Displaying items by tag: Outreach

Kanye West's Jesus is King album has prompted the American Bible Society to offer 1,000 free Bibles. ABS said that curiosity about Christianity has soared since the US rapper released his first Christian album: ‘When we saw an influential cultural figure like Kanye inspiring young people to seek out answers to their faith questions, that was an opportunity to provide God's word and point people to it as a source for their questions about faith.’ Up to 1,000 copies of the Good News translation are available to fans who apply on the ABS website. According to Google Trends, online searches for ‘Jesus’ and ‘Christianity’ shot up significantly in the USA after West released his album on 25 October.

Alexey, a middle-school dropout, first went to the missionaries’ church for food when he was a homeless beggar. When he got a job and could feed himself, he stopped attending church. He met Anya and they had a baby boy, but he fell into substance abuse and his income did not cover family costs. When child welfare authorities arrived at their door to take their son away, they successfully pleaded for more time to show they could care for him. Realising his need for God, Alexey took his family to church the following Sunday. He repented and asked believers to pray for them. ‘From that day, a huge change took place in our lives. We got married, I ended drug and alcohol abuse, and we read the Bible daily. Thanks to God for the miracle He has done in our lives.’

This week, Quakers are describing their personal faith journeys. 'Quaker Stories’ is the theme of this year's Quaker Week. These stories will be shared on social media, using the hashtags #QuakerWeek and #QuakerStories. Alistair Fuller, of Quakers in Britain, said, ‘They are planting seeds of renewal for the world they love. Every year, we encourage Quakers to share what their faith means to them. This year we are telling the stories of how they live out their faith in the world, and how this can challenge, inspire and transform us.’ See

Leo and Jenifa Johnson were intimidated and threatened in a residential area of Tamil Nadu state where they had distributed Christian tracts to homes. As they were leaving the area they were stopped by a man affiliated to the far-right nationalist group, Hindu Munani. He called two other men and they threatened the couple, accusing them of compelling people in the neighbourhood to convert. Leo said, ‘We did not tell people about Jesus. All we did was distribute tracts to homes. No one was forced to take the literature.’ Despite this explanation, the attackers threatened them and demanded they apply holy ash from a local temple on their foreheads. Leo said, ‘Jenifa was terrified and started crying. This should not have happened to us. India is supposed to be a free country where we can practise our faith.’ They were told that if they returned to the area, they would be violently attacked.

Jesus’ command to ‘make disciples of all nations’ means bringing individuals to him and putting Christ at the heart of society. If Jesus Christ is Lord of Lords and King of Kings, then this must have implications for all areas of society - from the way our nations are governed to what laws are made; from what cultural traditions we follow to what we speak of in the media. When the gospel is upheld in these areas, we truly can make disciples of a nation, because society is better able to observe all that he taught us, which has the power to transform lives. This means being unashamed to speak of Jesus in public life, putting Christ back into law, media and politics, and placing the gospel at the centre of the big issues of the day. Click the ‘More’ button for details of two forthcoming seminars on these issues.

Christian publishers are rejoicing because the Bible has been exempted from President Trump's looming tariffs on Chinese goods. The 10% increase on $300 billion worth of other Chinese goods will go into effect on 1 September. With China being the world's largest Bible publisher, it had been feared that the tariffs would have made some translations too costly to produce.

A third of the world call themselves ‘Christians’, but many are missing from our churches; others are present, but don’t have the joy of knowing and following Christ. Something has to change! Mission to nominal Christians is missing from the global church agenda. We need to confess and pray: ‘Father, we confess that we have overlooked nominal Christians in society and in our churches. We confess faltering witness, defective discipleship, and lack of concern for those who bear the name of Christ but through ignorance, sin, or rejection are far from the way of Christ and his church. We are quick to judge and slow to listen - especially when they come from a different church tradition. We ask you, Father, to touch the lives of nominal Christians with your powerful Holy Spirit so that they will come to a saving faith in Christ.’

84% of Nepal’s people are Hindus, striving to attain freedom for their souls by good works. 90% remain untouched by the Gospel. Hinduism is not just a religion for these millions, it is their culture - their way of life. Christianity is seen as foreign and as a threat to their culture. Those who choose to follow Jesus often pay a high price, yet the Church is growing. Though it is a small portion of the population, there are now believers in nearly all peoples and castes, but the tragic reality remains that over 25 million Nepalese have never yet heard of Jesus, the only one who can bring true freedom. Please pray for him to be made known among unreached peoples in hard-to-access locations; for biblical training and Christlikeness for a rising generation of church leaders; and for the help they need to win the daily poverty battle.

