Persecution Blog

Engaging the Mind

It is very appropriate to have an emotional response to persecution. That is how many of us began in ministry to and with the persecuted church. We deeply identify with their pain and loss, and we are driven to help.

As good as that emotional response is, there is more we can do. More than likely, if we have an emotional response to persecution, it will set our bodies in motion to do something. That is the Western way—we are, by and large, 'activists.'

But there is still more we can do. We need to have an intentional, intelligent response to persecution as well. We need to engage the mind to understand the biblical and theological aspects of persecution so we can have a competent and mature understanding not only to be able to articulate this clearly to those who are skeptical but also to approach persecution with wisdom. When the emotions cool and the body gets weary, we will still be engaged in the very important ministry to the persecuted church because we are fully committed to it. We are focused, determined, and relentless in our ministry. That kind of spirit comes with concrete devotion based on a rational choice and is much more than a mere emotional response. It involves an intentional, willful decision based on the realization that it is the will of God and that we are to be about his business.

Be assured that I am not talking about a cold, rational approach that inspires no one. God wants people with long-term passion, fully engaging every aspect of our being to do what he calls us to do.

One way to develop a sound, disciplined mind is to complete one or more of the online courses on VOMClassroom. The site includes material on many aspects of persecution and is ready to help you engage your mind. Courses on the site include history of persecution, preparing for persecution, New Testament studies on persecution, and evangelizing Muslims. Each study is a wonderful resource for you personally and for your church, and they are available at no charge.

These courses are making a difference. Here are comments from current and recent students:

"I recommended the classes…[if] people want to know about Biblical perspective on persecution and learning about history of persecution, they can check your website out."

"VOM classes appear to be so valuable, that they should be offered more widely."

"I am really enjoying the online classes. I'm enrolled in the classes to get more information that may be of use for me in the ministry. I'm also developing a Bible study curriculum for my church's small groups to introduce them to VOM and the persecuted church and a deeper meaning of the cost of following Christ."

As we charge out into the world, we need to be sure that we truly have a sound, disciplined mind capable of being mightily used by God. Developing our minds is a part of being about God's business.

Roy Stults, PhD, is the Online Workshop Coordinator and Educational Services Coordinator for The Voice of the Martyrs. He graduated from Olivet Nazarene University (BA and MA), Nazarene Theological Seminary (M.Div.), Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (Doctor of Missiology), and The University of Manchester (England) with a PhD (theology). A Vietnam veteran, Dr. Stults served as a missionary for 19 years and pastored U.S. churches for eight years. Prior to joining VOM, he was a Professor of Religion at Oklahoma Wesleyan University.

Teaching children about persecution

"I have concerns about materials that might introduce pain, torture, and death to a young child without a context for them" — Scottie May, author and professor of Christian Spirituality, quoted in Christianity Today

There is widespread recognition that teaching children skills and academic subjects should be done in an age-appropriate and kid-friendly manner. But some Christians seem to doubt that the same approach is possible when teaching kids about persecution.

Certainly it would be inappropriate to "introduce pain, torture, and death to a young child without a context for them." The following are just a few of the concepts that ARE, in general, appropriate to introduce to children that can help them learn to "Remember the prisoners as if chained with them—those who are mistreated—since you yourselves are in the body also" (Hebrews 13:3).

Children can learn that:

*Some people do not know that the Bible is true, so they oppose Christianity. (See John 16:3.) Christians can stand strong in the face of such opposition.

*Christians can praise God even when they are afraid. (See Psalm 56:3-4.) We can trust God in the middle of trials and struggles.

*Following God may sometimes mean being in the minority. (See 2 Timothy 1:15.)

*Christians can continue to do good even when rewards are not immediate. (See Hebrews 11:39-40.)

*It is difficult to reach some countries with the gospel. Christians around the world witness boldly and in creative ways. (See Ephesians 6:19-20.)

The Voice of the Martyrs' Kids of Courage materials, many of them available for free download at www.kidsofcourage.com, provide resources to introduce these and other appropriate concepts to children.

VOM's Kids of Courage resources help parents and educators teach children ages 5 to 13 about persecuted Christians around the world, and provide opportunities for children to serve and pray for them.

