Pray Network Forum

Unreached (3)

PTAP: God is Building His Church.

Posted by Merton J. Hershberger on August 19, 2015 at 17:11
Praise God for the handfuls of known believers in this country. Every person who is given faith is a miracle of God's washing and regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit (Titus 3:5)! Praise him for his grace that has appeared, bringing salvation for all people (Titus 2:11).
Pray for these believers, that they would renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age as they wait for the blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ (Titus 2:11). Praise Jesus that he will continue to purify a people for himself for his own possession who are zealous for good works (Titus 2:13-14). So pray that these believers would continue to grow in their knowledge of God and who they are in Christ and as a result, be very zealous to do good works, to practice love, and to meet the needs of others before their own (Phil 2:1-11).
Pray for unity among the believers. The evil one plants distrust and fear among them and it is difficult at times to be united as one community for Christ. Pray that they know how much God loves them so that love would reign among them so that fear is cast out (1 John 4:18, 19). Pray for unity (Psalm 133, 1 Cor 12:12-26). Pray that they would attain the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God to mature manhood to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ (Eph 4:13).
Pray for a zeal for outreach as well. Part of growing in the knowledge of the Son of God is to reach out and make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:18-20). Pray that they would be filled with the Holy Spirit and thus be bold in their witness (Acts 4:29-31).
Most of the believers come from the same areas of the country. The other regions are totally unreached. Pray that God would bring in his sheep from these unengaged regions, that they would hear the Shepherd's voice, and that they would unite with other members of Christ's body here so that there will be one flock under one Shepherd (John 10:16).
Pray for the people of this country who study abroad as international students and become believers there. Praise God that this is happening. Pray for continued outreach to all people from the Middle East who study abroad and who are exposed to the knowledge of the Son of God for the first time in their lives. Pray that God would continue to build his church among "aliens", "immigrants", and "sojourners" because He loves them as He loves orphans and widows (Deut 10:18-19).
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Calling All Intercessors - "An Untold Story of Lostness in America

Posted by Linda Bemis on March 5, 2014 at 20:30

undefinedFree Ebook:

Unreached Peoples, Least Reached Places: An Untold Story of Lostness in America

by JD Payne

- March 3rd, 2014

I am delighted to share that Unreached Peoples, Least Reached Places: An Untold Story of Lostness in America is now available to download as a pdf.  It’s brief, about fifty pages. That is intentional.  You can read it quickly.

The pastors with The Church at Brook Hills are always asking how we can best equip our faith family for the work of the ministry (Eph 4:11-12).  Part of shepherding others to reach the nations requires painting a picture of the realities of lostness.  Therefore, I wrote this short ebook for our people.

Unreached Peoples, Least Reached Places is written to cast a vision of reality in the United States, and to offer some practical steps to move us along in disciple making and church multiplication.  We know much about lostness in other parts of the world; we know little about it in our backyard.

One of the convictions that we hold as a faith family is to give away many om advancement.  With this in mind, I am releasing this book to you.  I pray that it will be a blessing to you and your ministry.

So…

Download your copy.  

http://www.jdpayne.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Unreached-Peoples-Least-Reached-Places-Payne.pdf

If you do, tell others to get a copy.  Spread the word, far and wide.

Take it. Give it away.  Use it for leading your church to the nations in this nation and beyond.  If you do, tell others to get a copy.  Spread the word, far and wide.

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Join us in praying for America to understand LOSTNESS right here.

Persistently prevailing,

Linda Bemis

Director, Prayer

International Orality Network

Visit: http://Orality.net

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Reach Unreached People through Prayer

Posted by Elaine Helms on August 24, 2011 at 15:53
MARIETTA, Ga. (BP) -- With both anticipation and nostalgia I listened to Bryant Wright, president of the Southern Baptist Convention, tell how he and Tom Elliff, the International Mission Board's new president, each had been led by the Spirit of God to challenge Southern Baptist churches to embrace the world's remaining 3,800 unengaged, unreached people groups at the 2011 SBC annual meeting in Phoenix.While many think embracing a people group will entail an immediate trip overseas, quite often the first step is commitment followed by much prayer.The nostalgia at the SBC meeting came because in 1989 Bill O'Brien, a vice president of the then-Foreign Mission Board, visited Johnson Ferry Baptist Church to talk to our pastor, Bryant Wright. I remember being called into the conference room to hear the discussion because we had established a focused prayer ministry a few years earlier and I was the prayer coordinator. If this commitment was made, the prayer ministry would help carry the responsibilities to ensure church-wide participation.The more I heard, the more intently I listened. This was no ordinary prayer request.We were looking at committing to a people group that was not only unreached, but also unreachable due to the "Iron Curtain" in place at the time. This was an opportunity to be stretched into believing that God was up to something and was inviting us to join Him in prayer. With growing excitement, I agreed to do whatever it would take to help get everyone praying for our new group.When we got our people group assignment, we couldn't even pronounce their name, let alone spell it. So we got out a world map to find where these people lived. While they seemed strange at first, over time and with faithful installments of information from the mission board about our group, we became more familiar with them.At least once a month as we received information, we printed a bulletin insert and took a special time during worship services to pray for our people group. We prayed for them around the clock in our 24-hour prayer room. And we began to discuss them and pray in our Sunday School classes.The World Day of Prayer and Fasting for World Evangelization on June 1, 1990, focused our people group, the Kirghiz people of Asia. We were praying but we were not alone, and it was exciting to realize that adopting a people group is indeed a "group" project. When we responded to our God-sized assignment, He was simultaneously calling out others as well.With all the extraordinary prayer God was drawing from people around the world, He granted the fall of the Soviet Union. That new open door allowed for an exploratory trip to be taken from Johnson Ferry in 1991. Groups began to go, including medical teams to host clinics and business training teams looking for open doors for the Gospel. By the fall of that year, interns from Kyrghizstan were invited and brought to Atlanta to have hands-on training with business men and women in our church. With all this interaction, our people group really became tangible to our church and God opened many doors for the Gospel to be shared.Fast forward to 2011, and the ripple effect is still being felt in Kyrghizstan where indigenous, growing churches are reaching their own country for Christ. We are so glad we stepped out in faith to pray for what God wanted us to do and obeyed His call to adopt and partner together to reach an unreached people group. Just the other day at lunch a church friend told me that two Kirghiz women, both Christians now studying in the United States, came to Christ on one of our mission trips to their people group. They are eternally grateful that we cared about them.Now with this new call to the SBC, our Sunday Bible study class is praying about embracing a people group. We are large enough to be a small church and interested enough to trust God to do it again!I hope you, too, will pray about embracing an unengaged, unreached people group and see what God will do through you and your church.--30--Elaine Helms was the national prayer coordinator on staff at the North American Mission Board from 2000–10. She is the author of "Prayer 101" and is now director of Church Prayer Ministries (www.ChurchPrayerMinistries.org) in Atlanta. To learn more about the International Mission Board's call to embrace an unengaged, unreached people group, go to www.call2embrace.org or call toll-free 1-800-999-3113.© Copyright 2011 Baptist Press
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