From the AP:
BAGHDAD, Iraq – Assailants triggered a coordinated series of explosions outside five churches in Baghdad and Mosul during Sunday evening services, killing 11 people and wounding more than 50 in the first major assault on Iraq’s Christian minority since the 15-month-old insurgency began.
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The unprecedented attacks against Iraq’s 750,000-member Christian minority seemed to confirm community members’ fears they might be targeted as suspected collaborators with American forces amid a rising tide of Islamic fundamentalism.
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The wave of explosions – at least four of them car bombings – began after 6 p.m. as parishioners gathered inside their neighborhood churches for services. The blasts shattered stained-glass windows and sent churchgoers running into the streets, screaming and clutching their bleeding heads.
Source: Blasts Hit Churches Across Iraq; 11 Dead – August 1, 2004
If you knew your church would be targeted by anti-Christian fanatics, would you still attend services?
What does it mean when the Bible says, “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain,” if it does not mean this very example, being destroyed by those who hate God even as you bow the knee to Him?
These 11 Iraqis surrendered their lives simply because they assembled together to worship Christ. Would you?
Again, Pastor Dan, you ask the important question coming out of this terrible next chapter in Iraq. We must always ask ourselves if we would be able to do God’s will and stand by Him as He has stood by us through so much. Are we involved with Christ or are we committed to Christ? “What’s the difference?” my friend once preached, “The church is like a ham and egg breakfast; the chicken is involved, but the pig is committed.”