The Evangelical Free Church of China – Yan Fook Church takes its name from the Chinese 恩福堂: grace and blessing hall. Its origin was practical rather than visionary. By 1984 the Waterloo Road Hill Gospel Church in Kowloon had grown too crowded for its space, and a group of roughly a hundred congregants moved out to establish their own meeting point. They held services at Fang Fang Primary School's building without a pastor for two years. Then, in April 1986, Pastor So Wing-chi and his family returned to Hong Kong from the United States to lead the group. Under his pastoral guidance, attendance climbed steadily. By the end of 2008, Yan Fook's worshippers numbered more than 10,000 — a hundredfold increase in twenty-four years — and the church had consolidated its presence in the twenty-storey Yan Fook Centre in Cheung Sha Wan, Kowloon.

Running a congregation of 10,000 in a dense urban environment requires organizational complexity that resembles, in some respects, a mid-sized business. Yan Fook divides its pastoral work across eight pastoral areas and a series of specialist departments covering worship and prayer, evangelism and missions, discipleship and education, care and fellowship, and support services. The church employs both fellowship-based and small group models, with fellowships organized by life stage: seniors, adults, couples, young professionals, university students, single parents, and mothers each have their own communities within the larger congregation. This segmentation allows the church to maintain the relational warmth of smaller communities inside an institution large enough to support professional media production, counseling services, and a full theological training school.

In 2001 Yan Fook Church established Yan Fook Bible College, creating an in-house pathway for theological education. The institution changed its name to Yan Fook Theological Seminary in 2019, reflecting an expanded ambition: the seminary now offers courses from certificate level through to master's degrees, and it serves not only Yan Fook's own congregation but students from other churches. The library, located on the sixteenth floor of the Yan Fook Centre, holds collections in theology, church history, Christian doctrine, biblical studies, and missionary work, alongside practical materials on counseling, parenting, and Christian life. The seminary represents a significant institutional commitment — the church not simply growing its membership but investing in the formation of leaders who will sustain the next generation.

A congregation of Yan Fook's scale does not sit apart from public debate. Two controversies drew significant attention. The first concerned the Domestic Violence Ordinance: Pastor So Wing-chi made public remarks opposing an amendment to the ordinance that would have extended protections to same-sex cohabiting partners, calling on believers to protest the change. The second concerned the 2008 Legislative Council elections. Some church members claimed that a sermon by Pastor So encouraged congregants to support specific pro-establishment candidates, which would have crossed the line between pastoral guidance and electoral interference. Both candidates and the pastor gave accounts that contested this characterization — both candidates said the sermon asked only for prayer, not votes — and no charges were filed. A third candidate, Priscilla Leung, who attended but was not a church member, said she was unaware of the situation at the time. The controversies reflect the tensions that inevitably arise when a large religious institution engages with the political and social life of a city as contested as Hong Kong.