathering for regular worship in a local restaurant, but the owner put pressure on them to stop the practice.

Jin would rather be in a building that the church had agreed to buy in November 2009, but the government put pressure on the landlord to hold off on the deal.

"We have two requirements," Jin said. "One is to return the keys of the building we bought and the other is to get permission from the government for indoor activities."

"If the government cannot give us the keys or give us the permission we need, we have no choice. We can only meet outdoors again."

Police questioned the members for many hours and asked them to sign letters stating that they would not attend any outdoor services. "Most of the members didn't sign the guarantee letters," Jin said.

Leaders of the church repeatedly said their gathering are not political but purely religious.

China officially has about 16 million Christians, but Christian activists say members of unregistered churches alone top 40 million.

The unregistered Shouwang Church is one of many so-called house churches, named as such because the small congregation could fit into a house, apartment or small building. But they also are unregistered with the Administration for Religious Affairs. This makes renting or buying premises and holding larger gatherings difficult because of government interference, church members say.

The exact legal status of the churches within China is open to debate. The government recognises them as a fact of civic life, but appears to make their life difficult. Detaining members of unregistered churches is not uncommon.

In March 2010, the official government newspaper China Daily published a report headlined "House Churches thrive in Beijing."

Beijing has "a growing number of, and an increasingly open attitude toward, house churches, according to members of these churches and experts on religion," the report said.

It also reported an activist saying the increase in house churches is due partly to lack of space at official churches, including the Three Self Patriot Movement, the China Christian Council and the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association.

But this week China Daily reported that Cai Kui, head of the Beijing Committee of Three-Self Patriotic Movement of Protestant Churches, made a plea to house church goers to contribute to "the national and social stability and unity."

"The love for the country does not conflict with the love for the religion," Cai said. "The code of ethics championed by Christianity coincides with that promoted by the Chinese government in many ways."

Last month, Shen Xuebin, vice chairman of the Three-Self Patriotic Movement, urged church members not to answer calls for participation in street gatherings planned every Sunday in public places across the country.

The China Daily report said Shen told Chinese Christians they "should love the country and protect social stability, instead of following calls of some anti-China forces who attempt to sabotage China."

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