Prayer For Missionaries Quotes

When I cannot read, when I cannot think, when I cannot even pray, I can trust.

I therefore hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of the land... I look upon it as the climax of all misnomers, the boldest of all frauds, and the grossest of all libels. Never was there a clearer case of 'stealing the livery of the court of heaven to serve the devil in.' I am filled with unutterable loathing when I contemplate the religious pomp and show, together with the horrible inconsistencies, which every where surround me. We have men-stealers for ministers, women-whippers for missionaries, and cradle-plunderers for church members. The man who wields the blood-clotted cowskin during the week fills the pulpit on Sunday, and claims to be a minister of the meek and lowly Jesus. . . . The slave auctioneer’s bell and the church-going bell chime in with each other, and the bitter cries of the heart-broken slave are drowned in the religious shouts of his pious master. Revivals of religion and revivals in the slave-trade go hand in hand together. The slave prison and the church stand near each other. The clanking of fetters and the rattling of chains in the prison, and the pious psalm and solemn prayer in the church, may be heard at the same time. The dealers in the bodies of men erect their stand in the presence of the pulpit, and they mutually help each other. The dealer gives his blood-stained gold to support the pulpit, and the pulpit, in return, covers his infernal business with the garb of Christianity. Here we have religion and robbery the allies of each other—devils dressed in angels’ robes, and hell presenting the semblance of paradise.

The next time believers tell you that 'separation of church and state' does not appear in our founding document, tell them to stop using the word 'trinity.' The word 'trinity' appears nowhere in the bible. Neither does Rapture, or Second Coming, or Original Sin. If they are still unfazed (or unphrased), by this, then add Omniscience, Omnipresence, Supernatural,Transcendence, Afterlife, Deity, Divinity, Theology, Monotheism, Missionary, Immaculate Conception, Christmas, Christianity, Evangelical, Fundamentalist, Methodist, Catholic, Pope, Cardinal, Catechism, Purgatory, Penance, Transubstantiation, Excommunication, Dogma, Chastity, Unpardonable Sin, Infallibility, Inerrancy, Incarnation, Epiphany, Sermon, Eucharist, the Lord's Prayer, Good Friday, Doubting Thomas, Advent, Sunday School, Dead Sea, Golden Rule, Moral, Morality, Ethics, Patriotism, Education, Atheism, Apostasy, Conservative (Liberal is in), Capital Punishment, Monogamy, Abortion, Pornography, Homosexual, Lesbian, Fairness, Logic, Republic, Democracy, Capitalism, Funeral, Decalogue, or Bible.

Our life of contemplation shall retain the following characteristics: —missionary: by going out physically or in spirit in search of souls all over the universe. —contemplative: by gathering the whole universe at the very center of our hearts where the Lord of the universe abides, and allowing the pure water of divine grace to flow plentifully and unceasingly from the source itself, on the whole of his creation. —universal: by praying and contemplating with all and for all, especially with and for the spiritually poorest of the poor.

The history of missions is the history of answered prayer.

Without needing told, without Jacob's lead, Akando dropped to his knees and lunged into the throne room of Christ.

We can do more than we imagine by the power of the Holy Spirit.

We are capable of great works through the mighty power of the Holy Spirit.

In no other way can the believer become as fully involved with God’s work, especially the work of world evangelism, as in intercessory prayer.

We can reach our world, if we will. The greatest lack today is not people or funds. The greatest need is prayer.

Now listen. Faith is like oxygen. It keeps you afloat at all times. Sometimes you need it. Sometimes you don’t. but when you do need it you better be practiced at having faith, otherwise it won’t work. That’s why the missionaries built all the churches. Before we got those churches we weren’t practicing enough. That’s what prayers are for—practice, children. Practice.

But it would be a great mistake to think that the awakening of desire for the Bridegroom would produce a wave of monastic withdrawal into the fasting and prayer of passive waiting. That is not what the awakening of desire for Christ would produce. It would produce a radical, new commitment to complete the task of world evangelization, no matter what the cost. And fasting would not become a pacifistic discipline for private hopes, but a fearsome missionary weapon in the fight of faith.

The command has been to 'go,' but we have stayed – in body, gifts, prayer and influence. He has asked us to be witnesses unto the uttermost parts of the earth ... but 99% of Christians have kept puttering around in the homeland.

God does hear and answer prayers. I have never doubted that fact. From childhood, at my mother's knee where I first learned to pray; as a young man in my teens; as a missionary in foreign lands; as a father; as a Church leader; as a government official, I know without question that it is possible for men and women to reach out in humility and prayer and tap that Unseen Power; to have prayers answered. "Man does not stand along, or, at least, he need not stand alone. Prayer will open doors; prayer will remove barriers; prayer will ease pressures; prayer will give inner peace and comfort during times of strain and stress and difficult. Thank God for prayer

O Lord, thy will be done in my life as it is written in Heaven in Jesus Name. Amen.

Jacob crammed his eyes shut, listening to that feeble breathing, half expecting every breath to be the last. Lord, did You leave me for a purpose?

I had no mind then for anything except Sebastian, and I saw him already as being threatened, though I did not yet know how black was the threat. His constant, despairing prayer was to be let alone. By the blue waters and rustling palm of his own mind he was happy and harmless as a Polynesian; only when the big ship dropped anchor beyond the coral reef, and the cutter beached in the lagoon, and, up the golden slope that had never known the print of a boot there trod the grim invasion of trader, administrator, missionary and tourist – only then was it time to disinter the archaic weapons of the tribe and sound the drums in the hills; or, more easily, to turn from the sunlit door and lie alone in the darkness, where the impotent, painted deities paraded the walls in vain, and cough his heart out among the rum bottles.

Mr. J. Hudson Taylor well reminds us that while in nature the normal order of growth is from childhood to manhood and so to maturity, in grace the true development is perpetually backward toward the cradle: we must become and continue as little children, not losing, but rather gaining, childlikeness of spirit. The disciple's maturest manhood is only the perfection of his childhood. George Müller was never so really, truly, fully a little child in all his relations to his Father, as when in the ninety-third year of his age.

What does a future with you look like, Joshua Carter?” Thwack. “A lot of prayers.” His ass flexed. Thwack. “Bible study three times a day.” Thwack. He lifted up on his toes, his voice hoarse. “No smoking and cussing.” Very funny. Thwack. “Missionary position only.” A laugh burst from her throat, and she stumbled, her swing missing him completely. “But no sex until we’re married.” Oh my God. Did he really just mimic her practiced deadpanned tone? She moved to stand in front of him, so she could watch his mouth. “You’re going to hell.” His lips twitched then erupted into a full-faced smile. “Oh, good. I was worried you’d be there without me.

