The Suffering and Prayer that Transforms Nations

“Please, do not pray that we will not suffer. Pray that we will have boldness and courage to share the gospel.”

These were the words our African brothers spoke to us as we left their radical Muslim hometown. Their families had tried to kill them on multiple occasions—throwing them in the ocean, lighting their homes on fire, beating them, poisoning them. And now, as we shook in fear for their lives, the reply they gave us was simply: “Do not pray that we will not suffer.”

Wow.

I needed a theology shift.

No. I take that back. I still have not yet grasped this theology shift. The theology of suffering.

And yet it is everywhere in Scripture.

“In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33)

In Scripture, suffering is not an interruption to mission; it is one of its primary catalysts. Nearly every great move of God throughout history has emerged from a people who have learned to pray in the midst of suffering.

Why Suffering Matters in Missions

By itself, certainly suffering makes for an interesting bible study, but I’m after something a bit further down the road. What is the result?

I mean, if I’m going to suffer, I’d surely like to know the point, right? The Bible has quite a bit to say about that.

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.” (James 1:2-4)

In his book, The Insanity of God, Nik Ripken notes that in many Chinese house church networks there is a saying, “If you haven’t been to prison for Jesus, can we trust you?”

And he goes on to recount the same in Russia, Ukraine, and many parts of Central Asia.

• The result should be joy. (James 1:2-4, 1 Pet, Col 1:24)
• We should see it as a trial and test. (Rom 5:3-5, 1 Pet 1:6-7, 5:8-10, Heb 2:11-18, 5:7-8)
• It means we are His children. (Heb 12:5-11, Rom 8:17)
• Suffering is knowing Christ. (Phil 3:10)
• Suffering reveals Christ to others. (2 Cor 4:8-12, Phil 1:12-14)

Ouch.

Am I the only one?

I love that last verse. Paul is over here just hanging out in chains, and his perspective is that it’s really working out.

“…what has happened to me has actually served to advance the gospel.” (Phil 1:12-14)

A dear friend of ours at The Stone Table—let’s call him Ahmed—recounted a similar story. After he was expelled from his homeland in North Africa and brought to America under asylum, the only job he could get was sweeping the floors of a liquor store. He had come from high status in his homeland, but now he was at an all-time low. Yet he clung to his faith.

Three years into this suffering, barely able to keep food on the table for his family, he finally saw the purpose in his suffering. Ahmed’s new hometown in the American Midwest had a sizable community of Muslims from his home country. One day one of the men he was speaking with said, “Ahmed, we always say that people convert to Christianity because it is a good financial decision for their family—that they are bribed to become Christians. But not so with you. You and your family have suffered for years, and now we know that you really believe what you tell us.”

Suffering reveals Christ.

Suffering that Transforms Nations

If you study the last century of missions, you may be disappointed to find that by and large, not much has changed. Most countries that were Muslim are still Muslim. Most that were Hindu or Buddhist are still Hindu or Buddhist. Even most that were Christian remain so, at least nominally.

But what is striking is the narrow set of cases where transformation has occurred:

• South Korea went from <1% Christian in 1900 to nearly 30% today.
• Nagaland, India was <10% Christian in 1900; today, 90–95%.
• Mongolia had 4 believers in 1990; today, 60,000–80,000.
• Iran had fewer than 500,000 believers before the 1979 Islamic Revolution; today, more than 1 million.
• China, before the 1949 Communist Revolution, had under 1 million believers; today, over 100 million.

Sources: Operation World, Lausanne Occasional Papers, World Christian Encyclopedia

So what caused the transformation?

When you trace these stories back to their roots, you do not first find strategy, training, church-planting models, or even courageous missionaries—though each played a part. You find prayer and the kind of prayer that suffering produces.

