Connecting the international prayer community

Welcome!

Want a place to connect with other prayer coordinators and prayer mobilizers? You have found it! This blog is dedicated to the army of pray-ers across the world — especially those who are coordinating and mobilizing efforts with prayer as the crucial strategy for reaching the unreached. Please feel free to submit your ideas and share prayer needs and movements which will impact the world for Christ.

I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Betty Byrd
Director of Prayer and Operations
Team Expansion

Call2Fall

Special Prayer Target: Call2Fall - Sunday, July 5, 2009

June 18, 2009

Dear Praying Friends,
God holds those of us who identify ourselves as His people preeminently responsible for our nation’s condition. He charges us to humble ourselves and pray and seek His face and turn from our wicked ways (2 Chr 7:14). FRC has launched an emphasis that embodies this charge: the Call2Fall (see http://www.Call2Fall.com).

Hastily planned due to the urgency of the hour, the Call2Fall is now just three Sundays away on July 5! Christ-centered churches from many denominations will join the Call2Fall on our knees in repentant prayer. This is the key to our hope to pass on to our children a free society, where God and the Constitution are honored, where civil government protects and defends the innocent and punishes evildoers, and where public servants labor to produce moral and healthy public policy (see Rom 13:1-7).


Why is
FRC leading this initiative? The short answer: obedience! FRC President Tony Perkins has long pondered the promise of Scripture in 2 Chronicles 7:14. He was uniquely prompted by the Holy Spirit to lead this effort.


How Call2Fall Came About -
A few months ago, Tony preached in a large Southern California church about “Real Change” in America. It was a message of “repentance.” This message was preached by the prophets, Jesus, John the Baptist, Peter and all of the apostles (see Eze 18:30-32; Mt 3:2; 4:7; Mk 6:12; Acts 2:38; 17:30). After church, an elderly lady stood in line to greet Tony. She said Tony’s message was for the entire Church and that God had called Tony to call the Church to get on its knees. Tony thanked her, and told her he would pray about it. She stopped him, “No, you don’t understand… God has called you to call His people to get on their knees.”
Tony has long believed that repentance and revival in the Church offer the only hope for reversing the godlessness and immorality that have characterized the trend in our laws and government for fifty years, a trend now spiraling out of control. He has pondered God’s call to humility, the first step in 2 Chronicles 7:l4, preceding the call to pray, repent, and seek His face. Humility is something many Americans know little about. How do we begin to humble ourselves?
Later that day, flying home, Tony picked up a book and began to read where he had left off. It was Ira Stoll’s biography of Samuel Adams. Tony’s eyes lit upon the place where the Continental Congress proclaimed a day of “public humiliation, fasting, and prayer throughout the Colonies on July 20th, 1775.” A year before the Declaration, military clashes between Britain and the colonies were already underway. It was a time of great perplexity, but God-fearing men like Samuel Adams knew what they had to do. They called Americans to seek the face of God. Three million heeded that urgent “call to fall.” Later, a friend of Adams, James Warren, described what he observed in his church that Sunday.

“This fast,” he wrote, “has been observed as you could wish; with that deference to the authority that appointed it; with that devotion that our circumstances require. It is a grand solemnity. Three millions of people on their knees at once, supplicating the aid of Heaven, is a striking circumstance, and a very singular one in America. May the blessings of Heaven follow in answer to our prayers!

When Tony saw the words, “three millions of people on their knees at once…,” he remembered the lady who told him, “God has called you to call His people to get on their knees.”


A Time to Act -
Stirred, Tony conferred with FRC’s Pastors Council, who wholeheartedly affirmed this call. The urgency of the hour demanded a swift response. It soon became clear that July 5th, 2009, the day after “Independence Day,” was the day to declare our “national dependence upon God.”


