Editor’s Be aware: Our February 2025 mini-series on the BCC Grace and Fact weblog addresses biblical counseling within the persecuted church. On this closing article, Tim St. John recounts his expertise counseling a persecuted pastor in Myanmar. In different contributions to the sequence, Jim Newheiser shares his expertise coaching and counseling in closed international locations within the Center East and East Asia, and Esther St. John discusses counseling in Spanish-speaking international locations dealing with non secular persecution.
Once we take into consideration anxiousness within the church right now, it’s straightforward to contemplate it within the context of low-grade struggles—work stress, monetary uncertainty, or relational stress. However what occurs when anxiousness intertwines with intense persecution? For one pastor ministering in Myanmar, anxiousness didn’t merely stem from private challenges; it surged from dwelling beneath an oppressive navy regime.
That is the story of strolling with a church-planting pastor in Myanmar by way of biblical counseling. His struggles with anxiousness weren’t simply theoretical; they had been formed by the sounds of gunfire, authorities crackdowns, and the load of shepherding a flock in a warfare zone.
A Life Underneath Menace
Nervousness for this pastor stretched past typical American considerations to the crushing burden of witnessing violent struggling throughout him. Complete villages had burned. Church buildings lay in ruins. “The navy would shoot with out goal in the event that they heard the Folks’s Protection Power[1] (PDF) was within the space,” he mentioned. “Explosions erupt continually. Loss of life is just a matter of being within the mistaken place on the mistaken time.”
He described how households carried bulletproof shields with them when leaving their properties, figuring out that troopers shot stay rounds at any suspicion of the PDF in an space. “My son appears to wrestle with anxiousness too,” he admitted. “He continually asks if the troopers are coming to kill us. He spends quite a lot of time alone within the toilet as a result of it appears like a protected house.” His household would get up to explosions, and the sound of gunfire grew to become virtually regular background noise. He mentioned, “Along with the risks of leaving our house, the navy is monitoring virtually all our on-line exercise. When you use Fb, you could be arrested for 3 years. When you use a VPN, you may get 5 years in jail.”
In one in all our periods, the pastor shared that armed troopers had arrived at his house. The navy had taken over the nation, and many voters—together with himself—had chosen to not pay their electrical energy payments in silent protest. However this defiance got here with a value. The navy demanded a full yr’s fee, successfully forcing believers to financially help an oppressive regime.
“It’s not simply the invoice,” he mentioned, “It’s supporting the very people who find themselves persecuting us, burning our church buildings, displacing our buddies.” That is the fact of making an attempt to stay faithfully beneath persecution. Each resolution—whether or not to pay a invoice, use social media, and even attend a church service—can carry life or loss of life penalties. The anxiousness will not be irrational; it’s a response to real hazard. How would you come alongside somebody struggling in such fixed hazard?
A Life Underneath the Cross
Earlier than assembly this brother, I might need foolishly oversimplified persistent anxiousness, attributing it to weak religion or a small view of God. However as I bought to know him, I noticed a person with a stroll with the Lord far stronger than my very own. Every day, he anchored himself in Scripture and cultivated a imaginative and prescient of God that allowed the struggling round him to shrink compared to God’s sovereign energy and love.
He described his every day routine: “I learn three to 4 chapters from the Outdated Testomony earlier than breakfast. Earlier than lunch, I put together my sermon, dedicating two or three days every week to cautious research. Afternoons are for church instructing and evangelism. Whereas driving, I take heed to sermons or podcasts, seizing each second to maintain my thoughts fastened on fact. Within the night, my spouse and I take heed to one thing collectively—simply 10 to fifteen minutes—then we pray. As a household, we pray collectively as properly. Earlier than mattress, I learn a Psalm.”
Counseling Amid Persecution
I met this brother in 2018 when he translated for me whereas I taught biblical counseling at a seminary in Myanmar. Years later, he reached out, asking if I might meet with him on-line to assist him navigate his persistent anxiousness. However the extra I realized about his struggling, the extra insufficient I felt to counsel him. He endured a lot for the gospel. Many Christians had fled the nation, but he stayed to shepherd the church. Why had God positioned me in his life to assist him face his fears?
I advised him I used to be unworthy of the privilege of caring for his soul, however I might stroll alongside him as he battled for his coronary heart to hope in Christ alone. Our periods gave him house to mirror on how God sustained him—not simply by way of bodily endurance however by exposing the deeper battle inside. The best hazard he confronted was not the explosions outdoors however the legalism in his coronary heart, which advised him his life existed primarily to assist others and handle the fixed threats towards his church and household.
Although our counseling contexts differed radically—his in a warfare zone, mine within the relative consolation of Southern California—the identical transcendent gospel fact spoke to his coronary heart. We targeted on two key areas: being nonetheless with God and meditating on Christ’s care.
- “Be nonetheless.” How does one stay nonetheless when panic grips their youngster, church buildings burn, and leaving house requires a bulletproof protect? Isn’t it higher to remain on edge, prepared for hazard? Psalm 46 gives a solution. The psalmist describes a world in chaos but hears God’s voice saying, “Be nonetheless, and know that I’m God. I can be exalted among the many nations, I can be exalted within the earth!” This command carries a promise: God reigns above the storm. As we studied this passage, the pastor noticed the need of stillness earlier than God, shifting his focus from concern to belief in God’s guarantees.
- “Comply with me.” He preached by way of Mark’s gospel on Sundays, so we explored passages that helped him meditate on Christ’s take care of his soul from his weekly sermon textual content. One session, he shared how Mark 1:17 had gripped him: “One phrase stood out—Jesus’ easy name, ‘Comply with me.’ These two phrases realigned my function. They reduce by way of stress and jogged my memory why I stay: to comply with Christ.” This fact grew to become an anchor for him. Fairly than feeling paralyzed by the unknown, he started asking, “How do I comply with Christ right here? How do I draw close to to Him with these ideas?”
The Weight of Ministry and the Hope of Christ
As a church planter, he continually battled ideas like, “I haven’t executed sufficient.” Ministry by no means ended. The church buildings wanted elders. The elders wanted coaching. One other church plant at all times beckoned. Persecution solely compounded the load of accountability. But, by way of our periods, he started seeing how Christ’s take care of the church and his household eclipsed his personal anxieties.
His story testifies that gospel care stays important even in persecution. No matter real struggles drive our counselees’ anxiousness, the best risk they face will not be exterior however religious—the evil that seeks to attract them away from God’s care. The gospel speaks into each coronary heart, in each struggling, with the identical unshakable hope: Christ will lead me by way of.
I hope sharing this brother’s story stirs church buildings to acknowledge the immense want for gospel care worldwide and take motion to equip believers to counsel each other with the grace and fact of Christ. Please be a part of us this December for the Biblical Counseling Coalition World Summit, the place church leaders from world wide will collect to contemplate how we are able to comply with Christ and make disciples who place their hope in Him, irrespective of the challenges they face.
Questions for Reflection
- How will you help, encourage, or pray for these within the persecuted church?
- Will you contemplate becoming a member of us this December for the 2025 Biblical Counseling Coalition World Summit?
[1] The Folks’s Protection Power (PDF) in Myanmar is the armed wing of the Nationwide Unity Authorities (NUG), a shadow authorities fashioned in opposition to the navy junta that seized energy in a coup on February 1, 2021.
