Persecution, Preparing for Persecution

Here’s a story about persecution, and that is followed by the way not to teach our youth about persecution:

CARROLLTON, Texas, July 28, 2012 /Christian Newswire/ — Gospel for Asia (GFA) officials have confirmed that a senior mission leader in India has been abducted by a terrorist group. On July 23, around 7 p.m., Pastor Ponnachan George was kidnapped by five armed terrorists from the Bible school campus operated by Gospel for Asia in the Karbi Anglong district of Assam, India.

George is reportedly being held in a forest hideout at an unknown location. Death threats have been issued by his captors with demands for an undisclosed ransom amount labeled by GFA officials as “a very large sum.”

Gospel for Asia has sent an E-mail to its supporters urgently soliciting prayer for the safe release of George. The mission agency maintains a policy of non-negotiation with terrorists for money. In similar instances, it has relied solely on prayer and fasting, reporting God bringing about miraculous releases.

“I am reminded in the midst of this critical time that the most important thing we can do is to pray,” said K. P. Yohannan, founder and president of Gospel for Asia. “As we see in Acts 12, when the Apostle Peter was imprisoned, God’s people prayed, and He answered. Will you please join us in prayer for the release of our beloved Pastor Ponnachan? Please also pray for his wife and their two teenage children, who are waiting and entreating the Lord for his safe return.”

A church decided to “capture” kids to teach them about persecution.

PITTSBURGH — A southeastern Pennsylvania church and a youth pastor are facing criminal charges for a mock kidnapping of a youth group that was meant to be a lesson in religious persecution.

The Glad Tidings Assembly of God in Middletown and 28-year-old Andrew David Jordan of Elizabethtown were charged Friday with false imprisonment and simple assault, said Dauphin County District Attorney Ed Marsico.

The church staged the event in March. Mock kidnappers covered the teenagers’ heads, put them in a van and interrogated them. Neither the young people nor their parents were told beforehand that it wasn’t real. The mother of a 14-year-old girl filed a complaint with police.

“This is a sad case for all those involved,” Marsico said, adding that while the church’s and Jordan’s intentions were not necessarily harmful, “they in essence terrorized several children.”