Jars of Clay recently returned from a trip to China and Vietnam with Prayer for the Persecuted Church (PPC) Traveling in coordination with Open Doors and The Voice of the Martyrs, band members met with indigenous underground churches and church leaders, including Pastor Li Dexian, who has been arrested 14 times since last October for his ministry in China. Since returning from the trip, Jars of Clay has been dedicating the song, "This Road," to the Persecuted Church. The song is featured on the City on A Hill multi-artist worship CD. The trip has given Jars of Clay a greater appreciation for the freedom we enjoy in America to live out our faith and a new conviction to be faithful in prayer for our brothers and sisters around the world, who are truly taking up their cross to follow Christ. Matt Odmark from Jars of clay recently took time to talk with Family Christian Stores about their trip.

What is Prayer for the Persecuted Church?
Matt: PPC is the organization that organizes the National Day of Prayer (November 14) for the persecuted Church. They have a mailer that gives the churches in America an idea of what's happening around the world. It tells [about] different areas of need and the oppression of Christians [by sharing] different people's stories. It pleads to the church to remember the rest of the body of Christ in prayer.

The band went to China and Vietnam in June. What did you do there?
Matt: We had a chance to meet several different pastors and church leaders in each city, to hear their stories and what God is doing in their congregations. [They also told us about] how their communities and governments are trying to stop it,and how that is playing out in their lives. We did have a chance to visit one of the house churches, which are illegal in China. We [also] had a chance to pray with each of the pastors.

How has the experience opened your eyes?
Matt: I'll tell you, it's really made us aware of the [fact] that the body of Christ is a suffering body. That's what the Bible calls us. Because it's a suffering body does not mean it's deficient in any way. These churches and church leaders in China are a tremendous witness to the reality of that, [because] of the incredible joy and peace that they are able to have in the midst of such a turbulent, hostile culture and environment. Because of that drastic contrast, the Church is spreading in China close to the tune of 6,000 new converts a day. It's unstoppable! It's humbling to witness but encouraging to know that God is definitely at work around the world.

In PPC's video, The Narrow Road, one of the pastors said that suffering is good. That's not generally what we like to hear.
Matt: In China, suffering is a part of everyday life for Christians, day in and day out. Unless you believe in the blessing of suffering and Christ's sovereignty in the midst of it, you would never survive as a Christian. In America, being a Christian doesn't mean the same thing. We can go our entire lives thinking that if we're even in trouble or suffering, then something must be wrong with our faith. That's a very dangerous place to be and we in America need to be shaken in our foundation and really driven back to the truth of the Bible.

Do you think that Christians here in America really understand what's going on in China and other parts of the world?
Matt: Being face to face with these guys, you really don't understand what it means to have your house bulldozed or to be in prison a half dozen times in the last six months. You can sit there and the reality of it comes much closer, but it's hard to totally understand.

How well do you think mainstream media portrays what's happening?
Matt: The media really isn't interested in what's going on, especially in the way of religious persecution. There's 200 million Christians being persecuted across the globe right now. It's worse than it's ever been. That's just Christians alone, not including Muslims or Buddhists. There are tons of countries that have all sorts of civil rights issues that boil down to issues of religion. It puts America in a very precarious position. We erected a memorial to World War II in which our President promised we would never let gross human rights atrocities ever happen again. At the same time, in Sudan, hundreds of thousands of people were being ethnically cleansed, in such a manner and with such volume, you could even say it was a worse atrocity than what happened in the Third Reich. To have the media really characterize what's going on, kind of indicts us morally. It indicts us against what we've promised as one of the strongest nations in the world. It doesn't surprise me that the media doesn't seem that interested. It's not what the American people want to hear and it's not something that the American government wants to deal with.

We tend to not want to think about things that are unpleasant. Now that the band is back home, how do you avoid the temptation to put out of your mind the things that you saw?
Matt: Our brothers and sisters in China are no more or less perfect than us. Althought they have a more Biblical and Christ-centered approach to suffering, they're not guttons for punishment. For me, it's a constant struggle to reconcile the two. It's not easy. It helps that we've been able to make this message and pleas for prayer on behalf of our brothers and sisters in China and Vietnam a part of what we're doing on the road right now. It's helped us in the sense that each night we're reminded to be in prayer for them and to remember those that are suffering, as the Bible calls us to do.

How specifically would our brothers and sisters want us to pray for them?
Matt: They ask that they would endure the hardship. They ask for prayer for their families. They ask for prayer that their churches would continue to grow and not compromise the messagae. That's from their own mouths, what they asked for. They don't ask that the hardships would stop, that we would bring down communism in their country or that the Christian vote would sway the next election or anything like that. They just pray that they would endure so that Christ would be glorified and the church and the kingdom would grow.

What can our readers to in addition to prayer?
You can make yourself more aware of the political realities. You can go to their website (www.persecutedchurch.org) and they can connect you with what religious issues are happening worldwide. China needs more than Bibles. They need all sorts of leadership training and materials. Whatever they have gets lithographed, copied and spread like wildfire. Every single Bible, pamphlet or book touches more than just one life. It touches thousands of lives.