Pray for the World – Week 27

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Praying for the world

Week 27

Church-Planting Movements, Insider Movements, Discipleship Movements

During the last 25 years, thousands of new followers of Christ have been born among peoples who were historically starved of the gospel. These mass turnings to Christ happen through ‘Church-Planting Movements’ (CPMs), ‘Insider Movements’ or ‘Discipleship Movements.’  They take many forms, and names, but share common features:

  1. They are happening among Muslim, Hindu, and Buddhist peoples.
  2. The good news spreads through natural networks of family, household, and friendship.
  3. The gospel is introduced through a person who has an abundance of natural links in the community. This person is often called a ‘person of peace’ – this refers to Jesus’ instruction to his disciples to locate and stay with ‘someone who promotes peace’ (Luke 10:6 NIV). The person of peace introduces to their network the person who is bringing the gospel.
  4. Discipleship is learnt in groups meeting to discuss the scriptures and seeking to obey Christ – a different model from that of one Bible teacher instructing a class. Arguably groups like this learn, remember, self-correct, take personal responsibility, and replicate faster than our more familiar models of doing church..
  5. Each person is taught to reproduce the discipleship process in their own networks.
  6. Living out the Kingdom by serving others is seen as important in glorifying God and in reducing hostility to the message.
  7. CPMs are birthed and bathed in prayer and fasting.

‘Insider Movements’ are special CPMs where new Christ-followers make great efforts to remain part of their Muslim, Hindu, or Buddhist community. This can be controversial and forces us all to think about what is truly ‘Christian’ and what is simply cultural. Can a Christ-follower, for example, go to the mosque and recite the Muslim confession of faith? Some do.

  • Praise God that many thousands of people are meeting Christ in Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist communities.
  • Pray for church-planting movements around the world to grow in wisdom and grace, and to keep growing and spreading.
  • Pray for wise and peaceful interactions with older examples of the Christian faith, so that “Christ may be all in all.”

The Nations

INDONESIA

This long, looped chain of 17,500 tropical islands, as wide as the continental US, is home to 267 million people who speak between them 722 languages and follow one of six official religions (including ‘Catholic’ and ‘Protestant’). Indonesia hosts many live volcanoes, is frequently rocked by earthquakes and has lost many people to tsunamis. 

Under authoritarian rule for many years, Indonesia underwent reform after a 1998 economic crisis and is now a young, vigorous democracy. It also has a youthful population; more than a quarter of all Indonesians in 2019 were aged 14 or less.  

Indonesia is around 80% Muslim (2010 estimate) – the world’s largest Muslim population. Traditional Indonesian Islam is mystical and tolerant; Islamist radicals, often foreign-inspired, are busy trying to change this. Some provinces already follow stricter versions of Islam. It is both a political and a spiritual challenge to maintain Indonesia’s proud traditions of freedom of religion.

The Christian Church has grown, especially over the past 60 years, rising from 1.4% of the population to 5.6%. It has known revival, persecution, people movements among the tribal peoples, and widespread turning to Christ among the Javanese and people of Chinese descent.  Indonesia’s Church has led the way globally in forming prayer networks for city-wide prayer.  It is now grappling with the challenge of taking the gospel to every one of Indonesia’s mosaic of peoples, and to each of the 45,000 villages that were reported in 2010 as not having a Christian congregation.

  • Pray for all those involved in leading, training, and resourcing Indonesia’s Christian Church. This Church brims with potential and at the same time is plagued by nominalism. 

  • Pray for Indonesia’s political leaders, and for the health, strength, and integrity of its institutions. 

  • Pray for the poor, of whom Indonesia still has many, both in the villages and in its great cities. 

Praying for the World is a free weekly prayer guide to inspire and inform the whole church to pray for the whole world. Visit www.lausanne.org/pray to start any week. Created through the partnership of Operation World and the Lausanne Movement.