An organization that serves persecuted Christians across the globe is implementing a “prayer boycott” as the 2022 Winter Olympics kick off Friday in Beijing.
With diplomatic embargoes and angst surrounding China’s human rights abuses, The Voice of the Martyrs (VOM) calls Christians to pray for Chinese citizens suffering persecution at the hands of a brutal communist regime.
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Through PrayForChina2022.com, VOM records thousands of people’s pledges to offer invocations for Chinese Christians. The website also offers prayer tips and information on minority groups under siege by the repressive government.
From imprisoned pastors to concentration camps housing more than one million Uyghur people, the Chinese Communist Party’s (CPC) atrocities are becoming an ever-glaring and tragic issue on the international stage.
“For the CPC, the issue is control. They want to control the hearts, minds, and bodies of China’s people, and they know the Gospel is a direct threat to their ability to control,” VOM spokesman Todd Nettleton told Faithwire. “If a person wakes up each morning thinking about how they can glorify God, then they aren’t waking up thinking about how they can be a good communist, which is what the party wants.”
With the eyes of the world turning toward #Beijing2022WinterOlympics @VOM_USA is launching a global prayer movement to remind people to pray for China’s Christians #Beijing #Olympics #Pray #China https://t.co/mMZyhLgRwR pic.twitter.com/l3US8vrZZy
— George Thomas (@GTReporting) February 3, 2022
With the chaos intensifying, VOM is appealing to prayer with a profound and transformational purpose.
“The first thing that persecuted Christians ask us to do is to pray for them, and we know prayer makes a difference,” Nettleton told Faithwire of his group’s reason for the prayer effort. “I’ll never forget what a Vietnamese pastor said to one of my VOM colleagues: ‘When you pray for Vietnam, you are working with us in Vietnam.'”
Nettleton said the same dynamic applies to Christians who pray for the Chinese.
“We’ll be working with our Chinese brothers and sisters — including so many who have paid a high price for following Jesus Christ,” he said.
VOM encourages believers to pray for imprisoned believers, for the safe delivery of Bibles, and those standing up for the Gospel amid difficult sociopolitical terrain, among other issues.
Nettleton said he and the VOM team hope that Olympic media coverage helps serve as a “constant, daily reminder” for Christians to stand in solidarity and prayer with fellow believers who are under fire.
“Already, thousands of people in more than 100 countries have committed to pray,” he said. “Hopefully, those numbers will only increase as the games go on.”
Sign up to pray for China here and get more information on what believers face inside the communist stronghold.
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