There is a series of 3 videos on You Tube that is a great documentary on the christian persecution happening inside of Egypt. This isn’t meant to be the most extreme example of persecution, although it is very bad, but it really puts into perspective what people sacrifice for a life after Christ. This is nothing I have any sense of, even after watching this I feel so humbled that I most likely will never face 1/10th of what these people face every day.

I don’t want to summarize what the videos will tell you, but one of the most amazing quotes comes at the end of the 3rd video. The Zebeleen is a Christian community that lives in garbage, there’s no real other way of explaining it. But their entire community is a garbage dump, it’s in their homes, they live with rats and rubbish, it’s just terrible. So this Christian man and his family was living outside the Zebeleen and was getting tirelessly persecuted amongst the muslim population and decided to move his family into the Zebeleen garbage community. Even though he was a successful businessman in Egypt, he moved into squalor by choice. He at first thought there was no way they could survive there. But he goes on to say this:

“I didn’t even think I could survive…but it’s because of the Christians and the faith that I am here. Even if my children have diseases from the garbage I want them to live here with other Christians. The most important thing is that my children are raised in a Christian environment. It is much better to be in a place with garbage that has Jesus than to be in a place [without Jesus] even though it may be clean.”

I started crying at that point in the video. For a father with 2 beautiful little girls to say, their place in the kingdom and body of the church is more important than their health is just incredible. That it is by choice, is even more incredible. I’ll link the 3 videos below, but I wanted to tie this into worship.

I started thinking about what place persecution has in our worship songs. Of course in the English speaking countries that generate our worship(US/UK/Australia) there really is no persecution, just ridicule. So our worship stance becomes a “I’m not ashamed” anthem. An admission that we’re prepared to accept ridicule and I think that’s great. But I’d love to hear what these Coptic Christians sing, what they are prepared to accept as a sacrifice for the Kingdom. I think our disconnection to the reality of persecution foreign Christians face does us a true disservice and undermines the depth of our understanding of sacrifice and strength through Christ. I’ve never before considered persecution in any of my worship writing, but I will now.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

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