As to the other means of grace, I would say, I fell into the snare into which so many young believers fall, the reading of religious books in preference to the Scriptures. I read tracts, missionary papers, sermons, and biographies of godly persons. I never had been at any time of my life in the habit of reading the Holy Scriptures. When under fifteen years of age, I occasionally read a little of them at school; afterwards God's precious book was entirely laid aside, so that I never read one single chapter of it till it pleased God to begin a work of grace in my heart. Now the scriptural way of reasoning would have been: God himself has consented to be an author, and I am ignorant about that precious book, which his Holy Spirit has caused to be written through the instrumentality of his servants, and it contains that which I ought to know, the knowledge of which will lead me to true happiness; therefore I ought to read again and again this most precious book of books, most earnestly, most prayerfully, and with much meditation; and in this practice I ought to continue all the days of my life. But instead of acting thus, my difficulty in understanding it, and the little enjoyment I had in it, made me careless of reading it; and thus, like many believers, I practically preferred, for the first four years of my divine life, the works of uninspired men to the oracles of the living God. The consequence was, that I remained a babe, both in knowledge and grace.

I found myself possessed of only a single coin—one half-crown piece. Still I had hitherto had no lack, and I continued in prayer.

he who would work with God must first wait on Him and wait for Him, and that all undue haste in such a matter is worse than waste. He

The failure of the citizens to pray for the nation will lead to its collapse.

Of course a man that had been so profligate and prodigal must at least begin at conversion to live a changed life. Not that all at once the old sins were abandoned, for such total transformation demands deeper knowledge of the word and will of God than George Müller yet had. But within him a new separating and sanctifying Power was at work. There was a distaste for wicked joys and former companions; the frequenting of taverns entirely ceased, and a lying tongue felt new and strange bands about it. A watch was set at the door of the lips, and every word that went forth was liable to a challenge, so that old habits of untamed speech were arrested and corrected.

The Church’s roots are in the teaching of the apostles, the authentic witnesses of Christ, but she looks to the future, she has the firm consciousness of being sent—sent by Jesus—of being missionary, bearing the name of Jesus by her prayer, proclaiming it and testifying to it. A Church that is closed in on herself and in the past, a Church that only sees the little rules of behavior, of attitude, is a Church that betrays her own identity; a closed Church betrays her own identity! Then, let us rediscover today all the beauty and responsibility of being the Church apostolic! And remember this: the Church is apostolic because we pray—our first duty—and because we proclaim the Gospel by our life and by our words.

Most churches do not grow beyond the spiritual health of their leadership. Many churches have a pastor who is trying to lead people to a Savior he has yet to personally encounter. If spiritual gifting is no proof of authentic faith, then certainly a job title isn't either. You must have a clear sense of calling before you enter ministry. Being a called man is a lonely job, and many times you feel like God has abandoned you in your ministry. Ministry is more than hard. Ministry is impossible. And unless we have a fire inside our bones compelling us, we simply will not survive. Pastoral ministry is a calling, not a career. It is not a job you pursue. If you don’t think demons are real, try planting a church! You won’t get very far in advancing God’s kingdom without feeling resistance from the enemy. If I fail to spend two hours in prayer each morning, the devil gets the victory through the day. Once a month I get away for the day, once a quarter I try to get out for two days, and once a year I try to get away for a week. The purpose of these times is rest, relaxation, and solitude with God. A pastor must always be fearless before his critics and fearful before his God. Let us tremble at the thought of neglecting the sheep. Remember that when Christ judges us, he will judge us with a special degree of strictness. The only way you will endure in ministry is if you determine to do so through the prevailing power of the Holy Spirit. The unsexy reality of the pastorate is that it involves hard work—the heavy-lifting, curse-ridden, unyielding employment of your whole person for the sake of the church. Pastoral ministry requires dogged, unyielding determination, and determination can only come from one source—God himself. Passive staff members must be motivated. Erring elders and deacons must be confronted. Divisive church members must be rebuked. Nobody enjoys doing such things (if you do, you should be not be a pastor!), but they are necessary in order to have a healthy church over the long haul. If you allow passivity, laziness, and sin to fester, you will soon despise the church you pastor. From the beginning of sacred Scripture (Gen. 2:17) to the end (Rev. 21:8), the penalty for sin is death. Therefore, if we sin, we should die. But it is Jesus, the sinless one, who dies in our place for our sins. The good news of the gospel is that Jesus died to take to himself the penalty of our sin. The Bible is not Christ-centered because it is generally about Jesus. It is Christ-centered because the Bible’s primary purpose, from beginning to end, is to point us toward the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus for the salvation and sanctification of sinners. Christ-centered preaching goes much further than merely providing suggestions for how to live; it points us to the very source of life and wisdom and explains how and why we have access to him. Felt needs are set into the context of the gospel, so that the Christian message is not reduced to making us feel better about ourselves. If you do not know how sinful you are, you feel no need of salvation. Sin-exposing preaching helps people come face-to-face with their sin and their great need for a Savior. We can worship in heaven, and we can talk to God in heaven, and we can read our Bibles in heaven, but we can’t share the gospel with our lost friends in heaven. “Would your city weep if your church did not exist?” It was crystal-clear for me. Somehow, through fear or insecurity, I had let my dreams for our church shrink. I had stopped thinking about the limitless things God could do and had been distracted by my own limitations. I prayed right there that God would forgive me of my small-mindedness. I asked God to forgive my lack of faith that God could use a man like me to bring the message of the gospel through our missionary church to our lost city. I begged God to renew my heart and mind with a vision for our city that was more like Christ's.

His constant, despairing prayer was to be let alone. By the blue waters and rustling palms of his own mind he was happy and harmless as a Polynesian; only when the big ship dropped anchor beyond the coral reef, and the cutter beached in the lagoon, and, up the slope that had never known the print of a boot, there trod the grim invasion of trader, administrator, missionary, and tourist—only then was it time to disinter the archaic weapons of the tribe and sound the drums in the hills; or, more easily, to turn from the sunlit door and lie alone in the darkness, where the impotent, painted deities paraded the walls in vain, and cough his heart out among the rum bottles. And

Could you decide now?” asked the missionary. The inquiry was put in gentle tones: he drew me to him as gently. Oh, that gentleness! how far more potent is it than force! I could resist St. John’s wrath: I grew pliant as a reed under his kindness. Yet I knew all the time, if I yielded now, I should not the less be made to repent, some day, of my former rebellion. His nature was not changed by one hour of solemn prayer: it was only elevated.

