The Persecuted Church Needs Our Prayers

Christians around the world will remember their brothers and sisters in Christ who suffer for their faith this Sunday, November 14, as part of a global day set aside to pray for their fellow believers, according to the Christian Broadcast Network (CBN).

“Christian pastors are often imprisoned in countries hostile to the faith,” CBN states. “This affects not only the church congregations, but also the families of these leaders.”

The global prayer day movement began in 1996 though efforts of the World Evangelical Fellowship with the help of various denominations and faith-based groups. Today, the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church (IDOP) mobilizes churches on behalf of millions of persecuted Christians worldwide.

With a core of 7,000 participating churches, the IDOP has grown to become the largest prayer day event of its kind in the world. This year, churches will pray and also discuss ways to help suffering Christians.

“Why should you pray this Sunday, or perhaps daily for persecuted Christians?” asks Gary Lane, CBN News Senior International Reporter. “Why not? They need and covet your prayers. Think about it. Here are just a few of the Christian persecution headlines CBN News brought you in just the past three weeks”:

--A Pakistani Christian is sentenced to death for telling Muslim co-workers that Jesus died for their sins…

--58 Christians are killed in Iraq as Islamic militants attack their church…Less than two weeks later, grieving Christians are killed by bomb attacks targeting their Baghdad homes…

--Eight months after his release from a North Korean prison, American missionary Robert Park – for the first time – speaks about the suffering and torture he endured at the hands of his captors…

--The People's Republic of China prohibits 200 house church leaders from attending the Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelism in Cape Town South Africa. Conference organizers fear computer hackers from the PRC were responsible for shutting down their website for the first five days of the gathering….

“If anyone tells you that militant Muslims and communists are becoming more tolerant of Christians, don't believe them,” Lane says. “As I travel the world to meet with suffering believers and listen to their testimonies, I can tell you persecution is not lessening, it's intensifying. Why? I don’t know for sure. Perhaps it’s because Christians are doing a better job of sharing the gospel these days. Maybe it’s because television and the Internet are helping to bring Jesus to many societies previously closed to other beliefs and faiths.”

Lane says Christians around the world – perhaps 200 million or more – will pray for their persecuted brothers and sisters this Sunday.

“Believers in America and most Western countries know very little of the fires of persecution,” says Katherine Britton, News and Culture Editor of Crosswalk.com. “But our lack of experience doesn't have to be a lack of empathy. In Galatians 6:2, Paul tells the church to “carry each other’s burdens” to keep each other from stumbling…I think those of us who don’t endure life-threatening persecution can still partner with the persecuted church in this way. If we pray for believers we’ve never met…chances are we'll never know the impact those prayers have. And yet we can enter into their suffering in a small way when we pray for them.”

James tells us “the prayers of a righteous man are powerful and effective,” indicating that God uses prayers offered through Christ in ways we can’t imagine, Britton says. “And when we don’t know how to pray for other believers? God takes care of that hesitation as well in Romans 8:26: ‘…The Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.’”

Saint Paul asked for prayer so that “utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly, to make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in bonds: that therein I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak,” Ephesians 6:18-20).

Pray often for the many Christians who are being persecuted.