Missions Websites

John Piper raves about the ministry of Operation World, and for good reason. I had some time to look into their website today. Along with their valuable resources, they have a daily prayer list to highlight various prayer needs in world missions. Today's entry was about Urban Evangelism. I'll quote it here, but you please visit OW to learn more.

For the first time in history, half of the world's population lives in or near a city

Challenges for Prayer
This major shift in population from rural to urban necessitates a radical shift in thinking and strategy among churches and missions reaching out to the unreached

1 Appropriate strategies for evangelizing the major non-Christian cities of the world
2 The urban poor, the biggest single challenge
3 The decaying inner cities of the West. In the midst of affluence many cities have a rotten core.
4 Christians' preconception of missions needs to shift from a 19th Century rural, tribal image to a modern, urban one
5 The mobilization of a trained and efficient work force
6 The essential and effective use of all modern methods of communication
From Operation World Web Site (www.operationworld.org), 12/28/07. Copyright ©2001 Patrick Johnstone

OW also features nations in the news, of which Sri Lanka is featured. Seeing how we shared how Peter just visited that country in mid December, I spent some time reading up on it. The Lord is really needed there, and there is much reason for hope as the Christian church there grows, but they need our prayers. Click here to learn how to pray for Sri Lanka.


This picture features street dwellers in Mumbai, Inda

I also discovered another missions website about a ministry in Asia, Servants to Asia's Urban Poor. According to their website: "Servants to Asia's Urban Poor is an international movement: a network of Christian teams living and working amongst the urban poor in Asia's mega cities, participating with the poor to bring hope and justice through Jesus Christ." What a radical and beautiful concept! To think of Westerners giving up their comforts and wealth to live and suffer with the poor in Asia to reach the lost for Christ! They feature an interesting recent article about a family that conducted an experiment to see if they could live on $200 a month! What an eye opener!

As the Servants site points out, "The urban poor are the largest and neediest unreached people group confronting today's church. We ignore this challenge at our peril: "I was hungry... and you gave me nothing to eat" (Jesus, Matthew 25:31-46)

Please pray that the Lord would lead you to explore these resources and to be obedient to the Great Commission, by praying, giving, or going with the Good News of Christ to all people groups!