When Christian missionaries came to China at the first beginning, they met the problems of language barrier and adaptation to new surroundings. Therefore, they employed some Chinese teachers and servants to help them, and these people then became their earliest objectives of missionary activities. When a missionary family was to have religious ceremonies or other activities, he would invite these people to attend the events. Some missionaries even took it as a precondition of employment.

Later there were more and more participants and the scope of participants was widened. Not only the family members and servants of the missionaries, but also their neighbors, friends and relatives would participate. They used to gather at a missionary's or a believer's home on Sundays and have religious services or other religious activities.

The characteristic of family missionary activities was that the missionaries took advantage of a relaxed family atmosphere and intimate personal relations to disseminate Christianity. In such a cozy and secret atmosphere, people would easily accept Christianity. At the beginning of modern times, it did help the missionaries find a channel through which Chinese could get to know and accept the God.