Australia Christian prayer leaders invite their brothers and sisters in Christ, prayer groups, prayer networks and churches to join with them all over the world to pray at sunrise on New Year's Day 2018 at a public location such as a hill, lookout or landmark in your city or town. Already we have registrations from USA, South Africa, Cameroon, India, North Korea, Thailand, Germany, Czech Republic, UK, Switzerland, Fiji, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, New Zealand, and Australia.
See 2018 short promo video: www.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=LSTHRAixKOQ
Warwick Marsh, coordinator for Australia’s National Day of Prayer & Fasting said, “David said in Psalm 108:2, “I will wake the dawn with my song.” So, during this time of prayer we want to focus on giving great praise to God. We also want to pray for revival and transformation, that God will bring healing to our land as it says in 2 Chronicles 7:14. Let us all pray for a great harvest of souls for the Lord Jesus Christ.”
Marsh continued, “In declaring Jesus Christ as Lord at this worldwide Sunrise Prayer Relay we are circling the globe with prayer, praise and worship and surrendering our lives to Jesus Christ for the glory of God. Psalms 113:3 says, “From the rising of the sun to the place where it sets, the name of the Lord is to be praised.” Use the prayer resources on the website and social media and register your location at: www.sunriseprayerrelay.org Our prayer is that with your help, this worldwide Prayer and Praise Relay will go viral.”
Pat Steele, a prayer and worship leader in Wollongong Australia, said, “We encourage you to pray the Lord's Prayer together aloud as the sun rises and make a declaration that Jesus Christ is Lord of your life, your family, your region and your nation. At your location we encourage you to include praise and worship, prayers, and scripture readings. We suggest 30 minutes, but you can pray for longer. You could even take communion, shine a torch, or light a candle. What you do for your sunrise celebration is up to you.”
Share photos and videos from your location on social media.
Use the hashtag: #sunriseprayerrelay
Website: www.sunriseprayerelay.org
Facebook: www.facebook.com/sunriseprayerrelay
Instagram: www.instagram.com/sunriseprayerrelay
Longer Video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=FybiSXxbl6Q
Contact: Warwick Marsh 61 418 225212 or Pat Steele 61 433 006934
600+ mission people gathered at Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California, December 5-7, for the Finishing the Task event. Our purpose was to focus on the remaining unengaged unreached people groups, whole ethnolinguistic and cultural groups that still do not have exposure to Christ’s Good News through a resident team of indigenous Christians or missionaries. A list of 1347 such people groups are carefully catalogued and monitored on the FTT website www.finishingthetask.com for churches, mission agencies, prayer groups and individuals who would like to adopt them for prayer and mission engagement.
Encouragingly, it was the first time that a special prayer track was part of the event, and as a result, a new strategic group was formed to consider how best to mobilize ongoing, specific intercession for each UPG until they are reached and Jesus word in Matthew 24:14 is accomplished-- that all peoples will have the gospel proclaimed as a witness before the end comes.
What amazing and exciting days we are living in, even potentially seeing the Great Commission fulfilled before our eyes in the coming years! Please do join in this still enormous effort, asking those churches, organizations and prayer groups you are in touch with to adopt at least one of these spiritually needy groups in prayer. It is the crucial and initial way to breakthrough and the Lord will call and raise up laborers as He said he would if we pray. “The harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few; therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.” (Luke 10:2)
During the event, we premiered the new video on the integration of prayer and mission. Attached are the final versions that you are free to use and share. The earlier version shared with you last month needed some further refinement so please use these links:
Spirit of the Moravians 9-min
Spirit of the Moravians 3-min
Would you please pray with us that this video will go “viral” and be spread around the world so that millions of believers will see and find their role in praying for the unreached people groups, with many also going to share Jesus Christ with them?
Pray too for the effective integration of prayer and mission and that the prayer and mission movements will meld together increasingly to carry out His Great Commission.
