Displaying items by tag: faith under pressure

At a recent meeting in Washington, Grace Jin Drexel shared the moving story of her father, Pastor Ezra Jin, imprisoned in China for his Christian faith. He was arrested in October alongside 27 other leaders from Zion Church, in what has been described as one of the largest crackdowns on independent churches since the Cultural Revolution. Grace explained that the arrests are part of China’s aggressive campaign to bring all religious life under Communist Party control. Churches have been forced to remove crosses, replace worship songs with revolutionary anthems, rewrite sermons to align with socialist ideology, and install surveillance cameras inside sanctuaries. Zion Church was targeted after refusing to install facial recognition cameras. Despite closures and intimidation, the church adapted, developing hybrid online and offline gatherings. During the pandemic, this model led to remarkable growth, expanding to over a hundred meeting spaces in forty cities and reaching thousands daily. Grace also spoke of the severe prison conditions facing detained leaders, her family’s separation, and harassment abroad. Yet she testified confidently that God remains faithful, prayers are not in vain, and repression cannot extinguish the Church.

Great British Bake Off champion Jasmine Mitchell, 23, has shared how her Christian faith sustained her throughout the high-pressure competition. The youngest-ever contestant to win ‘Star Baker’ five times, Jasmine said that she leaned heavily on prayer: 'Walking to the tent, I would just pray the Lord’s Prayer in my head. It didn’t take away the stress, but I felt God walking beside me.' Balancing filming with her medical studies, she described the experience as a 'complete miracle' of God’s sustaining grace. She also spoke openly about her journey with alopecia, saying she once prayed for her hair to return, but realised God’s healing meant becoming whole and confident in who He made her to be. Her church community has been a constant encouragement, quietly sharing her bakes and supporting her faith-filled journey. 'God has healed me to make me more whole’, she said, 'and I’m learning to see myself the way He sees me.'