Church services adapt as coronavirus closes houses of worship
Pastor Autumn Miles holding a day of prayer and fasting in response to coronavirus.
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A Virginia pastor's "Secret Church" service was the target of an apparent cyberattack, preventing more than 50,000 participants worldwide from logging in and attending in real time.
David Platt, the pastor of McLean Bible Church in Vienna, Va., hosted the six-hour event on Friday night, which focused on "the way Christians relate to the government."
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"It appears our site was under attack, keeping many of you from logging in," the church wrote on its Facebook page.
The event, which is now available online, focuses on God, government and the Gospel. Platt and others study God's word and pray for persecuted believers.
"We obey our government unless it requires us to disobey our God," Platt said in a promo for the night. "We must obey God rather than men."
Some 260 million Christians – 1 in 8 believers worldwide – currently live in areas of high persecution, an increase of 10 percent compared to last year, according to the watchdog group Open Doors USA's 2020 World Watch List.
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Secret Church is posting daily prayers, including for those in North Korea, considered the worst persecutor of Christians, according to Open Doors.
"Pray that God would cause the North Korean government to look out for the good of its people, treating them with fairness and mercy," reads one of the prayers. "Pray that greater freedoms would make it easier for Christians to practice their faith and for all North Koreans to have access to the gospel."