"Very Much Disturbed" - VOM Intern Looks Back

From the minute I stepped into VOM’s offices for a college internship, I felt welcomed and loved – and very much disturbed. While a warm lady greeted me and an office manager gave me a tour, I couldn’t take my eyes off the pictures on the walls. A young boy whose limbs were burned. An Asian woman smiling brightly, her face disfigured beyond recognition. A man and his family standing outside what used to be their home. A lump caught in my throat. I shifted in my sandals. My life was about to be turned upside down.

On the second-floor news department where I spent three months copyediting, transcribing and writing, the peace of Jesus prevailed with an undercurrent of urgency. As a college sophomore, it was thrilling – breathtaking! – to have a front-row seat to the most important news on the planet. Popular syndicates do not cover it, but this breaking news from our persecuted family was precious to VOM staff. A pastor was released in China! We would celebrate. A Christian village was ransacked and burned. We would pray. I came to realize that it was good to be disturbed by those pictures lining the walls and stories filling my inbox. Because when we are disturbed, we do something about it.

It was in this environment of communion with the persecuted church where God got my attention about His agenda for my life. As I heard stories from Indonesia and Nigeria and Iran I started piecing things together. What was the common thread running through these nations and their persecutors? It was like a light bulb came on for me: Islam.

One of the best things about working at VOM was staff chapel. Each week, chapel was an encouraging time of worship and prayer, as well as a refreshing break from my cubicle! That summer, an Egyptian sister spoke about living in the heart of the Muslim world with “Kingdom mentality.” In her ministry she sought to plant the attitudes and mindset of the Kingdom of God, preparing the way for the Good News. She explained that Muslims must first be won to the mentality of a Christian before they are ready to receive the truth of the Gospel.

That got me thinking. Could I live among Muslims with a Kingdom mentality? Like this sister from Egypt, could I relate and respond to Muslims in a Christ-like way, clearing a space for the Gospel to take root and grow? God was developing in me a love for the most frequent persecutors of Christians. He was clearly calling me to be a laborer among Muslims.

After that summer at VOM, I returned to my university deeply changed and motivated to make my life count for the Kingdom. Walking into a packed lecture hall that fall, I took a deep breath and scanned the room.

One. Just one woman wearing a floral-print headscarf. She was sitting near the back of the hall, and there was an empty seat beside her. There was no mistaking the Spirit’s voice. You are my witness. And there is your seat.

That was ten years ago. Today, I am privileged to continue ‘taking my seat’ among Muslim women by living and ministering in the Muslim world. Whether from a mat on the floor or atop an ornate sofa, I laugh with my friends, hear their stories, and share Kingdom values little by little. Yes, the stories of the persecuted church disturbed me as I walked the halls of VOM, yet they inspired me to action. Perhaps we could all use a little more of that kind of disturbance.

Editor’s note: The author of this post was one of the first college interns to spend a summer working and learning at VOM. Because she is involved in gospel work in the Middle East, we cannot share her name. VOM’s internship program is available to students who have completed at least their sophomore year in college. CLICK HERE for more information.

The Pastor's Wife Book & DVD Set - The Canal

IN 1951 MORE and more Communist women began appearing in the camps and prisons. At Cernavoda I met Marioara Dragoescu, who’d been imprisoned by the old regime as a leading revolutionary. Now she was sent to forced labor by her comrades as a “counterrevolutionary.”

 But she would go on fighting for the Communist ideal. The Great Marxist Society was around the corner. In Mislea, the big women’s prison, she had nursed her two-month-old child—then he had been taken from her and put in a State orphanage. She didn’t know if she’d ever see him again.

 She had commiserated with George Cristescu, one of the Party founders, who’d served his first prison sentence for Socialism in 1907. He’d also been the first Secretary-General of the Communist Party. Now, at seventy-two, he worked alongside us in the fields from sunrise to sunset, in snow, rain, and wind.

Sometimes I filled his barrow with earth. He had hitched himself to it like a beast. It was easier to pull than to push up the slopes. I remembered something Richard said shortly before his arrest and repeated it to him: “Under a tyranny, prison is the most honorable place to be.”