In Churches, on Sunday Morning -
The second thing became clear. While God has raised up many para-church prayer ministries during the past 35 years, this effort would be led by pastors and conducted in churches on Sunday morning, during regular Sunday services. The hope was that churches - pastors and people - would search the word, study the Biblical call to “solemn assembly,” and read about days of “humiliation, prayer and fasting” called amid historic times of national crisis.
Tony is urging pastors to organize days of fasting, prayer and other Biblical expressions of humility and repentance in their churches, as the Lord leads them. The primary call is for an act of corporate humility; for each church to unite with believers across the land by taking just 3 to 5 minutes during the Sunday morning service to fall to their knees in humble repentance, asking God to forgive and heal our land.


The Biblical Mandate -
Ezekiel, called to be a watchman to Israel just as today’s preachers are called to be to America, was warned of God that should he fail to warn God’s people of sin’s consequences that he would be held to account. Later God commanded Ezekiel to tell the watchmen to “sound the trumpet” and warn of impending danger. God said He has no desire to see sinners die; rather He wants them to repent so that He can withhold His judgment. He warned that if the watchmen saw judgment coming, but failed to warn the people, the people would die, but the watchmen would give an account to God for their blood (Eze 3:16-21; 33:1-16).
Through the prophet Joel, the Lord also issued a call to the spiritual watchmen of that day:

Blow the trumpet in Zion, sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly: Gather the people, sanctify the congregation, assemble the elders, gather the children, and those that suck the breasts: let the bridegroom go forth of his chamber, and the bride out of her closet.

Let the priests, the ministers of the LORD, weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say, Spare thy people, O LORD, and give not thine heritage to reproach, that the heathen should rule over them: wherefore should they say among the people, Where is their God?

Then will the LORD be jealous for his land, and pity his people (Joel 2:15 -18).

Time is Short - Sufficient numbers of Christians and churches must hasten to meet God’s conditions as outlined in 2 Chronicles 7:14 for real change to happen and for our nation to have a chance. Without it, the handwriting for America is already “on the wall.” Our corporate sins are multiplying swiftly and with them, unthinkable consequences.
For example, let’s look at the consequences of just one contemporary issue. Five New England states: Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine, have legalized same-sex marriage. So has the Midwestern state of Iowa. The public schools in each state will teach and defend homosexuality and same-sex “marriage” as legally protected behavior to schoolchildren at every age of development. However, Jesus warned that it would be better for a person to be drowned in the bottom of the sea than to cause one innocent, believing child, to stumble or sin (Mt 18:6 ASV, ESV).
Yet six states and the District of Columbia will all soon be teaching public school children that homosexuality is normal and OK. They will teach that homosexual “marriage” is good - morally equivalent to holy matrimony. Isaiah wrote, “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! (Is 5:20) This is just one of thousands of consequences that this one sinful public policy change will make.


Please Help Enlist Others for Call2Fall -
There are just three weeks to go! Prayer Targets readers understand the urgent necessity of prayer and repentance. We need your help now to inform churches across the nation about the Call2Fall!
Would you please consider doing three things?

  1. Sign up to participate in the Call2Fall (visit www.Call2Fall.com and click on “I’m in.”)
  2. Enlist your pastor and church to participate.
  3. Send Christian friends a personal note, urging them and their churches to join us.

Send this link: http://call2fall.com/welcome_participant to everyone you know. There are devotional Blogs, inspirational videos, suggestions for individual and corporate prayer, bulletin inserts, Bible study materials and more.

  • Please pray often between now and July 5 that God will use this Biblical call to birth a new movement of prayer and repentance! May tens of thousands of churches embrace the Call2Fall! May God birth a season of solemn assemblies that bring revival to the Church and another Great Awakening! May God give our children an America where He is honored as Savior and Lord, that will become a light to the nations (2 Chr 7:14; Jer 3:12; 4:1-4; Joel 1:13-15; 2:12-19; Mal 3:7a; Mt 4:5-6; Acts 3:19; Jas 4:10; 1 Pet 5:6).

As always there are many significant problems that demand our attention, but nothing is as urgent as praying for this nationwide, God-honoring response to 2 Chronicles 7:14. Thank you for your faith and past prayers, and thank you for praying now!

