Migrant crisis will reveal Europe’s true colours
09 Oct 2015
As hundreds of thousands of people fleeing war, repression and poverty cross Europe’s borders, the continent is struggling to cope. There is growing consensus that the EU’s legal framework and individual member states are poorly equipped to confront the problem. Politicians will have to act fast if they want to avoid a humanitarian emergency this winter. They should also be aware that quick solutions will not make the bigger issue go away. The migrant crisis is, in fact, about Europe’s identity. The coming weeks and months will be a test of European unity in the hardest times, with nationalist and extremist voices gaining ground and EU leaders strengthening border controls. So Europe's open door is soon to be closed in face of the tide that has overwhelmed Italy, Greece, Macedonia, Hungary, Serbia and Croatia and created problems throughout Europe.
Thursday’s meeting to strengthen diplomatic progress between Angela Merkel and Benjamin Netanyahu has been postponed due to a surge in Palestinian terror attacks in Jerusalem and the West Bank. (see this week’s Prayer-Alert world article) Prayer is needed for a strengthening of Israel’s relationships with Germany. In the middle of his address to the UN General Assembly Benjamin Netanyahu stood silently for 44 seconds and glared at all the representatives assembled as a protest against an absence of criticism of threats against Israel. Thursday’s cancelled consultation meeting took on a special significance. In 2008 Chancellor Merkel’s speech to the Knesset said that ‘the historical responsibility for Israel’s security is part of our raison d’état’. It would remain unchanged and continue to be one of the foundations of Germany’s foreign policy.
Witness of Christian workers in Syria
09 Oct 2015
The sorrow of the ministry team leader who lost 11 workers and one of their children last month has been deep, but he takes heart that their faithfulness could help change the hearts of persecutors. ‘They kept on praying loudly and sharing Jesus until their last breath,’ he said. ‘They did this in front of the villagers as a testimony for others.’ He asked for prayer for surviving family members and for himself.
‘These things have been very hard on me,’ he said. ‘What wrong did those people do to deserve to die? However, what is happening is more and more people are being saved. The ministry is growing and growing. In the past we used to pray to have one person from a Muslim background come to the Lord. Now there are so many we can barely handle all the work among them.’
A new season for WPC
12 Oct 2015
There has been a bit of a culture-shift at World Prayer Centre (WPC) recently. Here's an in-depth interview with the Ian Cole, the founder of the organisation and the new Director, Steve Botham on what lies ahead for WPC.
Ian, tell us about your vision for a World Prayer Centre.
Ian: I had the vision for a World Prayer Centre in 1992 and for the last 23 years, alongside my wife Pauline and many wonderful colleagues, supporters, fellow Trustees and prayer partners, have worked and continue to work to see the fulfilment of the vision. We have known for a great part of that time that this journey and every aspect of the journey had to be Heaven to earth, and that even the building itself had to be, as we have often said, an Isaac and not an Ishmael.
Steve Botham recently became the Director of WPC. What does that mean for you and Pauline?
Ian: We are so pleased that Steve has accepted the position of Director of WPC. Pauline and I have known Steve and his wife Carol for many years and Steve has been an integral member of the Trustees. His appointment has not only allowed for increased development and growth of the team and our ministry, but also enabled Pauline and I to stand back and assess where we want to put the time and energy that God gives us each day as we seek to hear from Him and be obedient to His call on our lives. Over the years, a growing part of our ministry has been to encourage prayer and those involved in the prayer movement in a number of nations through the International Prayer Council and other global organisations. We count this a great privilege and as God gives us the health and strength, we will seek to serve Him and the body of Christ in this way. By God's grace we are not retiring but we are changing pace. (I think I just heard a chuckle from Pauline's office!!)
So, where are you at with the vision for the building?
Ian: The vision for the actual World Prayer Centre still burns in our hearts. We believe God has His hand on the actual site, and that one day in God's time and in His way we will see the vision come to fruition. The scriptural foundations of the vision came as I read the story of Nehemiah where the people stood shoulder to shoulder, building the gates, the walls and the towers with trowels, swords and a trumpet blower. As we move into the next phase of our journey, the towers from where the watchman watch's and warns, take on fresh meaning and purpose for us and the whole team, not only locally and nationally but across the world.
