Curriculum – This past week I was in Minneapolis working with our Pathways curriculum revision team (Steve, Mike, and me) as we
continue to work to refine, simplify, and improve our material. Long days are filled with pouring through every word of our material, this time primarily the Psalms workshop, digging to find the best passages to practice hermeneutical tools we are offering the global pastors. It is slow work, but considering the hundreds and thousands of leaders globally who will use our material to study, understand, and teach God’s Word, it is important and worth the investment.
Global Persecution – Tomorrow night I have been asked to share thoughts for a meeting at our church focused on the Voice of the Martyrs Global Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church. About a month ago I was in Central African Republic, training a network of 26 pastors and church planters who would soon be sent to unreached parts of the country where they would experience suffering, loss, persecution, opposition, and by God’s Spirit they would plant churches in those conditions. While there, I was staying in a guesthouse and a few other men where also staying there. I introduced myself and found out that they are full time missionaries with VOM (Voice of the Martyrs). Their region is central Africa, so they wander around CAR, Chad, Congo, Uganda, S. Sudan, etc. collecting stories of those who are experiencing various forms of persecution, and striving to find ways of supporting them. Knowing that my wife Holly is a huge VOM supporter, I was excited to get to know them.
They shared, and many other Africans I know have corroborated, that persecution globally is growing and intensifying, and has many different forms. Brothers and sisters in Christ experience persecution from govmt leaders, economic persecution, social persecution, they can’t buy or rent homes, build or buy/rent buildings for a church, and certain business owners won’t deal with them if them if they find out they are a Christian. In many regions, if they are caught sharing their faith in Christ, the opposition intensifies, they are called in for questioning leading to imprisonment, etc. Brothers and sisters, we need to pray!
Map of countries experiencing intense persecution in various forms:
To learn more about persecution in specific countries, visit: https://www.opendoorsuk.org/persecution/world-watch-list/
Persecution is nothing new. Saints for ages have endured opposition and suffering while fulfilling their God-ordained calling. I was recently reading in Jeremiah, and in ch.20 Jeremiah is put in stocks for preaching God’s truth of judgment upon Israel, then he is mocked and opposed by prophets and leaders alike. Yes, sometimes the persecution comes from very close to home. In Jeremiah 20:8-13 we catch a glimpse of Jeremiah’s heart through the persecution. Notice verse 9 in particular:
“For whenever I speak, I cry out,
I shout, “Violence and destruction!”
For the word of the Lord has become for me
a reproach and derision all day long.
9 If I say, “I will not mention him,
or speak any more in his name,”
there is in my heart as it were a burning fire
shut up in my bones,
and I am weary with holding it in,
and I cannot.
10 For I hear many whispering.
Terror is on every side!
“Denounce him! Let us denounce him!”
say all my close friends,
watching for my fall.
“Perhaps he will be deceived;
then we can overcome him
and take our revenge on him.”
11 But the Lord is with me as a dread warrior;
therefore my persecutors will stumble;
they will not overcome me.
They will be greatly shamed,
for they will not succeed.
Their eternal dishonor
will never be forgotten.
12 O Lord of hosts, who tests the righteous,
who sees the heart and the mind,
let me see your vengeance upon them,
for to you have I committed my cause.
13 Sing to the Lord;
praise the Lord!
For he has delivered the life of the needy
from the hand of evildoers.”
Jeremiah’s faith in the Lord seems strong despite suffering, yet if you look on either side of these verses, he is crying out in agony, despising the day of his birth, confused by his situation and God’s apparent ambivalence. However, God is the sovereign judge, and wrongs will be righted, but for a time the difficulty can be daunting, even overwhelming.
A couple days ago, Alyssa our daughter attending Boyce College in Louisville was invited to a meeting with Nik Ripken and his wife. He authored Insanity of God and Insanity of Obedience and Insanity of Sacrifice which document believers around the world experiencing persecution for their faith in Christ. He challenged the group to be engaged with the persecuted church globally, in prayer, in givin
g, in going. Ripken urged the group that in our going we need to be aware of the cultural effects of western influence. Rather than fixing all their problems, we must be willing to step into homes and lives of indigenous leaders and learn their culture in order to bring them the Gospel in an understandable and authentic way, built upon the work that Christ has already been doing in them. Although stories of persecution may seem far from our world, in truth this is not a distant reality having nothing to do with us, but something our global brothers and sisters are experiencing today, and is coming our way in America. We need to pray!
Concluding Uganda – Monday morning at 6AM, my friend Jeremy and I leave for Uganda to offer a final training and graduation for two networks of pastors. These pastors also have experienced
persecution, particularly those in the north. The crops they struggle to grow are destroyed by those who oppose their Christian faith. Many live in IDP refugee camps, fleeing from warfare in S. Sudan, fighting to survive. Even other denominations and their own denominational leaders may oppose them because they feel threatened that these pastors are learning how to study, understand, and teach God’s Word. These graduates of our program, all indigenous leaders in the church, will carry on and multiply to many others what we have taught, Lord-willing spreading God’s Word throughout their nation. We need to pray!
