September 8, 2025
A core part of 21Wilberforce’s mission is equipping you—and your church or faith community—with free resources to stand in solidarity with those facing discrimination, marginalization, and persecution for their faith.
Across the globe, millions of people are denied the freedom to worship, gather, and live out their beliefs without fear. The stories of the persecuted church are stories of courage, resilience, and faithfulness. As fellow believers, we are called to remember them, to speak out against injustice, and to take practical steps of solidarity.
How You Can Respond
Individuals and faith communities can stand with the persecuted church and confront injustice with courage, compassion, and action through these commitments:
- Learn: Discover where Christians and other religious minorities are being persecuted, what challenges they face, and how you can walk alongside them. Awareness is the first step toward meaningful action.
- Pray: Lift up the persecuted church in prayer, interceding for their courage, protection, endurance, and hope. Prayer aligns our hearts with God’s heart for justice and sustains those who suffer.
- Encourage: Write letters of support to persecuted believers. A few heartfelt words can break through isolation and remind them they are not forgotten.
- Advocate: Be a voice for the voiceless. Share their stories, write to newspapers and faith-based publications, host a prayer service, or adopt a religious prisoner of conscience. Advocacy helps bring global attention and pressure for change.
- Give: Partner financially with trusted organizations that provide aid, advocacy, and long-term support to persecuted communities. Your generosity directly strengthens their resilience and hope.
Free Resources for You
To help you and your community take these steps, we’ve prepared free downloadable resources on our [RESOURCES page]. Whether for personal growth, small group study, or church-wide engagement, these tools are designed to inspire understanding and action.
Here are six categories of resources available:
- STORIES: Profiles of advocates, survivors, prisoners of conscience, and faith leaders—highlighting their courage, suffering, and resilience in the fight for religious freedom.
- REPORTS: Summaries and data from governments, NGOs, and faith groups on key religious freedom issues, policy developments, and advocacy efforts in countries of concern worldwide.
- PREACH: Sermons and outlines to equip pastors and churches to speak biblically, boldly, and compassionately about religious persecution and freedom around the world.
- TEACH: Lesson plans, prayer prompts, group activities, handouts, and book suggestions to help communities learn about and engage with religious freedom.
- PRAY: A call to prayer with Scripture-based encouragement, sample prayers, group prayer tips, a bookmark, and creative resources for leading children in prayer.
- ADVOCATE: A practical toolkit with strategy, messaging guidance, media and policymaker outreach tips, and ready-to-use templates for petitions and official contacts.
By learning, praying, encouraging, advocating, and giving, you and your community can be a powerful voice for religious freedom and a source of hope to those who suffer for their faith.
To hear a brief word of encouragement from a pastor on how you can put these free resources into action, we invite you to watch this short video: