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One of the great privileges of my life is interviewing Christians who have faced persecution. To be able to sit down with these brothers and sisters, drink tea and simply ask questions to explore their faith and their relationship with Jesus is a source of great joy to me, as well as a spur to my own faith and walk with Christ. Recently I interviewed John Short, a Christian who was detained in North Korea after he left gospel tracts outside a Buddhist temple. In the course of our conversation, Mr. Short said something that I’ve never heard before, or [More]
When I joined a missions organization in 2003 intending to go overseas as a 24-year-old, people didn’t understand. They asked me why. They told me there were plenty of people who needed help in the U.S. They wanted to know why I was leaving my job at the newspaper. It didn’t make sense to them, because it wasn’t a safe choice. But I knew I’d been put on earth for a reason that was bigger than my own comfort. So I went. In those two years, I learned about sharing the gospel in front of a crowd or one-on-one. I [More]
When we say largest megachurches in the world, Americans are likely to immediately think of the Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas—which boasts of some 43,500 people attending its services weekly—or Potter’s House in Dallas. However, Leadership Network’s Warren Bird, an expert when it comes to the subject of megachurches, recently released a research showing that Christian churches with the largest attendance are not located in the United States but in Asia and Africa. In an article on the Leadership Network’s website, Bird named the Yoido Full Gospel Church in Seoul, South Korea as the most attended Christian church in the [More]
“Yes most pastors don’t lead a lavish lifestyle and can even be in a hard place financially as the article points out. If you attend a small church have you asked your pastor if his financial needs are being met? if not you may want to.”  Admin A majority of evangelical pastors in the United States personally suffer from significant financial challenges as they serve in small churches — with most having little to no place to place to turn. The latest research released by the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) last week shows that the financial hardships experienced by [More]
Things will never be the same again in a far-flung village in southern Philippines after missionaries from the Christian Aid Mission brought the light of Christianity to tribal people who have known only spiritual darkness. A local ministry from the Mission spent eight months with the Manobo tribal community in northern Mindanao, holding Bible studies and chronologically teaching the narratives of the Hebrew Scriptures up to the New Testament. The local evangelists also screened portions of the 2004 Mel Gibson film “The Passion of the Christ” which greatly affected the people of the village, The Gospel Herald reports. Whole families [More]
Christian leaders and writers in America have spent the better part of the past decade laboring over this question: “How do we get millennials to attend church?” While there are debates over the interpretation of the data on millennial church attendance, there’s no denying that overall church attendance for American millennials (born after 1981) has dropped with no sign of abating. In the midst of this seeming crisis, we can’t blame anyone for asking how to reverse a negative trend. However, it’s likely that these leaders and writers are asking the wrong question. A Simple Place to Begin with Young [More]
Have you ever stretched a rubber band as far as it will go? To just about to the breaking point? That’s kind of how I felt one day awhile back. It had been an unusual amount of stress for my family, and I was done. Past my last good nerve. Over it. I felt like I was ready to snap.   I had a long list of errands on this day. I was so tired that it felt like I was running a marathon. I went to the grocery store, the department store and finally to the post office to mail a [More]
I’ve been stressing a bit lately. Maybe more than a bit. Since the beginning of the year, it seems like we’ve had an unending merry-go-round of things to deal with—and it’s felt like someone keeps making the ride go faster.   My husband and I have both been dealing with health issues, and we’ve had many weeks with two and three medical appointments. (I told Paul we need a new kind of social life!) Our family business has been extra busy, and there was that fun mountain of tax stuff to conquer. Add in being on faculty at several conferences, [More]
There has never been a successful and long-lasting atheistic civilization — and there never will be — is the opinion of many astute observers. And it’s also apparently the belief of radio giant Michael Savage, as he issued a dire warning on his Wednesday show. “Unless Christianity receives a new enthusiasm that sweeps the Western world, and Christianity itself rises up against the forces against it,” he said, “the entire West will collapse in your lifetime.” Savage, author of numerous best-selling books and host of the award-winning Savage Nation radio program, has long warned that the West is imperiled by [More]