• In Korea, famine, Japanese occupation, and war drove believers into all-night prayer, forming the now-famous prayer mountains.
• In Nagaland, transformation began as villages prayed through tribal violence and poverty.
• In Mongolia, years of communism created a spiritual vacuum; intercession filled it with hope.
• In Iran, secret believers risked imprisonment to pray together.
• In China, revival was fueled by house churches that had nothing but prayer—no buildings, no budgets, no platforms.

Suffering became the catalyst that drove them to their knees, and prayer became the engine of transformation. These nations did not flourish in spite of hardship—they flourished through hardship, because suffering pressed believers into the only place strong enough to sustain them: the presence of God.

When we have nothing left but Christ, we discover that Christ is enough. And when we learn to pray like that—out of desperation, not convenience—nations shift. Spiritual strongholds break. Hearts soften. Doors that were closed for centuries suddenly open. Revival never begins with ease; it begins with groaning. It begins when people learn, through suffering, to pray prayers they would never have prayed in comfort.

This is why the believers in Nik Ripken’s book frequently told him, “We pray for you, because you do not know how to handle freedom.”

They love that their American brothers and sisters have freedom of religion, but they pray fervently that we would not become complacent in the chaos of comfort.

 BAM in a Land of Suffering

I’m a Business as Mission (BAM) coach. That’s what I do. And some days I live so close to BAM that I can hardly see the bigger story around me. You may feel the same about your own work—we view life through the lens of our experience.

And so I asked the Lord, “What do you want me to do with this reality? Is strategy silly? Is planning pitiful in your eyes?”

If transformed nations are born in prayer, what does business—investing, coaching, crafting SOPs, marketing plans, and building enterprises for flourishing—have to do with prayer and suffering?

The Lord replied, “Prayer is the weapon. BAM is the strategy.”

Oswald Chambers once said, “Prayer does not fit us for the greater work; prayer is the greater work.”

This is so hard for me to remember that I have it written on the back of my office door, “Prayer is the work. Prayer is the work. Prayer is the work.”

Prayer is the foundation of every faithful BAM initiative, prayer is the operation itself, and through prayer we will finish the race.

BAM In Transformed Nations

In the early 1900s, the typewriter entrepreneur John Underwood invested his fortune in the funding of schools, training institutions, and evangelistic efforts that became foundational to the early Korean church. Today South Korea sends the second highest number of missionaries of any nation. Many of these are successfully building BAMs that undergird and overlay the transformational work that God is doing in the nations. Joshua School of Business is training up and equipping entrepreneurs as the Center for Business as Mission is networking, researching, and mobilizing BAM practitioners across the region.

Nagaland has seen incredible work among coffee plantations, providing economic mobility for the people and capacity for those being sent out, and India has a burgeoning BAM ecosystem in the wake of an NGO purge.

Mongolia’s Asia Leadership Development Network (ALDN) is doing incredible things to empower a move of God through incubation, faith and work, and FaithTech conversations.

Where traditional missions is nearly impossible, many are going to Iran with BAM strategies.

China is home to probably the most robust BAM ecosystem with businesses ranging across every imaginable industry. There is even the Chinese BAM network.

These ecosystems are robust. There is incredible work developing around the globe. But none of it exists without prayer.

Prayer is the work. BAM is the strategy.

In every circumstance—whether in a Christian-majority nation or a restricted country—whether through traditional missions or BAM—may we never forget:

Prayer is the work.

I know an entrepreneur who built one of the most remarkable BAM ecosystems I’ve ever seen in a closed nation. He has watched explosive growth—both in business and in a church planted inside that business. And yet he insists:

“It is not because of me. It is because of prayer.”

Their mobilization effort was unlike anything I’ve seen:
Hundreds of prayer stickers.
Hundreds committed to intercession.
Dozens of prayerful advisors, investors, coaches, and missions leaders.

And the BAM went forth—but not without prayer.

Never have I seen a greater mobilization effort around a BAM. Thousands of prayer stickers. Hundreds committed to praying. And the BAM goes forth. But not without prayer.

Prayer is our weapon. BAM is our strategy.

Prayer is the work. BAM is the tool.