Sincerely,

Rev. Pierre Bynum
National Prayer Director

Family Research Council: 801 G Street N.W. Washington, D.C. 20001
P: 202/393-2100 or 800/225-4008 W: frc.org

TAi Khun Shan People of Myanmar

With a loud, harsh voice, the Burmese Army officer said, “We know you have many in this village fighting for the Shan State National Army (SSNA)! From now on, no one leaves this village. Anyone who does risks being killed. We put landmines in your rice field.” A frightened Tai Khun woman later told her son, “you must run or they will kill you. You must fight for us and our Shan people.” The boy quietly left knowing he might never see his family again. He worried they would starve because they could not get rice from their fields.

About 120,000 Tai Khun Shan people live in the remote hilly areas of Myanmar along with other Shan subgroups. Myanmar’s government and military has dominated them for many years. Many Shan subgroups, including the Tai Khun, united to form their own rebel group (SSNA) to fight against the Burmese army. This has caused these people great hardships and persecution.

Their primary source of spiritual teaching comes from Buddhist monks.

The Tai Khun Shan people find little comfort in their Buddhist religion, so they seek help from witch doctors for their serious problems with malaria, poor nutrition, and AIDS. Very few have ever heard the gospel, so they cannot look to Jehovah Jireh as their provider and shepherd.

Pray that God will open ways so that the Tai Khun leaders will know God’s Word and trust Him for answers to the difficult challenges they face each day.-PD

Tai Nua Shan People of Laos and China

With bright, joyful eyes, the Asian missionary was sharing an update in his church. “Ten years ago the ‘Tai Nua Christian’ was thought to be non-existent. Today there are a small number of faithful Tai Nua people living in China and Laos. The believers have met persecution.

The authorities have questioned those reaching out for Christ. The result has been the beginning of a small growing church with local lay leadership. The radio Bible broadcasts and some Scriptures translated for them have resulted in an encouraging direction for the Tai Nuas.”

Tai Nua means “northern Tai.” About 100,000 live along the river valleys in China’s southwestern province of Yunnan, and another 50,000 reside in Laos. In both regions the Tai Nuas work as farmers and raise domestic farm animals. They have limited resources for education, although some young people are seeking education and jobs in the cities. Animism is underneath the surface of their Buddhist religion. Their villages contain spirit houses where they make offerings and perform ceremonies to keep the evil spirits away. Every important event in the lives of the Tai Nuas from birth, marriage to death are connected to honoring or appeasing spirits.

Pray that believers will bring support to the new Tai Nua followers of Christ. Pray that many Tai Nua people will no longer live in fear but will put their faith in the one and only Living God as a testimony to their non-believing neighbors. Pray that the radio ministries will bear lasting fruit.-PD

Lowland Lao

The pig roasting on the rotating spit gave off a delicious aroma that assured the Lowland Lao people who were raising the house that they would have a hearty meal to pay for their efforts. Each Lowland Lao family is fairly self-sufficient, growing its own food and making its own clothing and tools. However, there are occasions that call for the cooperative efforts of several families. Entire villages work together for big jobs like raising a new house or during the intense period of transplanting and harvesting rice.

The Lowland Lao village economy is centered on rice cultivation.

Glutinous, or sticky rice is their staple food, so virtually everyone is first and foremost a rice farmer. Villagers may have other skills, but they are supplementary to rice production.

Another cooperative effort for the village is building its wat, or Buddhist temple. The wat often serves as the venue for community gatherings. Although the Lowland Laos are Buddhists, they also practice forms of animism and ancestor worship. The village chief leads in secular affairs, but the Buddhist monk has authority in religious issues. Traditionally the young men enter village monasteries for about three months to study Buddhism.

Pray that the Lord will give mission agencies His strategies for effectively evangelizing the Lao people. Pray that God will open the hearts of Laotian governmental leaders to the gospel. Pray that believers will take authority over false spiritual principalities and powers that keep the Lao people bound.-JS

II Cor. 3:16

But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.

This is what happens when the lost finally understand the glory of the Lord and are drawn to Him. It’s like a veil is lifted from their eyes, and they can finally see clearly into the spirit realm!

Pray that the veil will be taken from the eyes of the Lao peoples as we pray for them today.