Voice of the Martyrs recently reported, ‘Afghan believers are boldly sharing the gospel in their country like never before in its history. In a nation that is 99 percent Muslim, the risks of such ministry are incredible. But many of these courageous followers of Christ have decided their countrymen must hear that God loves them, that Jesus Christ has paid for their sins, and that there is a guaranteed future for them with God through Jesus. Their witness is producing fruit: today there are Christians throughout the country of Afghanistan. Over the years, Afghan believers have often hidden their faith, but there are men and women willing to share the gospel courageously throughout Afghanistan and other Asian nations where Christians are persecuted for their faith.’

Global Outreach Day, is a global missions network that calls the church worldwide to focus on praying and sharing the gospel with the unchurched in the Month of May each year! This next year, May 2020, the vision is to mobilize a hundred million people in united prayer for the global harvest! 

Watch the video here:

4 minute full version: https://vimeo.com/342384375  

60 second short version:  https://vimeo.com/344032191

We are calling this initiative Go2020! Already Christians in 250,000 churches and 140 nations are part of this global outreach strategy to pray and witness towards the fulfillment of God’s Great Commission. This is not just for the adults, we want to invite the Children and the Youth to be full partners in this initiative! We want to call every One to be a praying, witnessing disciple for Christ!

At the Lausanne International Congress on World Evangelization in 1974, Billy Graham made the mission clear, “The whole church must be mobilized to bring the whole Gospel to the whole world. This is our calling!”  GO2020 could be the catalyst for the fulfillment of this in our lifetime as believers from every nation unify in the clarion call of "Every Believer a Witness".   Imagine ONE Church sharing ONE Message during ONE Month, May 2020. 

And we know this will only happen through United Prayer!  God releases his power through the prayers of his people!  As Dick Eastman says, “The degree to which prayer is mobilized is the degree to which the world will be evangelized!” 

Would you be 1 of 100 million in united prayer?  Could you commit to Pray Now and share your faith with 5 others in your circle of influence who don’t know Christ through the month of May? 

We have listed 5 opportunities to begin praying now through the Month of May 2020. The Lord may lead you to commit to just one of these or all five. Pray and ask the Lord how he wants you to be involved!

#1 PRAY FOR FIVE

Our first strategy is to call each one of us to people in our circle of influence (neighbors, co-workers, friends, family members). We want to Pray daily for these people and for opportunities to reach them for Christ’s love.

#2 PRAYER TRIPLETS

Pray with two other believers weekly.  Connect through Skype, Zoom, telephone, Facebook, or personally meet. Pray together for God’s Spirit to produce a global and local spiritual awakening and for the salvation of those on each person’s list who don’t know Christ.

#3 24/7 Prayer Mobilization

It is Jesus’ vision that every church in every nation be a house of prayer. It’s our aim to see united 24/7 prayer in cities, regions and nations leading to GO 2020. Help mobilize your city, region or nation to adopt a monthly day of prayer.

Join with World Prays, a prayer network that asks that every church adopt a 12- or 24-hour time one day each month to pray. Members can pray for 30 or 60 minutes from anywhere--home, school, dormitory, workplace, church or with the people in their small group. Through doing so, churches develop a culture and regular rhythm of prayer while providing a prayer “covering” over geographic areas.

Go to www.worldprays.org for more INFO or to sign up,

#4 Prayer for People Groups

Adopt an unreached people group for prayer and mission outreach. There are 4700 people groups on earth that have less than one believer per thousand people. They will remain unreached and cut off from Christ’s Gospel unless churches and prayer groups pave the way by adopting them for regular intercessory prayer. Focused prayer for the unreached is a strategy of the Lord of the Harvest to send laborers and prepare the hearts of these people who otherwise wouldn’t hear the gospel. Provided are resources to help you or your church find a people group to adopt or to guide how to pray for the least reached. You can sign up to adopt and unreached people group at this website! http://joshuaproject.net Also, see: https://inheritthenations.net/

#5 GO 2020 Prayer Gatherings - May 1, 2020

And finally, we want to call families, churches, cities and nations to gather on May 1^st of 2020 in united prayer gatherings!  Would you be willing to mobilize your church or your city to join in prayer with believers worldwide on May 1^st in your region, asking God for a massive Christ awakening in the nations of the earth?

In the words of the Moravians call to action for both prayer and mission... “May the Lamb who was slain receive the due reward for his suffering.” -Rev. 5:12

Dr. Jason Hubbard