What If It Were Your Church?

Imagine you get up and go to church one morning—only to find the door locked with a sign that reads, “Because this building is continuing to be processed under the law, it cannot be used.” What? You were just at the church the other day, and everything seemed great. The building had finally been cleared and un-sealed by the government only yesterday, and you were looking forward to having a roof over your head during worship.  Meeting only every other week by the side of a road was not very pleasant, especially with the rain and the heat.  Months of legal battles grew tiring, too, especially when you knew you had followed the law.  Even the city officials had agreed that your church was legal, but someone must have re-sealed the building during the night.  Now here you were, standing by a locked door at 11:00 AM when you should be inside fellowshipping with other believers.  You had been given no warning, no notice—and now what were you supposed to do?

The real-life church in Indonesia decided to remove the lock and banner.  Late that night, however, security officials re-sealed the church all over again without any warning.

Muslims protest churches in Indonesia with such regularity that keeping track of the different persecution stories is difficult.  But even if there were just one church—your church—that had been closed, wouldn’t that one incident be enough to move you to pray?  The churches of Indonesia need our prayers.  Remember, they are our church, too. 

“For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. . . . If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.” – 1 Cor. 12:12, 26