Proof The Bible Is True

02/17/19   For more than 70 years, Wycliffe Bible Translators has worked to give people the Word of God in their own language. It took 67 years to complete the first 500 Bibles, and the second 500 took only 17 years. Now, updated software for smartphones called Paratext Lite will speed up the process even more.   ParaText Lite grants access to a central database for countries to translate Scriptures and helps missionaries update their outdated software to connect with people quicker.   Read More: New Bible Translation Technology Is Helping to Spread the Gospel Faster Than Ever | CBN [More]

02/06/19   Bai Yahui*, a sister from Central China, shared how the police had shut down all the house churches in the region, warning pastors not to hold any more meetings.   Area pastors were placed on “probation,” she said, and were told to come to the police station every time they received a police call telling them to report on their movements and activities. Police call frequently at random times, day or night. Bai shares how she and other leaders are responding to the escalating persecution from the state:   “We are constantly on edge,” she said, “but our [More]

01/06/19   Christianity in China (#39 on the World Watch List) has always lived in tension. Though the Communist Party of China has habitually restricted the freedom of Christians to worship over the last 70 years, the skyrocketing growth of the Chinese church is impossible to miss.   Even non-Christian observers have taken notice, with many outlets putting the true number of Christians in China at tens of millions more than the Chinese government officially recognizes. In China, churches include registered state churches that are regulated by the government; covert unregistered “underground” house churches; and unregistered or underground house churches [More]

 12/13/18   Li Yingqiang, an elder of the Early Rain Covenant Church in China’s Chengdu metropolis who was among around 100 Christians detained by authorities as part of an ongoing crackdown on believers, wrote to his church before his arrest on ‘How the Church Should Face Persecution’.   The Christians including the church’s pastor, Wang Yi, were detained on Sunday. Li Yingqiang was discovered and arrested the following day. He wrote to the church in a post shared on Facebook that the persecution they were facing was a ‘reward’, and that those who had been taken before him were ‘within the [More]

12/11/18   Slowly, the five friends make their way to the women’s outhouse they use each day. They look back. No one has followed them. In the stench of the room, they gather in a corner. Saying little, always in muttered whispers, they stand quietly. One woman softly sings. Another leads a short prayer.   Year after year, this is what Christmas looks like for these believers in a North Korean labor camp. Counting the cost, they risk their lives to come together to pray and sing, reflecting on the coming of their Savior—both 2,000 years ago and one future [More]

12/05/18   “Very interesting survey on the beliefs of both evangelicals and Americans in general.” Admin   What do Americans think about God, Jesus Christ, sin, and eternity? Ligonier Ministries’ State of Theology survey helps uncover the answers. Every two years, we take the theological temperature of the United States to help Christians better understand today’s culture and equip the church with better insights for discipleship. Read some of our key findings from 2018 below and explore the data for yourself.   Read More: The State of Theology

  11/30/18   America is littered with thousands upon thousands of church buildings that aren’t being used anymore. As you will see below, between 6,000 and 10,000 churches are dying in the United States every single year, and that means that more than 100 will die this week alone.   And of course thousands of others are on life support. All over the country this weekend, small handfuls of people will gather in huge buildings which once boasted very large congregations. At one time, America was widely considered to be “a Christian nation”, but that really isn’t true anymore.   [More]

This week as you prepare to give thanks with family and friends, we want to say thank you for partnering with Open Doors and for letting God use you to bless and strengthen the persecuted Church around the world for His glory.   At Open Doors, we continue to hear from believers who are taking the gospel to others, strengthened by knowing that they are not alone … that Christ followers like you are praying with them and equipping them to share the Jesus they have found. These believers have learned the importance of living grateful lives.   Lessons in [More]

10/31/18 5 ways you can participate in the International Day of Prayer   During the 2018 International Day of Prayer this Sunday (Nov. 4), Open Doors is calling for 100,000 believers to stand with the underground church of North Korea.   Hea Woo watched her daughter die of starvation, her husband was killed for his faith and she herself was tortured for her faith in one of North Korea’s notorious prison camps.   Unfortunately, Hea Woo’s experience of being persecuted for following Jesus isn’t rare.   Every year, 215 million Christians face high levels of persecution in places hostile to [More]