Specifically pray that the Finishing the Task initiative will accelerate and that all the 1347 still unengaged unreached groups will have their own international ministry networks connecting and focusing efforts in sensitive, Spirit-empowered and guided ways that they may be reached ASAP.
Thanks for your partnership in this most important of assignments—to make Jesus known to the ends of the earth and every people group while there is still time and freedom to do so.
John Robb
IPC Chairman
The UPRising PH has come at a very crucial time for the nation. When the Lord led the National Dream Team to do the gathering in Davao City, Mindanao, little did they know that the Marawi War would take place and that the country’s President would put Mindanao under Martial Law for the duration of the armed conflict. While this news deterred some would-be goers, it also sparked an intercessory fire in the young people. Because of security reasons an outdoor prayer gathering was not allowed to be held, but the Solemn Assembly in Mindanao still became a defining moment.
One of the important highlights during the convergence was the Rapid Fire Prayer Time. As the 17 regions of the Philippines were called out one-by-one, representatives from the respective regions rose to their feet, and the entire gymnasium thundered with prayers from everyone else. During those moments, the Philippines was not an archipelago; it was ONE NATION. Regionalism, which had long divided its people, was drowned in shouts of affirmations and prophetic declarations. When faced with the threat of losing their kababayans (countrymen) from the southern part of the country, the nation was confronted with their deep history of indifference and offense. Nevertheless, the Lord broke down barriers, and is continuing to restore love and build relationships between the generations and the regions.
One of the greatest blessings the youth in South Africa are thankful for is how the UPRising SA has brought the youth in their community to a higher level of unity, and that it has shown them the power of coming together in unity to pray, encourage the Body, and share the Word of God.
Also, because of the different issues the youth in South Africa are faced with, UPRising SA has raised an awareness in the community that there is hope found in Jesus Christ. During the conference, they witnessed drug addicts receive salvation and ex-gang members repent and accept Jesus as Lord and Savior. It was a sight to behold! For even just for one person coming to know the love of Jesus, all the sacrifices and hard work put into the preparations were all worth it!
Online
www.unitedprayerrising.com/donate
Bank Transfer
Bank: Wells Fargo
Account Name:
JESUS REVOLUTION NOW
Account Number: 2765314063
Bank Routing Number: 111900659
Bolivia UPRISING youth prayer assembly, Nov. 29th-December 2nd in Cochabamba- about 1000 are expected to take part from within Bolivia and from other nations of South America.
Please pray for His strong anointing on all who take part and especially for the organizers and speakers that this event will be powerfully used of the Lord to touch and transform many lives and the nations from which they come.
For more information, see this website http://uprisingbol.pdlanzas.org/index.php/english
Global UPRISING planning process for a World Youth Prayer Assembly in October 2018- Please pray with us in the IPC and our colleagues in this youth prayer movement that arrangements will come together well for this epic event to be held in Jakarta, Indonesia.
Pray that local leaders will fully get on board and that the planning meetings in January will be effective. We will need His funding breakthrough as well.
“If you are a Christian leader, you would undoubtedly be blessed at this conference!
The deepening of the spiritual life, and it’s resulting vitality, is a keynote message that the Holy Spirit is trumpeting throughout the earth today.” - Edmund Chan Leadership Mentor, Covenant EFC, Singapore/Founder, Global Alliance of IDMC
Focus areas include:
* Abandoned Devotion to Jesus - The Key To Fulfilling The Great Commission
* Being Saturated with the Powerful Presence of God
* Pursuing the fullness of the Spirit: The Divine Factor in Mission
* The Surrendered Life: The Indispensable Factor in Mission
* Enjoyable Prayer To Fuel Mission
* Becoming Bible-Centered Leaders in The Great Commission
Speakers include:
Dr. ThuoMburu (Kenya)
Remo Paul (India)
Graham Wells (USA)
Joel Iyorwa (Nigeria)
Kelly Shaw (Thailand)
Ryan Shaw (Thailand)
Worship by Julio & Noemi Vallejos (Argentina)
Find all Conference info and register at www.svm2.net
Or contact Rita Chiu +66-99-371-5531 Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
With only 31 days till 2018 it is time to begin preparing to start the New Year off with a wave of prayer around the nations.
