Scripture and the Church’s history give us many examples of the great impact when a whole community undertakes prayer and fasting together. All Christians everywhere are invited to unite for a month of prayer and fasting in parishes, schools and homes across Australia during the month of October 2016. It is hoped that this time of national conversation on the subject of marriage will be used to encourage everyone to pray for the well-being of marriages and families, and in a particular way for people who are ‘same-sex attracted’ or ‘gender-questioning’ to think deeply. Resources for the month include a parish and school resource kit, bulletin clips and prayers for each Sunday, a poster, prayer cards, and a downloadable resource kit.

UNESCO, the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, at its executive board meeting in Paris passed a Palestinian-backed measure with 24 votes in favour, 6 against and 26 abstentions, referring to the Temple Mount as Al Haram Al Sharif (the Islamic name) without mentioning that it is the holiest site in Judaism. It also used the term Buraq Plaza for the Western Wall Plaza, denying the Jewish connection to the site. Hebron’s Tomb of the Patriarchs is called al-Haram al-Ibrahimi, and Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem called the Bilal ibn Rabah Mosque. Israel’s delegate to UNESCO said, ‘Israel and the Jewish people don’t require UNESCO’s or any other country’s confirmation of the special connection between the Jewish people and the State of Israel. There is no connection of another people to another place in the world that comes close to the strength and depth of our connection to Jerusalem from a religious, historical and national perspective.’

Since 1987 more than 1,300 people in Pakistan have been charged with blasphemy, with the number of accusations in a single year rising to over a hundred in 2014. A disproportionate number of those accused are Christians. A lawyer, a judge and two leading politicians have been assassinated for taking a stand against the blasphemy laws. Aasia Bibi's appeal against her death sentence for apostasy has been adjourned again, following the decision of a leading judge to withdraw from the trial on the grounds of conflict of interest. The blasphemy laws are being used to fuel the flames of intolerance and must be repealed but it will take immense courage to withstand intimidation and release Aasia Bibi - a fact underlined by the large number of riot police at the court. 150 Muslim clerics have issued a fatwa warning the government not to release Bibi, and threatening to kill anyone who helped any person accused of blasphemy.

Low numbers of young people voting in the recent general election (7 October) reflect their lack of interest in the country’s politics. Unusually for the Arab world, Moroccan elections have the merit of not being entirely predictable because the 'dirty tricks' department of the Ministry of Interior has reined in its activities in recent years. King Mohammed VI is understood to want a genuine political arena to develop, in order to balance, if not counterbalance, the ultimate political authority which he still enjoys. The 2011 general election victory of the Islamist-led government of the Party for Justice and Development (PJD) was seen as an experiment in affording greater executive leeway to a popularly elected party. 43% of eligible voters participated in last week’s election but many young voters did not participate, seeing little merit in the elite club of political interest groups and lobbies constituting most of the thirty political parties that contested the ballot.

This story was recently told by David Platt in Tennessee. A southeast Asian believer trained by Southern Baptist missionaries began sharing the Gospel in a village that previously was totally unreached. The villagers responded attentively, but then the village leader died, and they superstitiously believed his death was caused by evil spirits upset by Christian activities. Discouraged by the turnaround, the Christians went to express their condolences at the leader’s house. Standing over the fallen leader, they prayed that God would show His mercy to the people in the village, and show His glory and His love to them. As they were praying the man coughed! Then he started breathing once more. They shared the Gospel, people started coming to faith in Christ, and the villagers starting burning their idols. Platt acknowledged that there is no medical evidence to verify the resurrection, but said, ‘I do know at villages like this, they know how to recognise death.’

More than 40,000 people from all over the world tuned in to watch Anglican church services in the last year as part of an initiative to open up worship via social media. Many types of liturgy, from traditional carols to a service in a tent at Glastonbury Festival, were watched on mobile phones, laptops and tablets as part of a ChurchLive scheme. A total of 53 churches representing diverse styles streamed services via Twitter app Periscope in a move to provide a first taste of worship, prayer and preaching for people unfamiliar with the Church of England. More traditional worship broadcasts included a carol service at St Martin-in-the-Fields church, London, while at St George's, Leeds, a group were baptised in the middle of a modern style of liturgy featuring drums and an electric guitar.

What is God’s plan in uncertainty? He wants His people to stand together and pray. As we pray and praise, situations change. This is a crucial time for the UK: a time of tension, pressure and spiritual opportunity. God wants to bless our nation and, through us, the world, so we need to get ready. There is an opportunity on Saturday to stand with others to worship the King of kings and intercede for our schools, towns and cities to be flooded with God’s purposes and plans: plans beyond our imagination, purposes that He intends for our lives. Come tomorrow to the International Convention Centre in Birmingham on Saturday, from 2:00pm to 6:30pm, to pray for God’s deep blessings of unity, mercy, and reconciliation. You will be standing with key organisations and thousands of Christians asking for an extraordinary move of the Gospel to set people free and change lives.  If you can’t come, why not join us in prayer where you are?

For forty years, Prisons Week has prepared prayer literature to enable Christians to pray for the needs of all those affected by prisons: prisoners and their families, victims of crime and their communities, those working in the criminal justice system, and the many people who are involved in caring for those affected by crime inside and outside our prisons. The prison population in England and Wales in October 2016 is 85,639, and 96,993 children have a parent currently in prison. On Wednesday the Prison Governors’ Association asked the Government to set up an independent public inquiry into the state of prisons in England and Wales, due to an ‘unprecedented’ rise in prison violence and suicides. Last week Justice Secretary Elizabeth Truss promised an extra £14m to recruit more prison officers to change a ‘brutal environment’. For a prayer leaflet to help you intercede go to:

After several successful years of running a Street Pastors Network National Prayer Week, this year the Street Pastors’ national prayer coordinator has named October a 24/7 National Prayer Month. The prayer theme is ‘Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven’. In line with this theme, people are asked to pray blessings over our nation and anything else they feel led to by God. All Street Pastors, prayer groups, volunteers and church groups who want to support local Street Pastors are asked to take a period of one hour or more in October to pray, and to contact http://www.streetpastors.org/ to let them know the time that will be happening. People can also adopt a street in their town and pray blessings daily over everyone who lives in or uses the street during this month.

The House of Commons held a three-hour emergency debate on Tuesday on the unfolding humanitarian catastrophe in Aleppo and Syria. An emergency debate is usually called at short notice about an urgent internal matter, so it is unusual to have an emergency debate on international affairs. Politicians at home and abroad have called for a no-fly zone over Syria and the provision of safe havens for fleeing refugees. Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson told MPs that Russia's actions in Syria amount to 'war crimes’. Reportedly, sixteen people were killed by heavy bombing which targeted besieged rebel-held neighbourhoods, The former deputy supreme Allied commander of Nato said that the British should ‘absolutely’ be training other armed forces in the war-torn country and should occupy the skies to enforce a no-fly zone. See article 7 in the World section.