A smile lit his face. A guard shouted at him and he hurried off, yoked to his load. The next day when we were out together, I whispered, “I’m sorry to get you into trouble with my speaking.”

“No, speak! It’s like music to hear something different after so long. I’ve hungered to hear a gentle voice as I hunger for color after so much gray.”

Later he told me of his disillusion. “This communism they practice is not the ideal I fought and suffered for. I felt it would be dishonest on my part not to protest.”

Those of us who had faith realized for the first time how rich we were. The youngest Christians and the weakest had more resources to call on than the wealthiest old ladies and the most brilliant intellectuals.

People with good brains, education, wit, when deprived of their books and concerts, often seemed to dry up like indoor plants exposed to the winds. Heart and mind were empty.

Mrs. Nailescu, the professor’s wife from Cluj, said one day, “How happy you must be to be able to think and keep your mind busy and pray! I can’t. I try to remember a poem, and in comes the guard shouting. At once my mind goes back to this everlasting camp. I can’t concentrate. I can’t discipline myself.”

“Society” women were often the most pitiful. Life was harder for them than for anyone. They’d lost the most, in the material sense; and they had the fewest inner resources to fill the gap. A rubble of old games of bridge, hats, hotels, lost weekends and lovers rattled about in their heads like junk in the back seat of a car. Their nerves gave way first, as did their soft white hands.

After work, women came to religious prisoners and asked, begged even, to be told something of what we remembered from the Bible. The words gave hope, comfort, life.

We had no Bible. We ourselves hungered for it more than bread. How I wished I’d learned more of it by heart! But the passages we knew we repeated daily and at night, when we held vigils for prayer. Other Christians, like me, had deliberately committed long passages to memory, knowing that soon their turn would come for arrest. They brought riches to prison. While others quarreled and fought, we lay on our mattresses and used the Bible for prayer and meditation, and repeated its verses to ourselves through the long nights. We learned what newcomers brought and taught them what we knew. In this way an unwritten Bible circulated through all of Romania’s prisons.

This is an excerpt from the book The Pastor’s Wife. To purchase this book, please click here and to purchase the book and DVD, please click here.

A Special Offer from VOMBOOKS.COM

If you're looking for some good family entertainment that is not only edifying, family friendly and inspirational, but will also help support the work of The Voice of the Martyrs and the persecuted church, then I would like to tell you about a special offer we having going right now in our VOM bookstore, at http://www.vombooks.com

Right now we are offering our highly acclaimed DVD series The Torchlighters for only $60.00 - this set includes highlights some of the heroes of the Christian faith on nine DVD's.

Created specifically to introduce children to heroes of the Christian faith who withstood persecution, these nine animated stories will teach children the stories of bold Christians throughout history. This set includes the stories of Perpetua, Richard Wurmbrand, Eric Liddell, Jim Elliot, Gladys Aylward, William Tyndale, John Bunyan, William Booth, and Amy Carmichael.

These DVD's also make a great way to learn about the persecuted church with your family, or church or even Sunday School class, by showing you in a beautiful visual way the stories of those who have gone before us.

Buy yours today before they are all gone!  Click here!

Ask a VOM Worker: The Only Security

If you have children, I really want to encourage you to become well acquainted with our Kids of Courage website because there is a wealth of wonderful information for you to use with your children at home, in your church and even in your school.

A few days ago there was a wonderful blog post titled Ask a VOM Worker: The Only Security that I wanted to share with you because it will give you insight about where security is truly found.

VOM intern Kelly C. interviewed a VOM worker who grew up in another country. She asked him the following:

Question: Were there things that you learned as a child that helped prepare you for your work now?

Answer: My mom died when I was 13, and she was my best friend. I realized that if even your best friend can be gone from one day to another, nothing in this world is sure.

When I finally found Jesus, or he found me, I found the only security in life. When I joined the mission field, people asked me, “Why are you going to the mission field where you don’t know anyone or anything? You will leave everything behind you that is secure.”