Thousands of churches in the US have been asked to set aside time in their services April 17 in order to pray for persecuted Christians around the world. The Voice of the Martyrs is one of the ministries behind this effort, called “Stand With the Persecuted Sunday.” The first request of persecuted Christians, when VOM staff meet with them around the world, is that American Christians will pray for them. What is challenging to us is that they are not asking us to pray that they will be released from their suffering or that persecution will end; instead they ask [More]
On this date in 1945, German pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer was hung by order of Adolf Hitler in a Nazi concentration camp. The following is excerpted from a letter Bonhoeffer had written which was circulated to a hundred or so of his former students during World War II …To be sure, God shall call you, and us, only at the hour that God has chosen. Until that hour, which lies in God’s hand alone, we shall all be protected even in greatest danger, and from our gratitude for such protection ever new readiness surely arises for the final call. [More]
“Sister Amber” spent more than a decade in Tibet, providing vocational training to the people and sharing the gospel message of Christ’s love. She felt God’s call especially to work among Tibet’s nomadic tribal people, who jokingly call themselves “the roof on the roof of the world.” Amber watched as God brought about a great ministry breakthrough: people who’d been totally closed to her message were now asking to learn more about Jesus. But just days after the breakthrough Amber experienced persecution as police came pounding on her door. Listen to VOM Radio this week as she tells the story. [More]
Rev. Franklin Graham and a recently retired Army vet have teamed up to bring God’s word to active duty military service members. Matt Cassady, an Army chaplain who retired last November after serving two tours of duty in Afghanistan, has joined Faith Comes By Hearing as its new director of chaplaincy ministries for its Military BibleStick outreach ministry, the Christian Post reported. The organization distributes digital audio devices called Military BibleSticks. They are about the size of a pack of gum and the device allows military service members and veterans to listen to dramatized recordings of the New Testament and [More]
The cultural conflict over sexual morality is waxing hot in America. Now is not the time for Christians to run and duck for cover. Our own state of North Carolina has now become a central battleground in this conflict. Every day it intensifies as more mayors ban travel to North Carolina, corporations put pressure on legislators,…
At the age of 13, Booth was sent to apprentice as a pawnbroker. His job made him aware of poverty, and the humiliation and degradation poor people suffered. Becoming a Christian as a teenager, Booth studied American preacher Charles G. Finney’s writings on revival and witnessed his faith to others. At age 26, William married Catherine Mumford and together they founded the Christian Mission to minister to the poor, drunk, outcast and wretched on the dirty and dangerous streets of London’s East End slums. They fought to end sex-trafficking and teenage prostitution in England. Catherine Booth said: “I felt as [More]
In an article by ABC News, Russia is being proclaimed as one of the biggest threats to the United State’s cyber security. So it’s hard to believe that in a country like Russia, with the power to hack others’ private information, there are still people who have never heard the Word of God. Working through Slavic Gospel Association, God is revealing Himself to those who’ve never heard His name. Eric Mock with SGA recently traveled to Yakutsk, Russia, as part of a new program taking root. “Yakutsk is a city that is known as the coldest city on the planet. [More]
“What looked like a problem turned into a blessing that saved lives.”  Admin Bold Believers in Syria VOM’s Kids of Courage resources help parents and educators teach children ages 5 to 13 about persecuted Christians. The resources provide opportunities for children to serve and pray for their suffering brothers and sisters around the world. The following story for children comes from the Bold Believers in Syria activity book, available free from the Downloads section of www.kidsofcourage.com Bold Believers in Syria includes stories, activities, crafts, recipes, and history and culture facts that help children understand the daily lives of their brothers [More]