It is easier to leave right after the prayers are prayed, right after somebody meets Jesus, while the tears are still fresh and the hope is solid enough to cut with a knife. While everyone is doing okay, taking pictures that we can take home and cling to, framing the ones where everyone is smiling. We, the do-gooders, stay for a short while, because we crave the knowledge that we have done something of value in the world. And we leave before we have a chance to see how poor in relationships we really are.

Similarly, one of my missionary friends in Italy sent me detailed notes from a sermon by a hyper-grace preacher there who proclaimed that there are some prayers that do not have to be prayed in the light of the finished work of the cross, including: • “Lord, forgive me for I am sorry.” • “Lord, bless Jimmy today.” • “Lord, save Auntie Jean.” • “Lord, heal Uncle Bob.” Yes, these hyper-grace teachers believe that God has already saved, forgiven, and healed the whole world, since Jesus already paid for our complete redemption. The only thing lacking is our faith, and once we believe, then we are saved, forgiven, and healed. As for Jesus, He hasn’t done any saving or healing or prospering of anyone in two thousand years. He finished the work on the cross. This, of course, is absolutely untrue, but it’s just another indication of how far off the deep end we can go when we misunderstand grace and misrepresent the finished work of the cross. (For those needing proof that this teaching is untrue, here are a few verses that speak of God saving or healing or forgiving after the cross: Acts 9:34; Titus 3:5–7; Hebrews 7:25; Jacob [James] 5:15; 1 John 5:16.)

like the biggest burden of all. We can always pray more, and we can’t possibly pray for every need in the world. Even if we are extremely organized and disciplined, we won’t be able to consistently pray for more than a handful of people and problems. But that doesn’t mean our prayers are limited to the items we can write on a 3 × 5 card. If your aunt’s cousin has upcoming heart surgery, pray immediately after you hear about it. When a missionary shares her requests, pray right on the spot for them. Don’t let the moment pass you by. Pray a short prayer. Trust God for the results and, in many cases, move on.

They were often very turbulent meetings, with half a dozen men declaiming at once, in as many dialects of English; but the speakers were all desperately in earnest, and Jurgis was in earnest too, for he understood that a fight was on, and that it was his fight. Since the time of his disillusionment, Jurgis had sworn to trust no man, except in his own family; but here he discovered that he had brothers in affliction, and allies. Their one chance for life was in union, and so the struggle became a kind of crusade. Jurgis had always been a member of the church, because it was the right thing to be, but the church had never touched him, he left all that for the women. Here, however, was a new religion—one that did touch him, that took hold of every fiber of him; and with all the zeal and fury of a convert he went out as a missionary. There were many nonunion men among the Lithuanians, and with these he would labor and wrestle in prayer, trying to show them the right. Sometimes they would be obstinate and refuse to see it, and Jurgis, alas, was not always patient! He forgot how he himself had been blind, a short time ago—after the fashion of all crusaders since the original ones, who set out to spread the gospel of Brotherhood by force of arms. Chapter

Presbyterian missionary William Blair remembered. The prayer sounded to me like the falling of many waters, an ocean of prayer beating against God’s throne. It was not many, but one, born of one Spirit, lifted to one Father above. Just as on the day of Pentecost, they were all together in one place, of one accord praying, “and suddenly there came from heaven the sound as of the rushing of a mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting.” God is not always in the whirlwind, neither does he always speak in a still small voice. He came to us in Pyongyang that night with the sound of weeping. As the prayer continued, a spirit of heaviness and sorrow for sin came down upon the audience. Over on one side, someone began to weep, and in a moment the whole audience was weeping.21

This shows us that earth’s empires have their counterpart in Satan’s empire. In other words, Satan seeks to control the empires of earth through its rulers in order to make its leaders and governments instruments of his will. We must pray for our governments in order to frustrate Satan and to bring our governments under heaven’s control. That is why Paul said first of all—before you pray for the sick, the missionaries, the evangelists, even your family—to pray for the government. As we have seen, anyone who criticizes the government is telling the world that he has failed in his prayers. He has not done his job. He has allowed these dark angels to crowd in over the buildings where vital decisions are made that affect not only us but also the whole Kingdom of God. We must not tolerate that invasion of Satan.

In Philadelphia, the Pope told the story of the Pennsylvanian Saint Katharine Drexel, who had a private audience with Pope Leo XIII in 1887. She told him of the challenges faced by Native Americans and African Americans back home. She asked him to send Catholic missionaries to come help these people. The Pope asked her: “What about you? What are you going to do?” The question made her think about her own contribution to the Church, and she made a decision to change her life. She took her vows, founded the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, and devoted her life to speaking out against racial injustice and helping and educating American Indians and African Americans. Saint Katharine Drexel was canonized by Pope John Paul II in 2000. “What about you? What are you going to do?” The question goes deep. What can you and I do to make our communities better, more compassionate, kinder, and more caring? What can we each do to care for our common home?

Expressions of Passion, INTERCESSION. This scripture indicates the “birthing” kind of prayer passion when one prays for revivals or for a nation. Such prayer is usually not public, just as childbirth is not. The text parallels severe labor pains preceding a birth with those private times the Holy Spirit may produce involuntary, regular groaning coming from an intensity of desire. This prayer becomes powerful as it couples with God in faith, knowing something very significant is being brought about in the spiritual realm. It is often accomplished by intensity of speech and weeping. God assures us that such travail in the Spirit brings results in His time. Don’t fear such passion of travail and tears when praying for nations, missionary organizations, churches, denominations, spiritual leaders, people groups, individuals, or lost souls. The Father’s heart is being exposed by the Holy Spirit through an intensified burden where words are inadequate. Permit the Holy Spirit to enable it in His times and seasons of stirring you in private intercession.

