In addition to providing Bibles to about 45 domestic ministries each month, IBG provides Bibles into seven regions of the world where the Gospel is scarce. One of those areas is the most persecuted church in the world, which we will refer to here as the “Hidden Church”. Last month I had the privilege to represent all of you in ministry meetings in support of the Hidden Church.
During the week, I heard from many people from the Hidden Church, met people involved in Bible distribution there, and participated in a prayer and worship walk. I am still struggling to express concisely my thoughts, feelings and observations from the week, but here goes: “I have never seen such a beautiful expression of Christ’s Church than what I observed that week.”
In this hostile environment, indoctrination of children starts at 4 years of age when they go off to kindergarten. Children are often taught to spy on their parents or neighbors and become informants to the totalitarian state. One in three citizens is a spy for the regime, and the distrust this creates breaks down the fabric of the family, the community, the marriage covenant, and society as a whole. As a westerner, the level of isolation each person is subject to here is incomprehensible.
Imagine believing parents getting on the floor every morning and covering themselves in a thick quilt to pray together out loud, but in whisper, so their own school age child cannot hear them, in case the child is a spy. Imagine risking your life to pray that way every single day. Imagine huddling under that same quilt at night with an illegal radio so you can pick up a worship service beamed from the church in the free world.
The Hidden Church functions in a society where you are imprisoned if found out to be a Christian. The mandatory sentence is 15 years in a gulag where the life expectancy is 2.9 years. Possessing a Bible yields a death sentence. It is illegal for more than 2 people to gather, unless it is for a party function, so there is no chance to form community. In this environment, you don’t just walk up to a neighbor and ask politely if they know Jesus. There are no church buildings, no denominations or associations, no seminaries and no “Pastors”, yet there is a Church.
Much like how the early church sketched a fish in the dusty ground, the Hidden church has their ways of identifying and connecting. In a world of scarcity, you watch who shows up to care for the sick neighbor, who shares their food even though there is not enough for one, or who comes to take the newborn for an hour so the new mother can get some rest. In a village where even the local party official is barely surviving, acts of self-sacrifice are very rare. They are welcome, but countercultural. This was how the early church spread like wildfire. This is how the Hidden Church continues to reproduce despite a completely hostile environment.
The Holy Spirit is active here. One member talked about discovering God accidently at 7 years of age. Born to parents who would strangely huddle under a blanket and whisper every night yet never explain what they were doing, she came home early from school one day to find the locked cabinet left open. Reaching in, she discovered a book wrapped in a rag. She opened it and read the first sentence: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth”. She was immediately filled with awe and a confirming sense that there was something much greater to life. Her father shared the Gospel with her that night.
The Hidden Church has many needs, like adequate clothing, food, medicine, housing and freedom, but the church doesn’t ask for those things. They had just two requests. First, prayer. Not for the material things that they do need, but for the Gospel to spread and transform their land, and that they would hold up under severe persecution. The second request was to send more Bibles. Yes, it is a potential death sentence, but the Word of God to the Hidden Church is LIFE!
Join us to hear more about the Hidden Church at our next Bible Gathering September 25.
Give Hope! Give Life! Give Bibles!
Chuck Hayes