10/31/18 Many times, Christian persecution comes in waves. In places like Nigeria, Christians are constant targets of multiple Islamic extremist groups, specifically Boko Haram and in the last few years Fulani militant herdsmen. Wherever they go, persecution follows for often internally displaced believers.   This is the case for 100 Christian families who have now been targeted and attacked repeatedly, first by Boko Haram three years ago in the city of Maiduguri. At that time, the families fled the city to a camp for internally displaced people in Nasarawa State. For the past three years since the brutal attack, these [More]

10/31/18 When Lee Joo-Chan was young, he knew his parents were different. Everybody called them “Communist parents” because they took care of the sick, the poor and the needy. He also remembers seeing his parents read from a secret book at night. He knows now it was part of their worship.   “They would whisper the words, and I knew it was their source of wisdom. I also knew that if I ever talked about this to someone else, our family would be taken away.”   Thirty years later in China, Lee would finally discover his family’s secret faith. Now [More]

I lifted the heavy lid of our old freezer in the garage and peered inside, looking for some vegetables to make for dinner. For the past year, we’d scraped by on my small teacher’s salary while my husband, Mike, was away at graduate school. With three hungry teenagers to feed, it was a challenge to stretch our grocery dollars. Now, one glance at the half-empty freezer made me question what I’d done on impulse a week earlier.   The Tuesday before Thanksgiving, Kathy, my 14-year-old, blurted out that one of her friends wasn’t celebrating the holiday because her mother couldn’t afford [More]

Pepe was a black Chihuahua, but he had a personality the size of a Great Dane. When my dad called, “Here, boy,” Pepe jumped into his lap or followed him anywhere. Pepe even waited outside the bathroom door while my dad shaved in the morning and again when he brushed his teeth before bed.   Whenever we visited Dad my children liked to play with Pepe and wind him up to the point where their grandpa called Pepe “wild.”   “Have you tamed little Pepe yet?” my twins, Emily and Joey, loved to ask when they called Grandpa.   “Still [More]

Have you ever wondered how to share the Gospel with somebody? From the vast narrative of God’s creation story, to the coming of Christ and the earth-shattering sacrifice of the cross, Christianity can be exceedingly complex to explain to someone in simple terms. But Pete Hughes, pastor of King’s Cross Church in London, England, has pieced together a fantastic video in which he distills the crucial aspects of Christianity into a lively three-minute presentation.   Watch: Pastor Perfectly Explains Christianity in Three Minutes Flat – Faithwire

09/21/18   In today’s 21st-century Iran, the church is increasingly under intensifying persecution from both society and the state, as Christianity—and anyone involved in spreading it—is seen as a threat to the Republic’s Islamic identity. But like the early church of Acts that expanded exponentially in the face of persecution, the persecuted church of Iran is also multiplying and experiencing explosive growth. Below, we offer a spiritual barometer on the depth of persecution in today’s Iran (No. 10 on the World Watch List) and share stories of hope that reveal God is indeed working His plan through mounting adversity and [More]

09/20/18   Specifically, “By 2020, the Communist Party will attempt to monitor its citizens through a massive surveillance system called China Skynet.   “China’s Skynet combines mobile phone GPS tracking, text message collection, 170 million security cameras, to make sure everyone is harmonious to make sure no one does anything illegal.   Read More: China’s Christians Fear Skynet Surveillance System Will Increase Persecution

08/16/18 For Christians in Palestine, life is a Catch-22. Caught in the middle of the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, their Christian faith makes them minorities within the Muslim-majority Palestinian Territories (No. 36 on Open Doors’ World Watch List). And their Arab ethnicity results in numerous restrictions on the Israeli side. Overall, Palestinian society deems conversion from Islam to Christianity unacceptable. And the degree of Christian persecution believers face in the Palestinian Territories depends on their tradition and heritage. Converts from Islam to Christianity bear the brunt of the persecution; they are rejected by their communities and families. And historical churches turn away converts [More]

08/16/18   Like so many young people growing up in Central Asia, Ulzhan* was headed for destruction. Throughout the former Soviet countries, increasing numbers of youth are turning to alcohol and drugs. Ulzhan needed larger and larger quantities of alcohol and drugs to fill the hole in his soul. When Jesus came into his life through the church, everything changed. Life became meaningful.   Today, he serves God in often very stressful circumstances in Central Asia. Open Doors recently spoke to the now underground church leader at a secret location. In this rare interview, Ulzhan reveals how God grabbed hold [More]