I therefore hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of the land... I look upon it as the climax of all misnomers, the boldest of all frauds, and the grossest of all libels. Never was there a clearer case of 'stealing the livery of the court of heaven to serve the devil in.' I am filled with unutterable loathing when I contemplate the religious pomp and show, together with the horrible inconsistencies, which every where surround me. We have men-stealers for ministers, women-whippers for missionaries, and cradle-plunderers for church members. The man who wields the blood-clotted cowskin during the week fills the pulpit on Sunday, and claims to be a minister of the meek and lowly Jesus. . . . The slave auctioneer’s bell and the church-going bell chime in with each other, and the bitter cries of the heart-broken slave are drowned in the religious shouts of his pious master. Revivals of religion and revivals in the slave-trade go hand in hand together. The slave prison and the church stand near each other. The clanking of fetters and the rattling of chains in the prison, and the pious psalm and solemn prayer in the church, may be heard at the same time. The dealers in the bodies of men erect their stand in the presence of the pulpit, and they mutually help each other. The dealer gives his blood-stained gold to support the pulpit, and the pulpit, in return, covers his infernal business with the garb of Christianity. Here we have religion and robbery the allies of each other—devils dressed in angels’ robes, and hell presenting the semblance of paradise.” ― Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

From the Author Matthew 16:25 says, “For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”  This is a perfect picture of the life of Nate Saint; he gave up his life so God could reveal a greater glory in him and through him. I first heard the story of Operation Auca when I was eight years old, and ever since then I have been inspired by Nate’s commitment to the cause of Christ. He was determined to carry out God’s will for his life in spite of fears, failures, and physical challenges. For several years of my life, I lived and ministered with my parents who were missionaries on the island of Jamaica. My experiences during those years gave me a passion for sharing the stories of those who make great sacrifices to carry the gospel around the world. As I wrote this book, learning more about Nate Saint’s life—seeing his spirit and his struggles—was both enlightening and encouraging to me. It is my prayer that this book will provide a window into Nate Saint’s vision—his desires, dreams, and dedication. I pray his example will convince young people to step out of their comfort zones and wholeheartedly seek God’s will for their lives. That is Nate Saint’s legacy: changing the world for Christ, one person and one day at a time.   Nate Saint Timeline 1923 Nate Saint born. 1924 Stalin rises to power in Russia. 1930 Nate’s first flight, aged 7 with his brother, Sam. 1933 Nate’s second flight with his brother, Sam. 1936 Nate made his public profession of faith. 1937 Nate develops bone infection. 1939 World War II begins. 1940 Winston Churchill becomes British Prime Minister. 1941 Nate graduates from Wheaton College. Nate takes first flying lesson. Japan attacks Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. 1942 Nate’s induction into the Army Air Corps. 1943 Nate learns he is to be transferred to Indiana. 1945 Atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan by U.S. 1946 Nate discharged from the Army. 1947 Nate accepted for Wheaton College. 1948 Nate and Marj are married and begin work in Eduador. Nate crashes his plane in Quito. 1949 Nate’s first child, Kathy, is born. Germany divided into East and West. 1950 Korean War begins. 1951 Nate’s second child, Stephen, is born. 1952 The Saint family return home to the U.S. 1953 Nate comes down with pneumonia. Nate and Henry fly to Ecuador. 1954 The first nuclear-powered submarine is launched. Nate’s third child, Phillip, is born. 1955 Nate is joined by Jim Elliot, Ed McCully, Peter Fleming and Roger Youderian. Nate spots an Auca village for the first time. Operation Auca commences. 1956 The group sets up camp four miles from the Auca territory. Nate and the group are killed on “Palm Beach”.

Younger people today don’t get fired up about denominations and agencies. They get fired up about the greatness of a global God and about the unstoppable purpose of a sovereign King. The first great missionary said, “We have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations” (Rom. 1:5). Missions is for the sake of the name of God. It flows from a love for God’s glory and for the honor of his reputation. It is an answer to the prayer, “Hallowed be thy name!

Activity not rooted in prayer is mere bombast and flurry. It may raise a great deal of dust and deafen many an ear, but it will never make a dent on things eternal. Activity which takes its strength from prayer and which looks to contemplatives to fill up its measure, just as contemplatives look to God’s infantry to satisfy the burning missionary drive in their own hearts, will have God Himself for its eternal monument.

it would be a great mistake to think that the awakening of desire for the Bridegroom would produce a wave of monastic withdrawal into the fasting and prayer of passive waiting. That is not what the awakening of desire for Christ would produce. It would produce a radical, new commitment to complete the task of world evangelization, no matter what the cost. And fasting would not become a pacifistic discipline for private hopes, but a fearsome missionary weapon in the fight of faith.

For more than two centuries, black people had resisted Christianity, often with the tacit acquiescence of their owners. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Christian missionaries who attempted to bring slaves into the fold confronted a hostile planter class, whose only interest in the slaves' spirituality was to denigrate it as idolatry. Westward-moving planters showed little sympathy with slaves who prayed when they might be working and even less patience with separate gatherings of converts, which they suspected to be revolutionary cabals. An 1822 Mississippi law barring black people from meeting without white supervision spoke directly to the planters' fears. But the trauma of the Second Middle Passage and the cotton revolution sensitized transplanted slaves to the evangelicals' message. Young men and women forcibly displaced from their old homes were eager to find alternative sources of authority and comfort. Responding to the evangelical message, they found new meaning in the emotional deliverance of conversion and the baptismal rituals of the church. In turning their lives over to Christ, the deportees took control of their own destiny. White missionaries, some of them still committed to the evangelical egalitarianism of the eighteenth-century revivals, welcomed black believers into their churches. Slaves - sometimes carrying letters of separation from their home congregations - were present in the first evangelical services in Mississippi and Alabama. The earliest religious associations listed black churches, and black preachers - free and slave - won fame for the exercise of 'their gift.' Established denominational lines informed much of slaves' Christianity. The large Protestant denominations - Baptist and Methodist, Anglican and Presbyterian - made the most substantial claims, although Catholicism had a powerful impact all along the Gulf Coast, especially in Louisiana and Florida. From this melange, slaves selectively appropriated those ideas that best fit their own sacred universe and secular world. With little standing in the church of the master, these men and women fostered a new faith. For that reason, it was not the church of the master or even the church of the missionary that attracted black converts; they much preferred their own religious conclaves. These fugitive meetings were often held deep in the woods in brush tents called 'arbors.' Kept private by overturning a pot to muffle the sound of their prayers, these meetings promised African-American spirituality and mixed black and white religious forms into a theological amalgam that white clerics found unrecognizable - what one planter-preacher called 'a jumble of Protestantism, Romanism, and Fetishism.' Under the brush arbor, notions of secular and sacred life took on new meanings. The experience of spiritual rebirth and the conviction that Christ spoke directly to them armed slaves against their owners, assuring them that they too were God's children, perhaps even his chosen people. It infused daily life with the promise of the Great Jubilee and eternal life that offered a final escape from earthly captivity. In the end, it would be they - not their owners - who would stand at God's side and enjoy the blessing of eternal salvation.

