Officers shut down the week-long youth retreat in the northern Gansu province and ordered two parish priests who were running the event to return home.
Around 80 children aged between 10 and 14 were taking part in the event in the city of Tianjin when police raided the campsite, Catholic news agency UCAN reports.
After police arrived, the summer camp’s two organisers were accused of holding an illegal Christian event and escorted from the campsite, according to UCAN.
Officials in Tianjin then requested two state-approved priests be dispatched from the government-controlled Catholic Church agency to take over the retreat.
A source told UCAN: “There are people in the government who want to break the current situation.
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“They do not allow the underground church to exist and must convert it to be open.”
The closure of the camp comes as Beijing continues its attempts to suppress the Christian faith.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping has labelled the religion “Western infiltration” which has the potential to undermine the ruling Communist party.
Officials have resorted to increasingly harsh measures to stop people practising the faith, including banning children from attending church services and limiting the availability of the Bible to a version approved by the state.
Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) has condemned Beijing’s actions, which the organisation says has resulted in some congregations being forced to “sing patriotic, pro-Communist songs in church services and to fly the national flag”.
CSW’s chief executive Mervyn Thomas said: “We are extremely concerned about the restrictions on both registered and unregistered church Christians in China, and we further condemn the arbitrary detention of citizens in connection with their religion or belief, including Christians, Muslims and those of other faiths.”
The strict regulations over the Christian faith are mainly imposed in China’s northwestern Xinjiang province, where officials have branded the religion “not Chinese enough”.
But they are also being imposed in other regions, with Christian residents of a rural township in southeastern Jiangxi province in November told to replace pictures of Jesus be taken down and replaced with images of President Xi.
The policy was defended by Qi Yan, a member of the township party committee, who said the change would benefit poor families educating them to “believe in science and not in superstition” and “making them believe in the party”.
With a population of nearly 1.4 billion, China is the world’s most populous nation but some experts believe the Asian superpower is also on track to become the world’s largest Christian nation.
Fenggang Yang, a China expert at Purdue University, predicts that the communist nation could have as many as 160 million Christians by 2025 and 247 million by 2032 – which could see it surpass the United States as the largest Christian country.