I thought about it and I realized that the only thing that is really secure is already here. He goes before me, and he’ll be there to take care of me. Not just my childhood, but also how I came to faith helped prepare me for this work.

Video: Walter's Testimony from Nigeria

The Voice of the Martyrs offers medical help to persecuted Christians all over the world. This is Walter who was shot by a Muslim dressed as a Nigerian soldier. Hear his testimony of hope and help. And please say a prayer for Walter today, and all in Nigeria who are being persecuted for their faith in Christ Jesus.

Another Saint Who Took A Stand for Jesus

In doing some research this morning about Dumitru Bacu, as a result of today's Extreme Devotion (see previous post), I just happened to find an article that talked about a fellow prisoner by the name of Father Gheorghe Calciu-Dumitreasa.

It appears that Father Gheorghe Calciu-Dumitreasa was also persecuted for Christ.  Read an article about his life and death here.

Here is one section that I found particularly interesting.

"In the addendum there are enclosed few letters, prefaces and interviews of father Calciu from post-December period. The texts show the fighter character of the author, for which the most important stake is the awakening and canalization of young people's self-awareness. In a letter to Comitй des Intellectuels pour l'Europe des Libertйs (1978), His Holiness enumerated the reasons for which he was oppressed: "Because I have requested the liberty to preach without restrictions. Because I have protested against demolition of churches (…). Because I have requested the exemption of theologians from the military service (…). Because I have demanded for Christians, young or old, the right to monasticism, thing which The State is against. His public positions - expressed in sermons, letters and interviews - constitute an ample national message build on Christian message, in the spirit of orthodox tradition, referred especially to young people."

There is certainly a cost for serving Christ Jesus and my hope and prayer is that as you read about people who have suffered for Him, that it will inspire you to remain faithful in your walk with Him too. 

VOM: Headquarters To Be Operational Next Year

Here is a great article about The Voice of the Martyrs that was written by Mike Tupa from the Examiner-Enterprise.  Read the full article here.  A snip is below for you.

The Bartlesville-based Voice of the Martyrs’ mission, simply stated, is to do whatever it takes to assist persecuted Christians throughout the world.

That could mean anything from smuggling Christian literature, to buying a horse for a minister in mountainous environs to helping set up broadcast opportunities, David Brackemyre explained during the Bartlesville Rotary Club’s afternoon luncheon Monday.

Brackemyre, who is the director of the Voice Ministry, spoke and answered questions during a 25-minute period at the event, held in the Bartlesville Community Center.

The Voice of the Martyrs headquarters, located near the Tri-County Technology Center in east Bartlesville, will be fully operational next year, Brackemyre said.

Some of the project already is done, but the VOM operation currently is housed in various offices or warehouses in Bartlesville.

The VOM headquarters are located in Bartlesville, due to the decision of former director Tom White — whose father was an engineer at Phillips Petroleum Co.

Judeo-Christian Violence vs. Islamic Violence

Doing some research this morning for this blog, I came across this very well written article from Raymond Ibrahim of Jihad Watch. The full article is worthy of being read.  Click here to read the full article.  Here are a few snips from it, worthy of thought.

Nonetheless, history attests that these Crusades were violent and bloody. After breaching the walls of Jerusalem in 1099, the Crusaders slaughtered almost every single inhabitant of the Holy City. According to the Medieval chronicle, the Gesta Danorum "the slaughter was so great that our men waded in blood up to their ankles." Moreover, there is the 1204 sack of Constantinople, wherein Crusader slew Christian.

In light of the above-one a prime example of "Hebraic" violence from the Bible, the other from Christian history-why should Islam be the one religion always characterized as intrinsically violent, simply because its holy book and its history also contain violence? Why should non-Muslims always point to the Koran and ancient history as evidence of Islam's violence while never looking to their own scriptures and history?

While such questions are popular, they reveal a great deal of confusion between history and theology, between the temporal actions of men and what are understood to be the immutable words of God. The fundamental error being that Judeo-Christian history-which is violent-is being conflated with Islamic theology-which commands violence. Of course all religions have had their fair share of violence and intolerance towards the "other." Whether this violence is ordained by God or whether warlike man merely wished it thus is the all-important question.