Paul said God had put his ambassadors on display as a theater to the cosmos (Cf. Heb. 11:39–12:1). The word in 1 Corinthians 4:9, frequently translated “spectacle,” is actually the word for “theater” (theatron; θεατρον). While the designation might be applied to the church generally,8 it is my prayer that this verse moves the church to prepare some of her members to become missionaries to the people group of dramatic professionals who are not likely to be reached by outsiders. The dramatic arts are arguably today’s most influential mode of cultural communication. We are fools if we neglect proclaiming God’s kingdom in this vital marketplace.

The other missionary then said the blessing, asking for Mom’s life to be extended if it was God’s will. Grandma jumped up from her seat and said, “Even if it’s not God’s will, goddamnit!” which disrupted the Holy Spirit so the missionary had to start the prayer over.

face; and the reaper was Martin Luther; and Luther’s friend saw the truth in a flash. ‘I must leave my prayers’, he said, ‘and get to work.’ And so he left his pious solitude and went down to the world to labour in the harvest. It is the dream of Christ that we should all be missionaries and reapers. There are those who cannot do other than pray, because of physical limitations, and their prayers are indeed the strength of the labourers. But that is not the way for most of us, for those of us who have strength of body and health of mind. Not even the giving of our money is enough. If the harvest of men and women is ever to be reaped, then every one of us must be a reaper, for there is someone whom each one of us could – and must – bring to God.

There is a war going on. All talk of a Christian’s right to live luxuriantly “as a child of the King” in this atmosphere sounds hollow—especially since the King Himself is stripped for battle. It is more helpful to think of a wartime lifestyle than a merely simple lifestyle. Simplicity can be very inwardly directed and may benefit no one else. A wartime lifestyle implies that there is a great and worthy cause for which to spend and be spent (2 Corinthians 12:15). Winter continues: America today is a “save yourself” society if there ever was one. But does it really work? The underdeveloped societies suffer from one set of diseases: tuberculosis, malnutrition, pneumonia, parasites, typhoid, cholera, typhus, etc. Affluent America has virtually invented a whole new set of diseases: obesity, arteriosclerosis, heart disease, strokes, lung cancer, venereal disease, cirrhosis of the liver, drug addiction, alcoholism, divorce, battered children, suicide, murder. Take your choice. Labor-saving machines have turned out to be body-killing devices. Our affluence has allowed both mobility and isolation of the nuclear family, and as a result, our divorce courts, our prisons and our mental institutions are flooded. In saving ourselves we have nearly lost ourselves. How hard have we tried to save others? Consider the fact that the U.S. evangelical slogan, “Pray, give or go” allows people merely to pray, if that is their choice! By contrast the Friends Missionary Prayer Band of South India numbers 8,000 people in their prayer bands and supports 80 full-time missionaries in North India. If my denomination (with its unbelievably greater wealth per person) were to do that well, we would not be sending 500 missionaries, but 26,000. In spite of their true poverty, those poor people in South India are sending 50 times as many cross-cultural missionaries as we are!11

How sovereign are God's ways of working! In such a sinner as Müller, theologians would have demanded a great 'law work' as the necessary doorway to a new life. Yet there was at this time as little deep conviction of guilt and condemnation as there was deep knowledge of God and of divine things, and perhaps it was because there was so little of the latter that there was so little of the former. Our rigid theories of conversion all fail in view of such facts. We

As godliness increases the sense of ungodliness becomes more acute, and so feelings never accurately gauge real assimilation to God. We shall seem worst in our own eyes when in His we are best, and conversely.

Being a student of divinity he was at liberty to preach, but conscious ignorance had hitherto restrained him. He thought, however, that by committing some other man's sermon to memory he might profit the hearers, and so he undertook it. It was slavish work to prepare, for it took most of a week to memorize the sermon, and it was joyless work to deliver it, for there was none of the living power that attends a man's God-given message and witness. His conscience was not yet enlightened enough to see that he was acting a false part in preaching another's sermon as his own; nor had he the spiritual insight to perceive that it is not God's way to set up a man to preach who knows not enough of either His word or the life of the Spirit within him, to prepare his own discourse. How few even among preachers feel preaching to be a divine vocation and not a mere human profession; that a ministry of the truth implies the witness of experience, and that to preach another man's sermon is, at the best, unnatural walking on stilts!

In his ninety-second year, he said to the writer, that for every page of any other reading he was sure he read ten of the Bible. But,

We have to work and serve humanity while we have the grace.

The powerhouse of a great move of God starts with prayer. The fuel of our mission is prayer. One of the best activities you can do as an everyday missionary is to walk or ride through your neighborhood and ask God to show you what He sees.

Prayer is lifting up empty hands to an abundant God. Harvey Kneisel, missionary

Think for but a moment of what God has accomplished through his Christians in the United States. Christians have spent the last couple of hundred years going out as missionaries and bringing the gospel to the lost. There is no corner or place where the message has not been carried, and in some quarters it has been received with such great force that we now find those countries sending missionaries back to evangelize our country. It is well, when we criticize all the sins of the United States, that we also remember all those great Christians who gave their lives sharing the gospel.             But no matter how sugar-coated it is made, the United States stands as far from the gospel as it has in decades. What can be done for an old heart like ours? I do believe the one lesson to be taken from this great awakening is that we must come together in prayer. We must wait upon God, but we wait in expectation, knowing that he loves this people of this world more than we ever could. We have the assurance through the Word, that when we pray God listens, and when we pray for something that he has already commanded us to pray for—that he send more laborers into the harvest field—we may be confident of his answer. Let us look, then, to the harvest fields and see what God might turn our hands toward. How blessed is the God who uses such earthen vessels of clay to proclaim his majesty!

In Emile the child was to be kept from books-except one, Robinson Crusoe, which Rousseau called "the happiest treatise of natural education." "Children begin by being helped, end by being served," he warned. They become masters, using their tears as prayers. The teacher must guide without seeming to, must never use corporal punishment, but must provide situations in which the child can learn for himself. The teacher, too, must know the stages of a child's development and introduce subjects only when the child is emotionally prepared. At the age of twelve the pupil must learn a useful trade. "Emile must work like a peasant and think like a philosopher in order not to be as lazy as a savage." Not until the age of eighteen should Emile turn to moral science and religion, and then he can choose his religion. For "at an age when all is mystery there can be no mysteries properly speaking." The child must have compassion, "love those who have it, but fly from the pious believers." But also shun the philosophers ("angry wolves"), who are "ardent missionaries of atheism and very imperious dogmatics who will not endure without fury that one might think differently from them.

