We used to and we can again

I saw an article yesterday, entitled Global Prayer Movement Credited for Mass Revival Among Muslims. It begins:

“A global prayer movement, organized to coincide with Ramadan, is credited with playing a major part in impacting the Muslim world.

Hundreds of thousands of Christians around the world are due to take part in the 25th annual 30 Days of Prayer for the Muslim World (30daysprayer.com), to be held May 15 - June 14.

Since the initiative was launched, more followers of Islam are believed to have turned to Christ than in any time in history.”

You can read the entire article here.

I have seen many, many reports of God working among Muslims, and it’s always exciting to read them. And this article, like the other reports, reminded me of the part we played in this.

I was a pastor for more than 25 years, serving three churches in Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina. Each one was a part of the Christian & Missionary Alliance, an evangelical denomination which describes itself as, “missionary is our middle name.” Naturally we emphasized missions in every church.

When we were in York, SC, I somehow came across an interesting prayer initiative from Window International Network (WIN) called

Praying Through The 10/40 Window

This was not a C&MA project, but I looked into it because mission groups everywhere were talking about the 10/40 Window. What is this 10/40 Window?

“The 10/40 Window is located from 10 degrees south to 40 degrees north of the equator. There are 69 nations across northern Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia in the 10/40 Window. Nearly 4 billion people live here, including 90 percent of the world's poorest of the poor. It is estimated that 1.6 billion of these people have never had the chance to hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ - not even once! The seat of every major non-Christian religion - Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Animism, Atheism, and Sikhism - is headquartered in the 10/40 Window. Two-thirds of the world’s population (4 billion) live in the 68 nations of the 10/40 Window.”

We signed up and joined other believers around the world in a 30 day concert of prayer for the nations in the window. Exotic countries, strange names, foreign customs, far off places full of people we had never seen, yet we faithfully prayed for them.

Shortly after we began participating in Praying Through The 10/40 Window I received an invitation to join

30 Days of Prayer for the Muslim World

“The 30 Days of Prayer for the Muslim World, is an international movement that began in 1993. It calls the church to make a deliberate but respectful effort to learn about, pray for and reach out to our world’s Muslim neighbors. It coincides annually with the important Islamic month of religious observation — Ramadan.”

Most of the Muslim world is in the 10/40 Window so we joined this initiative also. Here we were, a little church in upstate South Carolina, praying for people we didn’t know, living in cities we struggled to pronounce, with customs we didn’t understand; yet those brothers and sisters faithfully continued in prayer because we believed God loves those folks and has the power to do what we can’t even imagine.

We were never planning to visit the Window, so how would we ever know if God answered our prayers? All we knew was God loves them, Christ died for them, and the Holy Spirit wanted us to pray for them. And so we did. That’s why articles like this are so exciting - we responded to the Spirit’s moving and joined believers all over the world in this prayer initiative, and God has done wonders!

I have often shared these reports with those brothers and sisters, and reminded them of our part in that, to encourage them in their faith. Now I suppose I should move from “we used to participate in the 30 Days of Prayer” to “let me once again join with the saints in the 30 Days of Prayer for the Muslim World.”