Tongchuan Prefecture, as Santai County was known during the imperial era, was the first place visited by Robert John and Mary Jane Davidson, a missionary couple of the Friends' Foreign Mission Association (FFMA), after arriving in Sichuan in 1887.

[3] In 1899, Isaac Mason and his mission group were appointed by FFMA to live at Tongchuan, where they took up residence early in 1900.

They opened a dispensary and held meetings for worship in a very dilapidated chapel made out of unused small rooms.

According to the statistics provided in 1944 by Republican-era Tongchuan Government, there were 278 local converts consisting of 195 men and 83 women.

By the time of the communists' takeover of Sichuan in December 1949, only the three congregations in Tongchuan city centre, Lingxing and Jingfu were still active.