Our missionary involvement may be very successful in other respects, but if we fail here, we stand guilty before the Lord of mission. Peace-making, I therefore suggest, is a major ingredient of Luke's missionary paradigm. The message that there is no room for vengeance in the heart of the follower of Jesus permeates both the gospel and Acts. It culminates in the account of Jesus praying for his crucifiers (Lk 23:34), which is echoed in the prayer of the dying Stephen (Acts 7:60).

On my first trip to Ghana, my long-time colleague Jude Hama of Scripture Union decided to give me the broadest exposure possible to the movements of the church in his country. We visited with Methodist bishops, Baptist leaders and Pentecostal church leaders whose churches were sending missionaries all over the world. We visited Presbyterians, Anglicans and charismatics. This last church was the most fascinating. The preacher, a man who weighed at least three hundred pounds (although he was only five feet, six inches tall), testified that his physical size was evidence of God's poured-out blessings. As the service progressed, people came and laid their money on the stairs leading up to the stage. At several points, beautifully dressed ladies carrying baskets on their heads would collect the money. And the process would then repeat, and more people would lay more money on the stairs. Jude explained, "These people have a prayer request: a job, an illness, a desire to marry, etc. The money is their `love offering' and is designed to let God know that they are serious about their request." Seed faith expressed in Ghana dollars. Jude went on: "You see, Paul, you in America concentrate on the God of love. But here we want the God of power. When you live in poverty or with some incurable affliction or some injustice, you don't want to feel loved. You want God's power to make you prosper, or to make you healthy or to make you free. And they have been taught and they believe that money is the way to release the power.

There are several vital lessons we can learn from this first Protestant missionary movement. First, the Moravians were deeply committed to pray for the evangelization of the world. The dramatic move of God in their midst on August 13, 1727, was so profound that they continued taking turns in maintaining a prayer vigil. The Moravians focused their "prayer wall" on the evangelization of the world. This prayer vigil was maintained twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, for over one hundred years!

There is no better way to situate all missionary endeavors and mobilizations in the missio dei than through a commitment to prayer.

This principle, intelligently adopted, was firmly adhered to, that what properly belongs to a particular branch of work, or has been already put aside for a certain use, even though yet in hand, is not to be reckoned on as available for any other need, however pressing. Trust

The principle of committing future wants to the Lord's care, thus acted upon at this time, he and his wife consistently followed so long as they lived and worked together. Experience confirmed them in the conviction that a life of trust forbids laying up treasures against unforeseen foreseen needs, since with God no emergency is unforeseen and no want unprovided for; and He may be as implicitly trusted for extraordinary needs as for our common daily bread.

Only by using faith are we kept from practically losing it, and, on the contrary, to use faith is to lose the unbelief that hinders God's mighty acts.

A WOMAN OF PRAYER Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 NKJV On his second missionary journey, Paul started a small church in Thessalonica. A short time later, he penned a letter that was intended to encourage the new believers at that church. Today, almost 2,000 years later, 1 Thessalonians remains a powerful, practical guide for Christian living. In his letter, Paul advised members of the new church to “pray without ceasing.” His advice applies to Christians of every generation. When we consult God on an hourly basis, we avail ourselves of His wisdom, His strength, and His love. As Corrie ten Boom observed, “Any concern that is too small to be turned into a prayer is too small to be made into a burden.” Today, make yourself a woman of prayer. Instead of turning things over in your mind, turn them over to God in prayer. Instead of worrying about your next decision, ask God to lead the way. Don’t limit your prayers to meals or bedtime. Become a woman of constant prayer. God is listening, and He wants to hear from you. Now. The manifold rewards of a serious, consistent prayer life demonstrate clearly that time with our Lord should be our first priority. Shirley Dobson A TIMELY TIP Today, ask yourself if your prayer life is all that it should be. If the answer is yes, keep up the good work. But if the answer is no, set aside a specific time each morning to talk to God. And then, when you’ve set aside a time for prayer, don’t allow yourself to become sidetracked.

Andy Dietz, who is on the staff of a church in the panhandle of Texas, has been coordinating mission trips overseas for many years. On one particular trip with his young people, the project had been finished, and the kids had left for home, but Andy stayed over to visit with missionary friends in the area. He was coming back through a European city on his way home. Having an overnight transit, he went downtown for dinner, found himself in the wrong part of town, and was mugged and kidnapped. After taking all his money, and all he could get from the ATM machine, his captors had him wire his family to ask for $5,000 to secure his release. His family notified us, and we activated a prayer network and contacted our personnel in the city who were not even aware he was there. They notified the police, but before anything could be done, Andy was able to elude his captors and get away while they were eating and drinking. I called him after he got home to talk through the experience and seek to minister to him. I asked him, after such a traumatic experience, if he thought he would go on any more mission trips. He said, “Oh yes. It's the most gratifying thing I do to take these kids overseas.” He continued, “I was negligent and learned that I have got to be more vigilant about where I go.” He described what it was like to be beaten, tied up, put in the trunk of a car, and his life threatened. He said, “They didn't know me. Nobody knew where I was. I meant nothing to them. My life was worthless. I realized they wouldn't think twice about getting rid of me, and no one would know.” He continued, “You can imagine how desperate I was to get away. And all I could think of was God saying, 'Andy, this is how desperate you should be to know Me.'” I held the phone in disbelief. I can only imagine the extent of desperation to escape a situation where your life is threatened. Can you imagine being so desperate to know God in all of His fullness, to have a heart that is so passionate for Him and His holiness? I think that's the only thing that will be a fail-safe deterrent to immoral behavior. We are always vulnerable; Satan will see to that, but in Christ we have been given the capacity to walk in holiness and victory.

Samuel Chadwick said, “The one concern of the devil is to keep Christians from praying. He fears nothing from prayerless studies, prayerless works and prayerless religion. He laughs at our toil, mocks at our wisdom, but trembles when we pray!” Prayer

Then there are the numerous items to pray for: The well-being and growth of the church, the conversion and sanctification of our friends and family, the advance of missionaries and their efforts, and the coming of the kingdom of Christ.

If you don't desire to meet the Devil during the day, meet Jesus before dawn.

