During the Herrnhut Consultation, we had a strong focus on praying for revival in Germany and Europe. Here is an encouraging word. Eric Metaxas notes some trends that point to an increased spiritual hunger among Europeans and asks: “Has the demise of Christianity in Europe been greatly exaggerated? There are some encouraging signs of life.”

“It’s become customary to refer to Europe as “post-Christian.” But this is an overstatement—and it obscures large differences in religious practices across the continent: For instance, Poles are far more likely to attend church on a weekly basis than Scandinavians—and even more likely than Americans. Still, it’s difficult to dispute the idea that Christianity’s influence in Europe, on both a personal and societal level, is in decline.

But a pair of recent stories suggests that this may be changing.

The first story was a column in the U.K.’s Telegraph newspaper. The headline read “Our politicians are more devout than ever—so it’s time we started taking their faith seriously.”

In it, Nick Spencer, whose just-released book is entitled “The Mighty and the Almighty: How political leaders do God,” notes that rather than European politics becoming a “God-free zone,” one of the “most striking trends of the last generation or so is how many Christian politicians have risen to the top of the political tree.”

Whereas in the thirty-five years following the end of World War II, only one Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, could be described as “devout,” since then, at least three of his successors—Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair, and now Theresa May—could be described that way.

And it’s not only Britain. As Christianity Today recently told readers, German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christianity is “deep,” “genuine,” and “important” to her life.

Even in France, the country that invented and institutionalized modern secularism, what the French call “laïcité,” Catholicism has become a kind of “X Factor” in the upcoming presidential elections.

And that brings me to the second story. In the most recent issue of the Jesuit magazine, America, Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry told readers that a few years back, he noticed that “Whenever I was less than five minutes early for Mass, I had to go to the overflow room.” His church “was filled to the gills every Sunday, with young families and children most of the time.”

He decided to see how widespread this phenomenon was, so he visited parishes all over Paris and found the same thing: Sunday high Mass is packed in most parishes in Paris. The same is true in France’s second largest city, Lyon. It’s even true, albeit to a somewhat lesser extent, in his family’s home village.

What was once a revival that “you could fleetingly smell in the air,” has become more tangible, nowhere more so than in the movement called La Manif Pour Tous, “protest for all.” La Manif got 200,000 people in Paris alone to march in protest against legalizing same-sex marriage.

This in turn spawned other Christian movements in a country that supposedly had moved beyond that sort of thing. What these movements share is an opposition to liberalism, which in the French context means “a drive for ever-greater individual liberty.” As Gobry writes, “Liberalism, in this view, is responsible for sexual depravity and the culture of death,” and “leads both to abortions and to quasi-slaves in third world factories making disposable consumer items of questionable worth.”

While French Christianity still has a ways to go, what Gobry describes brings to mind the “cloud as small as a man’s hand . . . rising from the sea” Elijah’s servant saw in 1 Kings 18. Secularism has left Europeans “in a dry and weary land where there is no water.” Let us pray that God sends much-needed rain to both sides of the Atlantic.”

Eric Metaxas, Breakpoint Daily, May 2, 2017

MANCHESTER: THE “MAHABBA” LOVE CHALLENGE. (MAHABBA=LOVE IN ARABIC)

I woke up on Tuesday with my heart churning about Manchester. As a Mahabba team across the UK, we were respectfully remaining silent to give Manchester time to grieve and find a way to respond. However, it became so obvious that we could not remain silent: people were looking for a way to respond, and for someone to help them come to terms with this tragedy, as so many people are feeling numb. I so well remember that same numbness when I was an Officer in the British Army and four of my soldiers were blown up senselessly in a radio-controlled explosion in our first week of action. The shock was so immense that I never really processed that pain, and just locked it up inside. I do identify with those who are grieving and have suffered loss, so it is with some trepidation, and a feeling of humility and brokenness, that I am now writing.