We invite our brothers and sisters in Christ, prayer groups, and churches to join us all over the world to pray at sunrise on New Year's Day 2018 at a public location like a hill, lookout or landmark in your city or town.
Register your 'Public' or 'Private' and join the Facebook Event and let's get the conversation started. http://www.sunriseprayerrelay.org/
Invite your friends, prayer groups and churches to join in the New Year's Day Sunrise Prayer Relay and together let's start 2018 with prayer, because when people pray God moves.
600 or so mission leaders and others will gather to focus on the remaining 1347 unengaged unreached peoples that need to be adopted for prayer and mission.
Pray: for the organizers, especially Paul Eshleman who is battling some illness and is one of the main speakers.
Pray: that a new close convergence between the prayer and mission movements will happen and that all these UPGs will be adopted and reached even by 2025.
For more details, see http://www.finishingthetask.com
'"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind," and "your neighbour as yourself."' — Luke 10:27.
Context
The story of the Good Samaritan starts with Jesus’ commandments in this verse, as Jesus answers the questions of: 'What must we do to inherit eternal life?', and 'Who is my neighbour?' Loving God and loving our neighbour are commands to his followers, his people, his church.
After a horrendous series of beatings, being burnt and left naked to public humiliation a woman accused of witchcraft in Papua New Guinea said this: “Like a bent old cooking pot I laid there alone and nobody came to see me, because I was declared eating humans…” (from an interview led by Fr. Philip Gibbs, 2016). Her story recounts that neither the police, nor her family, nor even a doctor would come to help her.
Who is our neighbour and where are the ‘Good Samaritans’ addressing child witchcraft accusations?
Thank God
Even when situations look and are horrendous, there is light. Give thanks to God for the "countless acts of heroism, generosity and courage …often by strangers", reported by Dr Miranda Forsyth (who is working with Fr. Philip Gibbs to address witchcraft accusations in Papua New Guinea) as these ‘Good Samaritans’ intervene where others will not help.
Let us continue to give thanks for the groups of people SCWA and others are impacting across DRC, Togo, Ghana, Nigeria, Tanzania and elsewhere in Africa, who are seeking to address witchcraft accusations, not by condemnation, but by bringing God’s love and justice into play.
Please Pray
Pray: that children will increasingly have a voice in their communities, nationally and internationally.
Pray: that God will allow his church to move from a position of sometimes colluding and encouraging fear in communities and harm to children, to a position where Christ’s church is seen to take the lead in ending accusations of witchcraft to children.
Pray: that God would heal communities, so that it would not take a stranger to stand up for the abused and rejected in any society, that hate and fear would be replaced by love and acts of kindness.
Pray: Giving thanks that our greatest role model, Jesus, became a stranger, so he could do exactly that.
Thank you for standing with us in our Standing in the Gap prayer campaign. Please continue to press on in prayer with us for the sake of the children and the glory of the name of Jesus. It would be great if you could share this latest bulletin with others in your prayer networks.
With much appreciation,
Susie Howe – Director
The Bethany Children's Trust
http://www.bethanychildrenstrust.org.uk/
This week marked a century since one of the darkest chapters in human history began, and a truly evil worldview was put into practice.
One hundred years ago, Bolshevik revolutionaries stormed the Winter Palace in Petrograd, the seat of the Provisional Government of Russia. They also seized post offices, train stations, and telegraphs in the dead of night. When the people of Russia’s capital city awoke, they were in what Rhodes Scholar David Satter described as “a different universe.”
That universe was a communist one. Vladimir Lenin’s so-called “October Revolution,” which took place in November on the Gregorian calendar, sought to establish the first-ever Marxist state. After a lengthy civil war, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics emerged, marking one of the greatest setbacks Western Civilization has suffered since the fall of Rome. Communism would eventually rule one-third of the planet, condemning one-and-a-half billion people to lives under brutal, totalitarian governments, and leaving behind a trail of over 100 million corpses.