07/24/18   When Esther was rescued from Boko Haraman extremist group that is located primarily in Northern Nigeria captivity, she thought her living nightmare of almost a year was over.   But it had only just begun.   Though the young Nigerian woman carried a child she thought she could never love, she was at least free from the violence, the constant rape, the incessant torment from her captors that she had endured ever since the day Boko Haram guerilla fighters attacked her village, killing her father and forcing her and other young Christian girls into waiting vehicles. They were [More]

  07/24/18   Over 70 police officers, along with a team of construction workers, tore down Liangwang Catholic Church in China’s Shandong province on July 17. What makes this case even more alarming is Lianwang is a state-sanctioned church. Those congregations that have been stamped with a seal of government approval usually escape persecution from the staunchly atheist governing party.   Three church caretakers, Gao Rongli, Zhang Siling and Li Xiangmei, who were inside the church when authorities arrived, were kicked out of the building and had their phones confiscated and destroyed. The church was razed to the ground in [More]

07/15/18   The Czech aid worker who spent 14 ½ months behind bars in Sudan has said he counted his experience a “privilege” because it enabled him to share his Christian faith with Sudanese prisoners, and praised the country’s “very courageous” Christian minority.   Petr Jašek also told World Watch Monitor that two Sudanese Christians who were arrested days after he was have been resettled in the U.S., along with their families, since their release in May 2017. A third has been released and remains in Sudan.   Jašek added that, of those with whom he shared a cell during [More]

06/25/18 “Someone to put on your prayer list for sure.”  Admin When a bomb exploded right next to Samiha Tawfiq at St. Peter’s Church in Cairo on December 11, 2016, everyone thought she was dead. But church bombing survivor Samiha miraculously survived the explosion that claimed 27 lives and injured 49.   The explosion also took away one side of Samiha’s face.   Since the attack, it has been an uphill climb for 55-year-old Samiha and her husband Koleny Farag, 79. She can neither hear, smell, nor see on the right side of her face and can barely lift her badly [More]

06/08/18   On Monday, Gallup published their annual Values and Beliefs survey, which details the beliefs of American’s on 21 specific issues. The organization started their annual Values and Beliefs survey in 2001 and has helped detail American’s beliefs ever since.   As expected, the year’s study revealed that Americans believe that gay and lesbian relations are morally acceptable. However, an unexpected study showed that pornography and polygamy are also morally acceptable.   Gallup Just Ranked 22 Professions on Levels of Honesty and Ethics — and There’s Some Troubling News for Pastors   The study revealed that America is split on whether [More]

05/15/18   Two separate but complementary Christian organizations are stepping forward to help parents build character in children despite the confusing, frustrating times we live in.   The left-leaning Girl Scouts has been watching its numbers drop for years and now the long-respected Boy Scouts is imploding after first allowing open homosexuals and transgenders, and more recently, allowing girls.   Read More: ‘Progress’ keeps killing a wonderful organization

The doc made it sound easy. Just walk. Walk every day. Easy for him to say. I couldn’t even make it to the end of our driveway to pick up the darn mail. A quarter mile there and back. I got winded just shuffling around the house. Our mailbox might as well have been in China.   Just walk. Right.   Even more pathetic, I was all of 39 years old. I had my own engineering consulting company with employees nationwide. I was always traveling for work or taking care of Cherokee Acres, our 40-acre horse ranch here in Texas. [More]

The pet shop wasn’t my usual destination on a lunch-hour break, but I was out of food for Izzy and Tobie. I pushed my cart through the aisles, wondering how I’d make ends meet this month. Their food wasn’t cheap. Izzy needed a special brand of dog food because of her skin allergy. Tobie got Science Diet for older cats. I’d settle for a sandwich again for dinner tonight, but I didn’t want the animals I loved to suffer because of my problems.   Boy, did I have problems. Money worries whirled around my head as I walked past the [More]

03/23/18 Paul, Apostle of Christ is coming only a week after the success of I Can Only Imagine, but the market may have room for two Christians movies this good. In its video review, Plugged In assures Christian moviegoers that they need not fear heresy or Noah-like reimaginings in this movie. In fact, the reviewer says, “Let me just tell aspiring faith-oriented moviemakers: This is how it’s done.” What makes Paul, Apostle of Christ so good? Watch the review to find out.   Watch Review: Good News: How ‘Paul, Apostle of Christ’ Gets the Bible Right