Silence is not an option!
"Jesus said to the Pharisees who tried to silence his disciples: “I tell you,” He replied, “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out."" (Luke 19:40)
Here are some hard facts:
62,000 Christians have been killed in Nigeria since the year 2000 (ref: Genocide Watch). According to “2024 World Watch,” approximately 5,000 Christians are martyred somewhere in the world each year. -roughly one Christian put to death every two hours. Just this past year, nearly 15,000 churches were attacked globally. Many have been burned to the ground, including the August 2023 assault on Christian churches in Pakistan. Christians are suffering for our faith like never before. 368 million Christ followers are under severe persecution and oppression across the globe today (Open Doors).
Whenever I share harsh realities like these, I always expect a few people to react with, “Why are you painting such a bleak picture of the world?” How I pray these were not our present realities. Certainly, there are incredible transformation stories coming to us about former Jihadis having transformational encounters with Jesus. Stories of young Muslim college students coming to faith at great risk including rejection from their families. These are happening!
On behalf of those suffering for our faith, however, silence is no longer an option. Neither can we avoid what they are facing just because it is not happening to us personally. We must speak up against the egregious persecution of Christians. Recently I was in Washington, DC as one of the speakers at the March for the Martyrs event. This is a gathering of Christian leaders from all denominations speaking against the senseless violence toward Christians. We addressed this issue with senators and government agencies on protecting the religious freedom of Christians, just as we would protect the religious freedoms of all people. When confronted by these hard realities, it all seems so surreal and far away, but according to the Family Research Council, violence against churches [in the U.S.] has increased 800% since 2018.
My friends, silence is no longer an option!
More wars, more laws, more divisions, more protests, will never bring about any lasting peace to a broken world. Threats beget more threats. Hate begets more hate.
You will never catch us promoting an election or political movement. The movement we are promoting is a movement of the Holy Spirit -to raise up a godly standard first in our own hearts, our homes, our neighborhoods, and cities to the end of the earth! –A movement that causes us to lift our voices not in “opposition” of what we are against, but in exaltation the One who makes all things new! This is what we need! This is what the entire broken world needs!
This is why we are vigorously working to plant new ministry and churches in some of the hardest places on earth for Christ followers to live! It is why we work so hard to raise up motivated Christ followers to push past their fears and biases to connect with and appeal to Muslims – and to embrace God’s desire that Muslims hear His voice, sense His heartbeat “through us”!!
Your prayers are the foundation of our courage to press on in risky places! Your faithful financial support fuels everything we do, and we are honored to partner with you in this way.
Reaching Muslims with the Hope of Jesus!
