Curtis Sergeant talks about recent developments in the world of multiplying disciples and churches.
Acts has no purpose, no plot, no structure, and no history without suffering.
Following disturbing reports out of China and from around the world of rising persecution against Christians, it’s time to republish this post from 2010.
Ten years ago I was in Singapore having just left a restricted field somewhere in Asia. I had sought out a couple of guys named “Smith” with a lot of experience in church planting movements to help me make sense of what I was learning.
We've never seen a church planting movement without persecution.
Suffering and persecution go hand in hand with movements that multiply disciples and churches.
They are the unifying theme of the book of Acts. Without them the command to take the gospel to the ends of the world would never have been fulfilled.
Here's an article by Paul House on Suffering and the Purpose of Acts (full article).
Here's my summary: Suffering Persecution Acts - House (summary).
A report on the 50 most dangerous nations in which to be a Christian in 2019.
Christian persecution has worsened in the most populous countries in the world, China and India, putting millions more believers at risk for their faith.
The two Asian nations moved up on Open Doors’s annual ranking of the 50 countries where it’s hardest to be a Christian. India entered the World Watch List’s top 10 for the first time, due to a growing Hindu nationalist threat stirring anti-Christian sentiments. Meanwhile China, where the Communist government continues closing major congregations and detaining Christian leaders, climbed from No. 43rd to No. 27 on the list.
Researchers calculate that 1 in 3 Asian Christians now experience high levels of persecution for their faith.
At least 36 people [ed now 49] have died in Egypt after blasts targeted Coptic Christians on Palm Sunday. Today’s attack is just the latest strike in the war on Christians in the Middle East. As Jonathan Sacks observed: ‘until recently, Christians represented 20 percent of the population of the Middle East; today, 4 percent’. In 2013, John L. Allen Jr. wrote for The Spectator on the global persecution of churchgoers — the unreported catastrophe of our time. Unfortunately, the article still holds true today.