As the new Director of WPC, tell us a bit more about your background and getting involved with WPC?
Steve: I come from a business background and was the CEO of Caret Consulting Group a well-established firm focused on leadership and change. My strengths lie in strategy, working with groups and teams, executive coaching, community development and leadership training. I am just coming up to my 40 year anniversary as a Christian and have always looked to combine my calling into the marketplace with my faith. I was on the leadership team of my church Riverside in Birmingham and have been very involved with a range of Christian projects across the city. God has opened doors - many surprising ones for me to be a watchmen and I have good contacts with leaders in the council, health, economic growth and community growth across the city.
I have always been interested in prayer and how God wants us to know his heart of compassion and his vision for change. Last year started with a period of real challenge for WPC and increasingly I felt it was time to give more support and use my strategy and change experience to help look at the future direction and calling of WPC.
How are you looking to move forward with the vision of WPC?
Steve: I have five key areas of focus:
- To grow prayer - simply put I want more people to pray - it draws us closer to God and empowers the church. We are working on the website, social media, new resources and with other organisations to grow prayer. We believe this is a key moment when Jesus is mobilising us to pray.
- Deepen prayer - there are those with a deeper prayer calling, we need to see more watchmen with grace and authority to mobilise others to pray, we need to pray into spiritual change and release blessing. These are changing times so we need to be open to learn and to go deeper.
- Build unity - WPC is a generous networking organisation and we feel that doors are being opened for us to encourage, support, and enable. Unity is about Jesus, representing Him better, serving Him more successfully and making Him number one.
- Providing day-by-day leadership - Ian and Pauline will continue to inspire us, pray with us, and engage in much of the strategic thinking. My role is to make change happen with the wonderful WPC team, our support base and our partners in the UK and working with Ian and Pauline in Europe.
- Communication - we are at a significant growth point for WPC. We need to be able to communicate quickly and mobilise prayer around fast-changing issues like the refugee crisis and all the knock-on issues this will produce. It means being more deliberate in fundraising - encouraging people to invest in moving prayer forward. It means our prayer events will be supplemented by more day-by-day communication to enable us to pray effectively in our families, neighbourhoods, cities and nations.
What are the areas that you want to grow and develop within WPC to fulfil its calling?
Steve: WPC has a watchman calling to give direction and prayer encouragement. I have been watching and looking at strategic things in my city, Birmingham, for many years. There are so many practical issues for us to pray into as God calls us to lift Him up, to bless what is good and provide spiritual protection. We have a national and a global perspective and we partner with like-minded organisations. E.g. looking at Europe, we ask "what is God doing in nations like Germany, Hungary, Greece at this time" and then looking at the deeper spiritual issues - is God testing our hearts? What are the prayer issues in this time of significant shaking?
At the core of this is more prayer and greater awareness of the issues on our doorstep as well as on the news. Jesus came to dwell amongst us. He is supreme over all things. I personally feel this is a great privilege and adventure - following in His footsteps as He shapes and enables change.
So in conclusion, there are exciting times ahead for WPC. We would so value your continued prayers for us as we press on into all that God has for us in the coming days.
Christian refugees left out in cold
08 Oct 2015
About 350,000 Syrian Christians have been forced to flee their homes. Many have been killed, sold into sex slavery, or forced into hiding. They are not going to U.N. refugee camps, where they often face further persecution, sources tell WND.
As U.S. and European leaders reach out with open arms to tens of thousands of Muslim refugees flooding into Europe, the groans of persecuted Christians in Syria, Iraq and Pakistan are increasingly drowned out.
President Obama announced Thursday that the U.S. will accept an additional 10,000 Syrian refugees over the next year, on top of the 1,600 that have already arrived. The Syrian arrivals coming from United Nations refugee camps to date have been 95 percent Muslim.
When it comes to the plight of Christians, most of the voices of concern for "refugees" – whether they come from the EU, the White House, the Congress or in the media – fall silent, says a spokesman for the International Christian Concern.