Seeing news images of President Obama doing “the wave” at a baseball game in Cuba, it would be easy to think that this small communist country is now completely free and open to the gospel of Christ. But while President Obama was watching baseball, Pastor Mario Felix Lleonart Barroso was sitting in a police station. Barroso, a Baptist pastor, blogger and friend of VOM, was thrown to the ground, handcuffed and detained at his home (which also serves as his church) just hours before Air Force One landed in Havana. Read More: Persecution Blog: Pastor Held During Obama Visit to [More]
Recently Dr. Jason Peters, VOM’s Associate Vice President for Connection and one of the executive editors for VOM’s new book, I Am N, sat down with Billy Hallowell of The Blaze to talk about the book, about the examples of our persecuted brothers and sisters, and about how God is at work even in places with the most intense opposition to the church. Click below to listen to their interview, which aired on The Church Boys podcast. Listen: Persecution Blog: “Supernatural Interventions”
President Obama invited a lesbian pastor to read scripture at the White House’s Easter Prayer Breakfast this week – which one theologian says is actually completely in line with the president’s religious beliefs.Jasmine Beach-Farrara didn’t hide her sexual orientation when she got up to read: “Greetings from Asheville, North Carolina, and also from the LGBT community of North Carolina, which I’m proud to be a part of and honored to serve through my ministry.” Worldview expert Alex McFarland says the Christian community is getting tired of being poked in the eye by this president. “Inviting a pro-gay activist to speak [More]
Not even half of the British people who identify themselves as Christians say they believe in a Creator while 18 percent say they do not have such a belief, according to a new survey. YouGov spoke with nearly 12,000 British “Christians” and a control group of 39,000 people representative of the whole population and found that only 41 percent of them say they definitely believe in a Creator. Eighteen percent do not. The same survey also indicated that self-identified Christians are more likely to believe in aliens than the devil, and more likely to believe in fate than in heaven. [More]
Tens of thousands of people from around the world are giving up everything they own to fight for their religion. They turn their backs on prosperity and ease. They sacrifice their wishes, even their lives. They explain they have seen life in the wealthy West, and they find it unsatisfying and meaningless. But what they are…
These days, many Christians, especially college-age students, face having their faith in God and the Bible questioned if not downright assaulted. Dr. Jonathan Morrow teaches Christian students how to defend their faith at the Impact 360 Institute in Pine Mountain, Georgia. He knows how tough it is for Christians at secular institutions. “Sometimes they’re going to have a professor that’s going to outright challenge why they believe what they believe and say, ‘Look, what you believe is actually a fairytale,'” Morrow said.  But Morrow and two more of the world’s top biblical experts told CBN News there’s good reason for [More]
On a special edition of Breitbart News Daily entitled “The Global War on Christianity,” Executive Chairman Stephen K. Bannon interviewed legal editor Ken Klukowski, who is also senior counsel and director of strategic affairs for First Liberty Institute, the largest law firm in the United States dedicated exclusively to protecting religious liberty for Americans. Asked how widespread attacks on Christianity are, Klukowski said the attacks are “proliferating,” adding, “If people go to my law firm’s website, firstliberty.org, they can download a new book from us, called Undeniable, which documents over 1,200 separate instances of hostility to Christians in the United [More]
America’s entitlement society has now reached its zenith. For over a half-century, the United States government and its 501c3 corporate churches have indoctrinated several generations of Americans in welfarism–or more commonly known as socialism. When I was a boy growing up, my dad had another name for it: something-for-nothing. And in his lexicon, that term was more than an oxymoron: it represented something that didn’t even exist. To him, there was no such thing as something-for-nothing, even if people acted as if there were–and to desire such a thing was the height of dishonesty and villainy. Oh, and Dad was [More]
Having grown up in a violent home, Reggie found solace and power by joining a gang at a young age. Robbing banks resulted in prison time, forcing him to face the consequences of his past.  cbn.com
On a summit overlooking Kerrville in the beautiful hill country of west Texas, a 77-foot cross towers over the landscape. Max Greiner shares, “The empty cross is the main sculpture, contemporary sculpture made of CorTen steel. It’s 77 feet tall, and it weighs approximately 70 tons. At the foot of the cross, lies the “Coming King Sculpture Prayer Garden.” It’s a collection of donated art and sculptures depicting Jesus’s life. Artist and sculptor Max Greiner is the founder and president of the foundation. Max says, “We’ve built this garden as a place where people can connect with God without having [More]