I think at times all of us in camp considered ourselves as heroes. We were surviving, some would say even thriving, in the midst of war. By dint of hard work, ingenuity, faith, prayer and perseverance we had transformed a compound that was a hopeless mess into a habitable and in some rare corners, almost an attractive living place.

That is why Samuel Zwemer, groundbreaking missionary to Muslim lands, could utter his famous saying, “Prayer is the gymnasium of the soul.” The idea is not that prayer becomes intrinsically superior and potentially more effective when it is offered up in a frenzy of sweat. Nor is there likely any direct allusion to the account of Jacob wrestling with God (Gen. 32:22–32).2 The idea, rather, is that Paul understands real praying to include an element of struggle, discipline, work, spiritual agonizing against the dark powers of evil. Insofar as the Roman Christians pray this way for Paul, they are joining him in his apostolic struggle.

In ancient times, Southern and Eastern Christianity developed vernacular Christian literatures such as the Coptic and Slavonic; for the most part, Northern Christianity did not. Liturgy and Scriptures remained in Latin. The concept of a universal interconnected Christian body was thus strengthened, but at the risk of sacred language becoming exotic. The fact that Celt and Saxon alike used Latin may have helped to heal the breach between the Saxons missionized from Rome and the Celtic Christians whom the fathers of the missionized Saxons had suppressed. To Christianize was to Latinize, to bring people within the sphere of classical culture. In modern times, the Christianizing process in preliterate societies in the southern continents has similarly brought its recipients within the sphere of literary culture and international communication. But, in principle anyway, it has favoured the growth of vernacular literature. Original expectations that Latin, or some Western language, would serve for most important sacred purposes gave way to a recognition that Scripture and liturgy belonged to the vernacular, that the language of prayer is most properly the language of the home. The cultural effects of this are obvious; there are many instances of cultural renaissance caused by the growth of vernacular writing.3 The specifically Christian “sacred” use of the vernacular has given some primal cultures a resilience against the solvent of rapid change leading to loss of identity, and enabled a preservation of part of the local focus in the very act of producing a broader identity. There are also theological side effects. The explanation and elucidation of the Christian faith in one’s own vernacular, in dialogue with other vernacular speakers, is a wholly different matter from its recapitulation in an alien language of learned discourse, however correctly acquired.

He had such a sense of the presence of God upon him that every common act was a prayer. This describes Jaffray precisely, and it accounts for his being able to be always in the Spirit and always on the go.

… something may be written about enthusiasm by way of epilogue; if you will, of epitaph. There may even be a moral in it; history teaches us our lessons, more often than not, obliquely. Not what happened, but the meaning of what happened, concerns us. At what sources do they feed, these torrents which threaten, once and again, to carry off our peaceful country-side in ruin? Basically it is the revolt of Platonism against the Aristotelian mise en scene of traditional Christianity. The issue hangs on the question whether the Divine Fact is something given, or something to be inferred. Your Platonist, satisfied that he has formed his notion of God without the aid of syllogisms or analogies, will divorce reason from religion; it is a faculty concerned with the life of the senses, and nothing assures us that it can penetrate upwards; he is loth to theologize. Correspondingly, in his prayer, he will use no images, no mental images even, as a ladder to reach the unseen; the God who reveals himself interiorly claims a wholly interior worship as his right. Nor will this directness of access be merely one-sided; the soul's immediate approach to God finds its counterpart in an immediate approach of God to the soul; he issues his commands to it, reveals his truth to it, without any apparatus of hierarchies or doctrinal confessions to do his work for him. Finally, since God, not man, is his point of departure, the Platonist will have God served for himself alone, not in any degree for the sake of man's wellbeing; an Aristotelian trick, to make happiness, in this world or the next, the end of man! In a word, he is theocentric; he quarrels with the theologian, for supposing that God can be known derivatively; he quarrels with the liturgist, for offering outward worship; he quarrels with Church authorities, for issuing Divine commands at secondhand; he quarrels with the missionary, for urging men to save their souls, when nothing really matters except the Divine will. This is the direction Platonist thought will take, if left to itself; the resultant spirituality, it will be seen, is in line with that of the Quakers and of the Quietists. But at one very important point it is not in line with those revivalist enthusiasms which are more familiar to us. The salvation of your own soul is a business which the Quaker takes in his stride, the Quietist elaborately ignores; to the revivalist, it is everything. Aristotelian on this one point, Jansenism, Moravianism, Methodism (not all alike, but all equally) are obsessed with soteriology. For the mystic, the Cloud of Unknowing will tell us, God is so much the unique object of regard that a man's own sins will only appear as a dark speck in the middle distance, as a thing within view but not focused. Whereas Pascal will not even let us ask whether God exists, until he has forced us to admit that our need of salvation is desperate-you must not separate the two problems. There are two spiritualities; one which is too generous ever to ask, and one which is too humble ever to do anything else; at this cross-roads the mystic parts company with the revivalist, and either is tempted to exaggerate his own attitude. On the one side, we shall hear the Quaker talking dangerously about 'the Christ who died at Jerusalem', and the Quietist discouraging all meditation about the Sacred Humanity. On the other side, the figure of a Divine-Human Saviour will so fill the canvas that Zinzendorf and Howell Harris can find no real place in their system for the Eternal Father. The child's phrase, 'I love Jesus, but I hate God', is the too-candid expression of a real theological tendency

The Downing home fire is noteworthy because it illustrates, in a darkly humorous way, the potential for spiritual legalism that has been one of the enduring failings of the school. The fire’s origin remains something of a mystery, but when several students did notice it, the flames were still small enough that it might be put out. In a panic, the girls called the home of a station family where a large number of the missionaries were meeting. The mother answered the telephone and, hearing the voice of a student emphatically stated, “We are in a prayer meeting and should not be interrupted!” and promptly hung up. The now hysterical girls nonetheless obeyed the missionary lady and, as the righteous group continued to pray for the school, watched as the dorm burnt to the ground. p111-112

We tend to attribute the complexity and busyness of our lives to a false culprit. We blame it on our environment. The pace of activity in our cities, our workload or office culture, our stage in life, and the current demands on our time are the assumed chief causes of our overwhelmed lives. Quaker missionary Thomas Kelly, writing in 1941, made a different observation after spending a full year “slowing down” and “simplifying” on a twelve-month sabbatical in Hawaii. Like other Americans, he had carried with him to the tropics the “mad-cap, feverish life” he knew on the mainland.15 Your inner life is not a mirror image of your environment. If anything, the opposite is true. We create an environment that mirrors our inner life. Kelly observed: Strained by the very mad pace of our daily outer burdens, we are further strained by an inward uneasiness, because we have hints that there is a way of life vastly richer and deeper than all this hurried existence, a life of unhurried serenity and peace and power. If only we could slip over into that Center! If only we could find the Silence which is the source of sound!16 All of these teachers are circling around the same thing: hurry is the great enemy of spiritual life in our day.