The ICC posted an alert on its website Thursday that an estimated 30,000 Pakistani Christians have been forced to flee their homeland due to persecution from the Muslim majority in Pakistan. They are living in crude conditions in Thailand, Sri Lanka and Malaysia with little help from the United Nations or various international aid agencies. Christians in Pakistan are often jailed for their beliefs, their churches are bombed and their pastors killed. The president of Pakistan Christian Congress has urged the European Union, the United States, Australia, Canada and other countries to open doors to the persecuted Pakistani Christians. Nazir Bhatti, who launched the Pakistan Christian Congress in 1985 and was forced to flee Pakistan in 1998 after he challenged the nation's Islamic blasphemy laws, has written leaders of the E.U., U.K., U.S. and other European countries asking that they receive Pakistani Christian asylum seekers, reported the website Christians in Pakistan.
Bhatti's plea comes after the announcement from Prime Minister David Cameron that the U.K. will accept 20,000 Syrian refugees, while Germany is welcoming 800,000, Spain is taking 20,000 and France 24,000. President Obama has previously committed to taking 5,000 to 8,000 Syrians over the next year, but his administration announced today it is considering increasing that number by 10,000.
Refugees or migrants? Despite all of the attention being given to Syrians as "war refugees," data from the United Nations refugee agency indicates that the majority may actually be economic migrants rather than true war refugees. The UNCHR data shows, for instance, that 75 percent of the so-called refugees flooding into Europe this year are men, and that only 51 percent are Syrian.
Bhatti has petitioned the leaders of U.K., Germany, Holland, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Romania, Hungry, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and other E.U. member states to give refuge to Pakistani Christian asylum seekers by allowing them easy entry into their countries.
Lord George Carey, the former archbishop of Canterbury, in a recent op-ed in the Telegraph, urged Britain to focus on taking Syrian Christians, saying they are the most vulnerable and repeatedly targeted victims of the Syrian civil war. While Carey said he welcomes Cameron's announcement to take in more Syrian refugees, the most targeted refugees are being left behind to face their Islamic killers. "But the frustration for those of us who have been calling for compassion for Syrian victims for many months is that the Christian community is yet again left at the bottom of the heap," Carey wrote.
Source: International Prayer Connect
Watching and praying
12 Oct 2015
The role of watchmen in the Old Testament was well understood. They had to stand guard twenty-fours a day for a city. Cities are mentioned over 800 times in the Bible. Unlike today, when we have mega-cities across the world, in Old Testament times cities were sometimes quite small. What distinguished them from villages was the wall of protection built around them. Each city wall had watch-towers constructed as part of the wall. One sees this replicated today in some historic castles scattered across theBritish Isles.
Watchmen had to stand guard in shifts around the clock, watching for signs of danger.They would then inform the city elders, who would decide what action was appropriate. Isaiah 62.6, Jeremiah 6.17 and Ezekiel 3.17 (among others) speaks of the role of spiritual watchmen.
In many nations today, the church has taken this very seriously. Multiple "watches" in prayer centres and towers, churches, ministry centres - even prisons - have been established, involving many thousands of Christians in prayer on a regular basis. I believe God is calling again for such watches to be established. These are prayer watches, involving all ages. Some already are deliberately and regularly taking the night watches. African believers know that the hours of darkness are when most of the evil in the world takes place. "Men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil".
Certainly the urgency of the hour, the spread of wars, the economic uncertainty, the widening gap between rich and poor, the increasing intensity of enemy aggression against followers of Christ, the huge migrant crisis gripping Europe, creating population shifts, the terrorist threats posed by Islamist groups in many parts of the world - all this and more means that we as Christians need to be "watching and praying". Nothing is certain - everything is shifting.
How do we watch? Certainly in prayer for extended times. By keeping our eyes open to what the evil one is doing as well as to what God is doing, we will have fuel for prayer. By watching the news (but not getting fearful because of the news) can be a help, so long as we recognise that the news media can only present a perspective - not the whole truth. But we also need to see things from God's perspective as we pray. He knows everything we need to know for effective prayer. By being seated with Him in heavenly places (Ephesians 2.10), we can know that too.
