5 Ways to pray for our North Korean brethren in Christ

North Korea is a nightmarish nation, a perilous police state and a totalitarian hellhole. It is the WORST place for anyone who names the name of Christ to live. And considering how badly Muslim majority nations treat our brethren in Christ, THAT’S saying something. It wasn’t always this way: in 1948 Christianity flourished all over the Korean Peninsula. Missionary work started in 1880s and then came the great Pyongyang revival of 1907 which lead to the mass conversions and church planting in what’s now North Korea. It got to the point where Pyongyang was once called the Jerusalem of the East.

Of course that is no longer the case. Our North Korean brethren in Christ face persecution in their public and private spheres of their lives, to the point that electronic surveillance of messages and emails. How did this come to be? Back in the colonial days, aegukbans AKA “patriotic groups,” were formed through a unified Korea. They were to be mandatory “neighborhood watch” programs that provided safety, food, labor and order.

After the Korean Civil War, North Korea renamed the surveillance program called imniban, or “people’s groups.”  The purpose they served was supporting surveillance, a normal function of life and labor mobilization. Each group was appointed a leader (usually a woman) who would do a weekly unannounced  inspection of each home in the middle of the night. The leader would closely monitor the income and report any suspicious activity to the local authorities ASAP.

Throughout the late 20th century, imniban project was lax until 2011 when Kim Jong-un became the leader. When that happened he sought to enforce the law which forbade religious material and the imniban now has the new duty of searching homes and punishing any violators found with religious materials, conducting religious practices and even simply saying a prayer blessing the food. Violators are tortured in labor camps and some will be killed for refusing to recant their beliefs. Those who recant their faith are sent to a camp to be “re-educated.” This includes labor and malnutrition among other not-good things.

The worst part about this all is that head of state gives rewards to people who report those with religious material, which means the Christian can’t really trust their family members. When the husband and wife defect for the sake of Christ they are SHOCKED to find out they knew Christ.

With all of this in mind, here are five ways to pray for our North Korean brethren in Christ:

1. Pray that North Korean officials will come to know Christ as Lord and for subsequent change in the regime and the power of evil will be broken permanently.

2. Kim Jong Un continues to consolidate his power. Pray that He comes to know Christ.

3. Pray that the North Korean Christian refugees in China will be strengthened and encouraged to endure by the provision of food, clothing, shelter and medicine.

4. Pray that our brethren in Christ stuck in prisons, labor camps and remote areas will continue to hope in Christ alone.

5.  With the Coronavirus going around North Korea is at risk. Pray that the coronavirus will not go through North Korea.

May God break the chains of tyranny in North Korea,