“CHOOSE LOVE, MANCHESTER!” said the Manchester poet laureate. Right now, we are all facing the Love Challenge: will we choose to love sacrificially when nothing makes sense and our emotions are either totally numb or screaming inside? It's at times like this that we need to remember that people are never our enemy, whether Muslim or Christian, LGBT or straight, black or white...whatever the differences, everyone is loved and has been purchased by our precious Jesus, who gave His life for each one with no exceptions. My Bible says that Love never fails, but oh how it hurts sometimes! This is the Love Challenge!

I remember just after the events of 9/11 that Muslims in the UK were terrified of being persecuted and so they gathered in large numbers in mosques to try to make sense of the events. I quickly sent a message to all the other pastors in my town, asking them to join me outside the local mosque after Friday prayers, so that we could press flowers into every hand as they came out, telling them not to be afraid: we were true believers in "Isa Al Masih" - Jesus the Messiah - and they could count on us to be their friends. This was the Love Challenge – to respond in the opposite spirit, when our love tank was totally dry, and inside we were raging against Radical Islam; we had to choose to love the very people whose Holy Book had inspired such senseless carnage.

Sadly not one pastor turned up, due possibly to fear or anger, and I was left alone with 5 intercessors pressing flowers into every hand. Most were in tears as we did this, and one young man jumped into my arms and said, “I don't care where you come from- I'm following you!” This was the impact of one simple act of true love. That moment profoundly changed my life: learning to see behind all the veils and facades of religion, refusing to stereotype people, and actually feel God’s father heart of love for them.

The seeds of this love for Muslims had been sown over several years as I went ahead of Reinhard Bonnke, as his Campaign Director, into many Islamic cities, believing that thousands would come to Christ. During our prayer times, we again and again heard the prophetic heart cry of God from Isaiah 45, that He would give us these precious Muslim people, whom He saw as “treasures in darkness”. Somehow we needed to choose to see Muslims as people just like us – but people who had become prisoners of an ideology which denied them the joy of living in the Light of God’s forgiveness and grace.

It can be at any moment that we suddenly, even years later, are able to release the pain of those moments. For me it happened at the National Prayer Breakfast in the Houses of Parliament in London last year, as my heart was heavy after the news of the Orlando bombing. At the breakfast, unexpectedly all the memories of losing my 4 soldiers almost 40 years ago began to resurface: I listened to the Middle Eastern Bishop talk of the martyrdom of 21 courageous men from his Church being beheaded on the beach in Libya, and how he knelt down and then tweeted #fatherforgive. He then finished speaking, there was silence, and the band began to play.  I cannot explain what happened next as I closed my eyes, but tears just flowed, and those years of locked up pain were released and healed….instantly!

Only embracing the Cross at this time will enable us to respond well to the Love Challenge. Oh, how it hurts, but it is the only safe place to bring the kaleidoscope of emotions and reactions that we are all feeling.

Here is the animation we've created for phones to mobilize your Christian youth to pray for and engage with local Muslims.  https://vimeo.com/216650233. (If you don’t have the Vimeo app, you can get it from the App Store:http://bit.ly/vimeo_ios )

Please do forward it to some youth who love social media and can send it on to their friends. (If you’d like us to make a copy in another language, do let me know!)

If you’re also passionate about Muslims finding Jesus here’s the Lausanne article about Mahabba:

https://www.lausanne.org/content/lga/2017-01/ordinary-christians-can-reach-muslims-better-than-specialists.  

If you want to know more, here’s a dropbox: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/qnsq44uxgped1mz/AABqYXJrG0u-TzJGM9-7ITiea?dl=0  

Gordon Hickson is an Anglican Vicar from Oxford, and has been in Missions and Pastoral work for over 30 years. Recently he and others have launched a Prayer based relational network called Mahabba, motivating and mobilizing ordinary Christians to unveil Jesus to Muslims. (https://vimeo.com/218947549)