We also need to watch and pray in unity. Watchmen on the walls were in touch with each other. We need to check what we are discerning with others, and then decide what to do next - in unity with both watchmen and the elders of the city. When I meet with prayer leaders in the South East region of the UK this is something we do. Where do we watch? We need to ask God what is the assignment he individually wishes us to take on. For some it will be their street, for others their village, town or city. Others know they are called to be watchmen for their nation. And some know that God has appointed them to be global watchmen. I was at a gathering of intercessory leaders in mid August, and around half of them knew they had been called to be global watchmen. I know God has called me to be one of these too.
The times we are in are serious. Satan knows that his time is short. So he is active on multiple fronts simultaneously. He works through a network of principalities and powers, and demonic systems of control. Most Christians in the West are not alert to these things (unlike our brothers and sisters in Africa and Asia, who are well aware of Satan's devices). But we need to be on our guard and alert!
Where are the watchmen? "Watch and pray", said Jesus lest you fall into diverse temptations.
Source: Brian Mills, IPC Senior Advisor
Unite in Prayer
12 Oct 2015
The 10/40 Window is located from 10 degrees south to 40 degrees north of the equator. There are 69 nations across Northern Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia in the 10/40 Window.
More than 4 billion people live here, including 90 percent of the world's poorest of the poor.
The 10/40 Window is often called "The Resistant Belt" and includes the majority of the world's Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and Communist Governments.
It is estimated that 1.6 billion of these people have never had the chance to hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ - not even once!
From 1 – 31 October 2015 we will be Praying Through the Window – a worldwide prayer initiative, focused on the following global issues in the 69 nations:
- Global Terrorism
- World Religions
- Corruption
- Lawlessness
- Persecution
Why don't you consider becoming a part of
11:55 Un✝te in Prayer
and Pray through the Window
at 11:55 am every day through October?
Source: Global Prayer Resource Network
War in Yemen
12 Oct 2015
With the war in Syria, ISIS, and the current refugee crisis in Europe, it is easy to forget the war in Yemen which has left the country at the brink of famine according to the UN's World Food Programme (WFP). Of the 27 million people in Yemen, 21 million are in aid of humanitarian aid. There are massive food shortages, lack of fresh water, sanitation and low fuel stocks. This has created a humanitarian catastrophe for the Yemeni people, especially for the children. They are suffering from malnutrition, malaria, diarrhea, dengue fever, and a host of other diseases. In addition, 1.4 million have been forced from their homes. They are refugees in their own country. The total number of people who have been killed so far is 4500, 2000 of them being civilians.
Pray for the peace of Yemen. Pray for humanitarian aid to reach the people. One prayer request from a previous PTAP mailing was answered when a ship loaded with food and aid successfully arrived in the port city of Aden last month. Pray that Jesus and his people would proclaim the gospel of the kingdom and heal every disease and every affliction (Matthew 9:35). As Jesus was moved to compassion to become the shepherd for a harassed and helpless people, may the believers in Yemen rise up and serve their people as compassionate shepherds representing the King (Matthew 9:36).
In particular, pray for one city in the country. Where there was once a bustling shopping mall, a hull of aluminum and concrete stands. Hotels and apartment buildings once full of life, now stand empty. A famous landmark of the 1800s is half gone. Pray for the people in a city torn by war. Pray that they will have courage and strength to rebuild their lives. Pray that they will hear the good news that God's deep love for them did not change even with the world around them did. Pray that those who love God will be able to reach out to the people in this city.
Here is a sobering slideshow of pictures from the current conflict. Let these images draw you into prayer for one of the most needy places on earth right now. Click here to view the slideshow.
A believer was recently imprisoned for 3 weeks. He was interrogated and released. Because of the war, religious matters are low on the radar of the security but they are still active and watching. Pray for the protection of the believers and that they would be filled with the Holy Spirit to speak the word of God with boldness (Acts 4:31).
This past weekend, a local pastor was targeted, shot and killed. Pray Rev 12:11 - that the believers would overcome Satan through persecution, the blood of the Lamb, and the word of their testimony.
Source: Praying through the Arabian Peninsula