Success is going from one failure to another without a lack of enthusiasm - W. Churchill

Prayer, secret, fervent believing prayer, lies at the root of all personal godliness….Let us give ourselves unreservedly to this glorious cause.

At a key point in the letter James told his readers: “You do not have because you do not ask God” (4:2). Prayer makes a difference. Your prayer makes a difference. “The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective” (5:16). One of the most successful advertising campaigns of recent years came from a regional airline in the US during the run-up to Christmas. They set up a “virtual Santa” in the departure lounge of a domestic flight. Passengers would scan their boarding pass, activating a screen featuring Santa (located somewhere else and with access to their flight details), who would then ask them what they wanted for Christmas before sending them on their way. Unbeknownst to the passengers, employees from the airline then went out to local malls to purchase and wrap the very things the passengers had asked for—everything from new socks to a widescreen TV. When the passengers arrived at their destination, their gifts arrived along with their luggage at the baggage belt. Many stood in disbelief when they realised what had happened. Needless to say, the video recording their reactions went viral, providing the airline with way more publicity and goodwill than a standard commercial would have generated. But after the warm glow from watching it subsided, I had one thought in my mind: The guy who only asked for socks must be kicking himself. Once he’d realised what had happened, surrounded by people with expensive cameras and tablets, he must have felt a little foolish clutching a pair of socks. If only he had known. If only he had asked. James does not want us to make the same mistake. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. It is real. Things actually happen. God answers. How foolish we are not to pray far more than we do. How foolish, at the end of the day, aware of all that we could have had, to be left clutching the equivalent of a pair of socks that we never even realised we would get. Not every Christian can be a great theologian, preacher, missionary or evangelist. But every Christian can be a great and effective pray-er.

Mother Teresa with almost pragmatic efficiency had brought together two perceived needs: the need for a kind of power house of prayer o the part of her Missionaries of Charity; and the need of the sick and suffering to find a meaning to their existence. Over and above this, however, many of the Sick and Suffering links became living witnesses to Mother Teresa's conviction that suffering could draw people closer to God. The letters of the Sick and Suffering bore such eloquent witness to her belief that 'suffering begets life in the soul' that in 1983 Mother Teresa would take the unusual step of actually suggesting that they should be published. The reason she gave was less uncharacteristic: 'It will help many people to love Jesus more.;

We have no idea what people are dealing with or the hurts and wounds that have been inflicted upon them. Personally, after reading this, I have been challenged to not be so complacent in my prayer life, and to be more intentional about doing battle for the lost and hurting who need me. " - Christian Missionary Laurie Lester

It is these men and women who ask us to tell it out clearly how sorely our Indian Church needs your prayers. They have no desire to hide things. They speak straighter than we do, and far more strongly, and they believe, as we do, that if you know more you will pray more.

April 4 Elisha prayed, “O Lord, open his eyes so he may see.” (2 Kings 6:17) This is the prayer we need to pray for ourselves and one another: “Lord, open our eyes so we may see.” We are surrounded, just as the prophet Elisha was, by God’s “horses and chariots of fire” (2 Kings 6:17), waiting to transport us to places of glorious victory. Once our eyes are opened by God, we will see all the events of our lives, whether great or small, joyful or sad, as a “chariot” for our souls. Everything that comes to us becomes a chariot the moment we treat it as such. On the other hand, even the smallest trial may become an object crushing everything in its path into misery and despair if we allow it. The difference then becomes a choice we make. It all depends not on the events themselves but on how we view them. If we simply lie down, allowing them to roll over and crush us, they become an uncontrollable car of destruction. Yet if we climb into them, as riding in a car of victory, they become the chariots of God to triumphantly take us onward and upward. Hannah Whitall Smith There is not much the Lord can do with a crushed soul. That is why the Adversary attempts to push God’s people toward despair and hopelessness over their condition or the condition of the church. It has often been said that a discouraged army enters a battle with the certainty of defeat. I recently heard a missionary say she had returned home sick and disheartened because her spirit had lost its courage, which led to the consequence of an unhealthy body. We need to better understand these attacks of the Enemy on our spirit and how to resist them. If he can dislodge us from our proper position, he then seeks to “wear out the saints of the most High” (Dan. 7:25 KJV) through a prolonged siege, until we finally, out of sheer weakness, surrender all hope of victory.

Robert Arthur Mathews was part of Britain’s Force 136, a special force operating out of India into Burma and Malaya (modern Myanmar and Malaysia) during World War II. He also served for many years as a missionary with the China Inland Mission. In his book Born for Battle, Mathews writes,

The Sabbath is a holy day in which to do worthy and holy things. Abstinence from work and recreation is important, but insufficient. The Sabbath calls for constructive thoughts and acts, and if one merely lounges about doing nothing on the Sabbath, he is breaking it. To observe it, one will be on his knees in prayer, preparing lessons, studying the gospel, meditating, visiting the ill and distressed, writing letters to missionaries, taking a nap, reading wholesome material, and attending all the meetings of that day at which he is expected

When we have been attending church, we find – No God – No Power – No Gospel – Bad Agendas – Poor Leadership – Bad teaching – Bad programs – No Christ – No Healing – No miracles. Just a struggle for personal power and control.   I can't tell you how many times I have been treated like I am not going to Heaven because I am not attending church. So, the sad part is, where do we take our gifts, our tithes, and our love – but out to the streets.   We know many who have left the church, who are committed as prayer warriors, intercessors, missionaries, and worshippers. Wanting to share their gifts from God.   This movement is growing – so it will over-take the church. What you are seeing is just the tip of the iceberg.

Early morning daily prayer meetings became common, as did nights of prayer throughout Korea.  Now over a million gather every morning around 5 a.m. for prayer in the churches.  Prayer and fasting is normal.  Churches have over 100 prayer retreats in the hills called Prayer Mountains to which thousands go to pray, often with fasting.  Healings and supernatural manifestations continue.  Koreans have sent over 10,000 missionaries into other Asian countries.  Korea now has the largest Presbyterian and Methodist churches in the world, and has four of the world’s seven largest Sunday church attendances.