According to the Open Doors' 2008 World Watch List, North Korea has been named the worst place for a Christian to live for the sixth year in a row. In North Korea, citizens are strictly banned from worshiping any other gods except those enforced in state religion—a personality cult that celebrates the current dictator, Kim Jong il, and his deceased father, Kim il Sung.

"It is certainly not a ...

Current world population: 6.7 billion

World Christian population: 2.2. billion

World population increase per day: 219,000

Net Christian converts per day: 79,000

Fastest-growing Christian population: China, with 16,500 per day

Christian martyrs in 2007: 175,000 (or 480 per day)

Christian martyrs in 1970: 377,000 (1,033 per day)

—As reported by the International Bulletin of Missionary Research and digested ...

On December 9, 2007, Matthew Murray shot and killed Tiffany Johnson, 26, and Philip Crouse, 24, at a Youth With a Mission (YWAM) training center in the Denver suburb of Arvada. He later killed two at New Life Church in Colorado Springs…

Despite the deaths, YWAM is on track with its missions training program. Training for missions will begin once again in January, and not one of the 120 who signed ...

God has a way of turning the deepest pain into victory. Because Ethiopian Christians faithfully ministered to a convicted murderer in jail, God brought salvation to Mohammed Ahmed, who was convicted of killing an evangelist named Tulu on February 2, 2005….

Tulu was the fifth eldest child of eight, but suffered from an unidentified disease that made him physically weak and a slow learner. During ...

I believe it to be a grave mistake to present Christianity as something charming and popular with no offense in it.

—Author Dorothy Sayers

October 2, 2006, was a dark day for the Amish community of Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania. That morning, a local milkman named Charles Carl Roberts barricaded himself inside the West Nickel Mine Amish School. He was armed with three guns, knives, and over 600 rounds of ammunition. When police attempted to intervene less than half an hour later, Roberts opened fire on 11 girls—all less than 14-years-old—killing ...

Spartacus is a classic movie that retells the historical account of the great Roman slave rebellion in 71 B.C. Spartacus was a highly trained gladiator who escaped and led other slaves to freedom. As news of his rebellion grew, thousands of slaves joined his cause and followed him through victories and defeats.

Near the end of the movie, a massive Roman army under the command of Senator Crassus (Laurance ...

Following Sunday worship services on January 8, 2006, five young men attacked and threatened to kill a Protestant church leader in Turkey's fourth largest city. Kamil Kiroglu, 29, had just left his church in Adana when he was ambushed and beaten so severely that he fell unconscious twice.

"They were trying to force me to deny Jesus," Kiroglu said. "But each time they asked me to deny Jesus and become ...

Christ died because he would die; other men admitted to the dignity of martyrdom are willing to die, but they die by the torments of the executioners; they cannot bid their souls go out and say, "Now I will die." And this was Christ's case: It was not only, "I lay down my life for my sheep" (John 10:15), but he says also, "No man can take away my soul; and I have power to lay it down." And, de facto, ...

The movie The End of the Spear tells the true story of five missionaries who gave their lives to reach the violent Waodoni tribe in the jungles of Ecuador in the 1950s. Led by Nate Saint, the missionaries were eager to reach the Waodoni people before they all died off from their intertribal warfare and vicious revenge killings.

As Nate prepares for his adventure, his family gathers around him on the ...