So many people died because, as Satter explains in The Wall Street Journal, the communist worldview sees the state as supreme, replacing God, Himself. It’s infallible, it transcends morality, and it demands absolute loyalty from its citizens.
Karl Marx taught that only such a state, acting for its people, could break the chains of economic oppression and private property, creating a “new man.” This type of person, depicted in Soviet propaganda posters with bulging muscles and steely eyes, would work willingly for the common good, seek only to advance the interests of his comrades, and usher in a worker’s paradise.
The communist ideal was nothing short of a godless eschatology—a Heaven on earth.
What we got instead was hell on earth. Through political purges, forced population transfers, manmade famines, gulags, and a so-called “Great Leap Forward,” dictators like Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, and Pol Pot presided over some of the worst mass murders in human history, all directly motivated by the desire to bring about that communist paradise.
It wasn’t until Christmas 1991 that the darkness which had fallen on Russia in 1917 began to lift. The Soviet sickle and hammer descended over the Kremlin for the last time, quietly announcing the end of what President Reagan had dubbed the “evil empire.”
But for millions of people the world over, this godless worldview remained and remains a political reality. China’s forced abortions, Cuba’s political repression, and North Korea’s persecution of Christians are just some of the atrocities that have continued in communist countries since the fall of the Soviet Union.
And here in the United States, communist ideology enjoys a kind of immortality in our universities, where many professors openly identify as Marxists, and students sport those ever-popular Che Guevara t-shirts.
One recent survey by the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation found that half of millennials would rather live in a socialist or communist country than in a capitalist democracy. More than 20 percent have a favorable view of Marx, and thirteen percent think of Joseph Stalin as a “hero.”
The only good news is that 71 percent of those surveyed couldn’t identify the correct definition of communism. They don’t understand what they’re praising.
As we look back on the aftermath of that October revolution, we should commit ourselves to teaching our kids, our friends, and whoever else will listen where communism belongs: squarely in the dustbin of history.
Perhaps the best way to commemorate communism’s 100th birthday is to pray that we can fully and finally bury this evil worldview in our lifetimes.
Pray: for effective education on the failed utopian promises of communism, as well as the results of its worldview on humankind.
Pray: that the scourge of communism will end on the earth.
Pray: for communist countries in the world including China, Cuba, Laos, North Korea, Vietnam.
Pray: for countries with strong communist influence including Nepal, Guyana and Moldova.
For video overviews of the above countries, visit http://prayercast.com/index.html
Find a BreakPoint radio station in your area – Click here: http://ambassadoradvertising.com/station-map/?program=126
ERIC METAXAS WITH SHANE MORRIS
Is a Door Opening for Christianity in Saudi Arabia?
(Worthy News) - Stunning political developments in Saudi Arabia have some wondering if the strict Muslim-ruled Kingdom could become more tolerant of Christianity.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman has said he intends to return Saudi Arabia to "moderate Islam" and open the country to all faiths.
As part of his reform drive, dozens of officials – including 11 princes – have been arrested on corruption charges. The kingdom also says it has dismissed several thousand imams from mosques for spreading extremism.
The percentage of Saudi Arabian citizens who are Christians today is officially zero, because conversion from Islam to Christianity has long been punishable by death.
But it's estimated that between four and five percent of the population is Christian – mostly guest workers who are not allowed to worship openly.
Some are hopeful that change is coming.
"The days of a religious monopoly in Saudi Arabia are over," says Christian Palestinian journalist Daoud Kuttab to Christianity Today, "No more pushing Islam down every citizen's throat."
Andrea Zaki, president of the Protestant Churches of Egypt, said of the reform promises, "I hope it will lead Saudi Arabia and the region to a more open society."
But time will tell whether Prince Mohammed can bring real reform and religious pluralism to a nation that has known little to none of it since its founding.
More: http://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/world/2017/november/is-a-door-opening-for-christianity-in-saudi-arabia