In many countries it's very dangerous to be a Christian. More Christians have been killed for their faith after the year 1900 than in all the years before that. Today, tens of millions of Christians around the world meet in secret locations to worship, read the sciptures, and pray together at risk of their lives.

When something comes at such a high cost, it's highly valued. If the only type of Christianity you've experienced (or heard about) is the comfortable low-risk, (and often low-commitment) type that we have today in the West, there's a lot more to the picture that you haven't yet seen.

Brother Yun, a.k.a. The Heavenly Man was jailed and tortured for years in Chinese prisons for his Christian faith. He said, "Before I travelled to the West I had absolutely no idea that so many [Western] churches were spiritually asleep. There seems to be something missing that leaves me feeling terrible inside. Many meetings are cold and lack the fire and presence of God that we have in China.

"In the West many Christians have an abundance of material posessions, yet they live in a backslidden state. In China we have no posessions to hold us down, so there's nothing preventing us from moving out for the Lord... Every house church pastor in China is ready to lay down his life for the gospel."