The Secret Ways Christians Worship In North Korea

Because of the hardships and oppression they face, North Korean Christians often seek God intensely and risk their lives to worship Jesus.

When Lee Joo-Chan was young, he knew his parents were different. Everybody called them “Communist parents” because they took care of the sick, the poor and the needy. He also remembers seeing his parents read from a secret book at night. He knows now it was part of their worship.

“They would whisper the words, and I knew it was their source of wisdom. I also knew that if I ever talked about this to someone else, our family would be taken away.”

Over 75% Christians In North Korea Die In Persecution

Thirty years later in China, Lee would finally discover his family’s secret faith. Now a pastor in South Korea, Lee is incredibly thankful for his courageous parents who risked their lives to worship and follow Jesus–and tell their son about their faith.

His parents are not alone in their boldness.

Today, hundreds of thousands of Christians in North Korea’s underground church estimated at 300,000, also find secret ways to worship Jesus and follow Him. In fact, because of the hardships and oppression they face, these believers often seek God intensely and risk their lives to worship Jesus—not unlike the early church that drew an ichthys in the ground with their feet as a symbol of their faith and secretly met together in catacombs.

North Korea’s Christianity Growing Amid Persecution

In North Korea, there are also several kinds of underground church communities.

North Korea ranks number one on the Open Doors 2020 World Watch list of Countries where it is most deadly to be Christian, a position it has maintianed for the past 19 years.

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