In 1905, English Pentecostal missionaries An Yongjing and his wife, Jessie, arrived at No. 75 Wangjiazhuang Alley in Lijiang. By 1930, they completed a fifteen-meter-tall sanctuary that combined European architecture with Naxi residential design. This timber-and-soil structure featured an east-west rectangular layout, capped with traditional clay tiles and anchored by Lijiang's very first brick columns. High, Western-style arched windows cast long shadows across the floor. On the western roof, a massive bronze bell imported from Italy, measuring over a meter tall, sent its deep, metallic ring across the valley.

Nearby, the rush of river water spun a micro-hydroelectric generator imported from England. This machine hummed to life, making the church the first place in Yunnan to glow with electric lightbulbs while the rest of the town burned kerosene. Within these walls, Xuan Mingde studied to become Lijiang's first Naxi pastor, a path that later shaped his son, the musicologist Xuan Ke.

On February 3, 1996, a powerful earthquake struck Lijiang. The shaking left the church severely damaged, classing it as a dangerous "D-grade" structure. For years, its future remained uncertain. In October 2014, preservationists began a meticulous restoration. They chose to repair the old to look like the old, stabilizing the primary wooden frame without dismantling its historic timbers.

Today, the site serves as a free public cultural courtyard. Visitors walk past the restored brick columns and through the quiet hall, where the "Handmade Lijiang" workshop showcases traditional crafts. The building stands as a physical record of cultural exchange, where European brickwork meets Naxi timber, and the memory of Yunnan's first electric light still lingers in the quiet mountain air.