“I used to think that prayer should have the first place and teaching the second. I now feel that it would be truer to give prayer the first, second and third place, and teaching the fourth.”
James O. Fraser
Prayer is the heart of every Christian work. This has always been the case. People through whom God did great things have been always people of prayer. We have uncountable examples of revivals and spiritual breakthroughs in church history that were preceded by a long and persistent preparation in prayer.
Revival is always a gift and a work by God on the people’s hearts. In prayer I acknowledge my dependency on God and that I can’t do anything on my own that pleases Him. But at the same time I become part of the great deeds of the almighty God.
We long for a spiritual breakthrough for Japan! For this reason we want to pray extensively and passionately for this country and its inhabitants. We have collected some prayer points for Japan on this site and invite you to intercede with us for the people of Japan.
Besides this you also find also our personal prayer points and some for world mission in general.
Japan:
Prayer initiative! Pray for 200 new workers for OMF Japan until 2020
Pray together with the team of OMF Japan for their prayer goal to receive 200 new workers until the year 2020. 150 of them should be full time and long term missionaries and 50 of them short termers (above 6 months) or so called “OMF friends”, i.e. committed, vibrant Christians who are working full- or part-time in Japan. Without being official OMF members they have a heart for reaching out to Japanese in their setting[1].
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Pray that God may use the OMF friends to penetrate parts of the Japanese population which would be hard to reach by full-time missionaries, e.g. Japan’s office workers and business people.
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Also pray for enough strength and resources to support and equip the new workers adequately.
Pray that Jesus becomes known in Japan.
Many Japanese have never heard the Gospel or even anything about Jesus. Only one in ten Japanese even knows a Christian who could tell him about Jesus. Often Christianity is associated with something foreign and sometimes scary, which has to do with old church buildings and religious motivated wars. Then again Christian traditions also are used to create a romantic atmosphere, like a date at Christmas Eve or a wedding in white in wedding chapel designed only for this purpose.
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Please pray that Jesus’ good news will spread in Japan and that the Japanese learn to distinguish between western traditions and genuine discipleship of Jesus. Pray that Christians and seekers meet in divine encounters and that Christians in Japan have the courage to talk freely about their faith.
Pray that the people in Japan understand that the living God of the Bible is also the God of Japan.
This may sound strange, but for many Japanese, Jesus is a God of the Americans or the Europeans. For them being Japanese is seen equal to being Buddhist or Shintoist, or religion is generally equated with something cultural which differs from country to country.
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Pray that the Japanese understand that God is the almighty creator of the whole universe and that He deserves to be worshiped by every single people group on earth. Pray that the Japanese can believe that Jesus has given His life also for them and that the access to God is free now also for them.
No event found!
Personal:
16.11.2019: Pray for Julian’s PhD thesis.
Julian’s PhD thesis is currently evaluated by two reviewers. When they finish until the 20th of November and all auditors are available, the defense (oral examination) can happen even before Christmas. Otherwise we have to wait for the carnival break. Julian has a queasy feeling about the examination, because the auditors also are allowed to ask questions about other topics in the field of his thesis and he is not that fluent beyond the topic of his thesis.
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Praise God for His faithfulness that Julian now can rejoice over his handed in thesis.
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Pray that God may guide the reviewers in their work and may set the date of the defense in a way that will glorify Him the most.
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Pray that Julian can stay calm until then having his eyes focused on Jesus and that he can prepare in the right way.
16.11.2019: Pray for our two months internship in Japan.
The rough time table for our spring internship in Japan is set. Thank God for this unique opportunity and the affordable flights.
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Pray for all further preparations and that we set ourselves the right goal for this internship.
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Please pray that we are able to improve our Japanese during the internship, that we can make good contacts and that we are of good use in the teams.
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Mission:
Pray that God sends more missionaries to the unreached.
In Luke 10:2 Jesus has instructed us to pray that the Lord of the harvest may send out laborers into His harvest. Even back then Jesus found that the harvest is plentiful, but there are only few workers. Not much has changed since then.
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In 2018 there were 440,000 foreign Missionaries worldwide (both Catholic and Protestant)[1]. When you look at this number, you have to take into consideration though that only one in 31 missionaries goes to an unreached people group[2]. The other 30 work among “reached” people groups, i.e. peoples that already have an indigenous community of believing Christians among them that is able to evangelize this people group without outside assistance[3]. With about 3,190,000,000 unreached people[4] this makes one missionary for 224,750 persons.
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Pray therefore that God touches the hearts of His children and that Christians are also willing to follow His call. Pray that Jesus’ followers receive a burden for the unreached again and that they ask God in an unbiased way if He wants to use them.
No event found!