This is the second part to my last post regarding praying along with Operation World for post-Christian Europe. It’s so sad to read where Europe is at spiritually after decades of it’s militant atheism, and forced secularism. As I wrote in my last post, I often don’t think about Europe as having unreached peoples, but some of the statistics that I read were alarming and I pray that as you read some of these quotes, that the Lord would give you a desire to be praying for those in Europe who need to know the Truth, and for an open heart that would seek to go there and share the love and hope of Christ the Savior!
Operation World says, “Great swathes of Central and Western Europe are truly post-Christian, where committed Christian remnants are small in number, low in confidence and marginalized. The battle against secularization and social irrelevance has been lost, and what faith remains is confined to private belief. The heartlands of Protestantism are now some of the most irreligious and secular on the entire continent. Countries like Germany, Sweden, Denmark, England, Whales, and Scotland have had little meaningful expose to Biblical Christianity for several generations. These areas are some of the most devoid of spiritual life in the world, and urgently need to be re-evangelized”!
As for the younger generation – they represent a new challenge because many have grown up in a context devoid of Christian witness or any explicit Christian values. They don’t see these beliefs as having any relevance or importance. Yet, the door does remain open and we are seeing some signs of life among teenagers and university students who are on a mission for Truth.
It shocked me to read that Europe has over 400 people groups living within it’s borders, and that nearly 250 of them can be regarded as only partially evangelized at best, and often are completely unevangelized! Many of these groups are immigrants or refugee’s such as Muslims and other ethnic groups from the Middle East and North Africa. Surprisingly the Jewish remnant, although a fragment of what they were during the Holocaust, still need to be evangelized throughout Europe and brought to know Christ as their Messiah. Also Chinese now number over 2 million in Europe and although there are several thriving congregations in Germany and the UK, most still remain unreached in their new countries. Lastly, many have come to Western Europe from Southeast Asia and have come from unevangelized people groups in their home country. They remain equally isolated and unevangelized in their new host nations.
Would you join me in praying that the Lord would thrust forth laborers into His harvest field of Europe, and that by His grace, and by the power of His Holy Spirit, many that are living in these post-Christian countries would turn to Christ as their Savior. Pray for the strict national atheists, the unevangelized refugee’s from other countries, Muslims from the middle East and North Africa – that the Lord would step across all of their borders and reach right in the middle of their lives – showing Himself as the Creator, Sustainer, and Giver of life, and that they would repent of their sins, and put their faith in Christ!