Lausanne Part 1: Praying for the Unreached Claude Marsh - 13 Oct 2010

Claude Marsh is part of 24-7 Prayer in Malta and is preparing to head to South Africa to take part in the Lausanne congress. He will be bringing us news from South Africa next week but today he asks us to pray in the run up to the event.

On the 16th of October over 4,000 Christian leaders from around the world will descend on Cape Town, South Africa for the Lausanne Third Congress on World Evangelization. The fancy name basically means that it’s the third meeting within the Lausanne Movement that is gathering the contemporary Christian leaders to evaluate and stimulate world Evangelization. The first congress, in 1974, was a result of Billy Graham’s desire to unite the church in the common task of the total evangelisation of the world.

Lausanne and the unreached

2000 years after we received the great commission 27% of the world is still made up of unreached people groups. The first Lausanne Congress emphasized the need to reach unreached people with the good news. Much has been accomplished since then, and globalisation has made the world smaller and the great commission easier in that I no longer need to go to Somalia to reach a Somali but I can visit a refugee camp 3km away! But much is still to be done and today 1 in 3 people in the world still do not have access to the gospel.

Prayer Mission Justice

Billy Graham told the team that went to meet him ahead of Lausanne 3:

“Keep evangelism at the center.  Make Christ your focus.  Base everything on Scripture.  And pray, pray, pray.”

The key to accomplishing the great commission is prayer. As we pray, mission will be mobilized and God’s justice will reign on the earth.

Prayer for unreached during Lausanne 3

This is part of an invitation by the Lausanne Strategic Prayer Group. If you would like to pray for an unreached nation or people group, I encourage you to visit the unreached prayer site and join us in prayer.

This year as we meet again in Cape Town 2010 we sense the Lord calling us anew to times of strategic prayer for the "least-reached" nations and people groups. If you feel called to pray for a specific nation or people group we would like to invite you to join us.

 

The goal beyond Cape Town 2010 in October is that these strategic Skype prayer groups continue to meet each week to pray over Skype. They can then plan future times of prayer on site in that nation and just keep praying until the Lord gives His strategies to bring in the harvest that will surely come as a result of our persistence in prayer.

Below are some specific prayer requests leading up to the Congress

• Leading up to the Congress I ask that you pray that the right people would be there and that there would be many divine appointments.
• Pray that Leaders there would capture a heart for Prayer and Mission.
• In the largest Asian country the names of those attending the meetings have been stolen by secret police and there are rumors they will try infiltrate with their own people. Pray that any of the secret police that attend will have divine encounters with God and that the Leaders that need to be there would still be there.
• Pray for the West Africans who have been having some trouble securing Visas.
• Pray for laborers and speedy justice in the earth
• Pray that God would give you and me a deeper understanding of what our part in all of this.

If you would like to follow and join in the discussion in Cape Town visit the Lausanne Conversation website.