NASHVILLE, Tenn.
— On Good Friday, more than 50,000 people across the world participated in Secret
Church, six intensive hours of
biblical teaching and prayer for the persecuted church led by author and pastor
David Platt of The Church at Brook Hills in Birmingham.
The April 22 event — held at the church but simulcast into
42 states (including North Carolina)
and 11 countries — was designed to call the church to a greater awareness of
biblical fidelity and to build unity with the persecuted church worldwide.
While thousands gathered at the church, more than 50,000
people from 1,300 churches and small groups participated via simulcast. It was
the 10th Secret Church
event but the first one simulcast.
It was simulcast by LifeWay Christian Resources and
Disciple-Making International (DMI), a
nonprofit, Christian-equipping organization founded by Platt. Secret Church was
born from Platt’s experiences teaching in underground house churches throughout
Asia. There, Platt experienced how Christians met in secret for fear of
persecution. This awareness sparked a desire to transplant the urgency of sound
gospel proclamation to his own church.
“People are hungry for the Word,” Platt said. “There’s
really nothing special or creative about it. It’s just the study of the Word
and then prayer for our persecuted brothers and sisters. The Word itself does
the work.”
Within an hour of starting, Secret
Church became a “trending topic” on
twitter, meaning that it is one of the most mentioned or tweeted about
events/topics on twitter.
During the three 10-minute breaks, LifeWay showed pictures
that people were sending in from around the world of their group watching the
simulcast. Churches and small groups watched from places such as Cambodia,
India, Thessalonica,
Greece, Guatemala,
Brazil and all
across the United States.
There had been nine prior Secret
Church events, but after the first
meeting The Church at Brook Hills was forced to start a reservation system due
to the sell-out capacity. Its on-site popularity led to the idea of a
simulcast.
Watch or listen to previous Secret
Church events at http://www.disciplemakingintl.org/media/schurch/?cur_tab=series.
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