Brookings, Oregon, is a small coastal town just north of the California state line. Small as it may be, though, it was the scene of a major battle over First Amendment rights. The City Council passed an ordinance in 2021 requiring a permit to serve free food to homeless people. Furthermore, it limited the number of days a church could serve the homeless to two days a week. St. Timothy’s Episcopal Church, which regularly feeds the homeless, sued the city, claiming that the ordinance violates its right to religious freedom and that feeding the poor should be considered a religious practice.

Who is praying on the wall?

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On March 27, a federal judge sided with the church and stopped the City of Brookings from shutting down the meal service. This is a small but important victory for religious freedom and the protection of the Church’s charitable outreach to society!

However, other battles are still looming for St. Timothy. The city has also directed the church to halt its shower and advocacy services.

Brookings is not the only city that has tried to curb a church’s outreach to the homeless. Tallahassee, Florida, did the same thing to City Walk Urban Mission a few years earlier. That initiated a multiyear legal battle that ended when the Fire Department deemed their building unsafe, and a federal judge ordered them to vacate the premises.

In 2020, Los Angeles County sued John MacArthur’s Grace Church for violating the state’s COVID mandates. Grace Church countersued and received an $800,000 settlement a year later. Theirs was a well-publicized example of many cases where local governments sought to curb a church’s religious freedom.

And as far back as 1999, pastors in Huntington Beach were asking for prayer against proposed city ordinances that would limit the number of churches that could be built and how many people could gather in someone’s home, which threatened the burgeoning small-group culture. God answered prayer there, too. Those ordinances failed to pass.

These attacks on churches at the local government level are matters for prayer. Liberal and often anti-Christian city councils seek to curb First Amendment rights by attacking specific church practices that impact the community, such as soup kitchens and homeless shelters. Our Christian faith mandates care for the poor, but complaints about homeless services being a nuisance are used increasingly to attack those freedoms.

But attacks by local governments on First Amendment rights are only only battle the American Church is facing.

Reparation Activists, in Boston, recently called upon “white churches” to pay reparations to the city’s black community, to the tune of tens of millions of dollars. They want white churches “to do their part” in an overall $15 billion reparation demand. Nationally known South Chicago Pastor Corey Brooks calls the demand “absurd and contrary to what the Bible says.” Be that as it may, it is an attack on the Church, preying upon guilt from the past. This could open the door to other activists, and that may cause deeper rifts in the already racially divided Christian churches in America.

Another way churches have come under attack is through direct acts of hostility. On Easter Sunday, someone parked a trailer with 200 Bibles outside Global Vision Church in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee, and set them on fire. The Family Research Council documented 436 acts of such hostility in 2023, more than double the amount of the previous year, and eight times as many as were reported in 2018.

How to Pray
We thank God that, for the moment, the U.S. justice system seems to consistently protect the First Amendment freedoms of churches. But churches that are being victimized by local governments must file expensive and time-consuming lawsuits that distract from their calling and draw unwanted attention.

The increase in such cases, the way “white churches” are now a target of reparations activists, and the alarming rise of antichurch acts of hostility are clear indications that persecution is knocking at our door — more than ever.

The most effective response to this is prayer, not for protection as much as for courage and strength. The Bible is very clear about persecution being an instrument in God’s hand to purify us and deepen our faith:

 My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing (James 1:2–4).

In that light, I suggest we pray along three fronts:

1.  for the nation: Growing hostility against Christianity is evidence that we are moving further away from the Christian principles on which our nation was founded, and people are beginning to abhor the institutions that represent those. Pray for revival to return hearts to God!
2.  for the justice system: How the Constitution is interpreted in religious freedom cases has recently moved toward protection of free exercise and religious freedom, and that is an answer to prayer. Pray about how laws are applied, especially on the local and state levels. Pray for fairness, impartiality, and wisdom to prevail over political and ideological leanings.
3.  for the Church: It is imperative that God’s people deepen their faith walk with God and that corporate prayer return to where it belongs: at the center of church life. Prayer is the valve that opens God’s floodgates of grace, supernatural courage, forgiving love, and joy, all of which are needed in facing persecution. So, let us pray for the Church to be stirred about the urgency of preparing for increased pressures and persecution, and to prioritize personal and corporate prayer.

Lord of hosts, let our nation be alarmed by attacks on churches — to the point of a return to You. Send revival from coast to coast! We pray that judges at every level of our justice system will stay true to the Constitution and impartial against ideological and political pressure. Ignite a new urgency about personal and corporate intimacy with You as the key to having what it takes to endure persecution. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

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Remco Brommet is a pastor, spiritual-growth teacher, and prayer leader with over 40 years of experience in Europe, Southeast Asia, Africa, and the U.S. He was born and raised in the Netherlands and pastored his first church in Amsterdam. He moved to the U.S. in 1986. He and his wife, Jennifer, live north of Atlanta. When not writing books, he blogs at www.deeperlifeblog.com and assists his wife as a content developer and prayer coordinator for True Identity Ministries. Jennifer and Remco are passionate about bringing people into a deeper relationship with Christ. Photo Credit: Daniel Tseng on Unsplash.