Bangladesh

Challenges for Prayer

The Church has many needs, the greatest of which is spiritual awakening. Pray that the Holy Spirit will move in these areas:

a) Nominal Christianity. Early people movements brought thousands from marginalized sections of society into the Church. Poverty, illiteracy and lack of trained, godly leadership led to shallowness and nominalism.

b) Unity. Imported and indigenous divisions hinder the Church’s witness to other faiths and make it easier to legislate against and intimidate Christians. Pray for the National Christian Fellowship of Bangladesh as it encourages evangelical unity and cooperative action in evangelism, teaching and aid programmes.

c) Outreach. After years of little interest, there is growing involvement in reaching out to others with the gospel. This marks a major transition in the national Church.

d) Finance. Christians generally come from lower classes and castes, which, together with their minority faith, limits employment opportunities. This can create a situation of perpetual dependency on foreign aid. National Christian workers are sometimes drawn by the much-needed salary more than the desire to serve. Pray for means by which believers and churches may be self-sustaining.

Leadership for the churches is much needed. Many pastors minister while holding down full-time jobs. A lack of resources limits the number of not only full-time ministers, but also full-time theological students. Pray for creative and responsible methods of offering relevant instruction. Spiritually mature lay leaders are also in short supply; pray for both renewal and training opportunities.

a) Key interdenominational residential schools are the College of Christian Theology Bangladesh and the Christian Discipleship Centre. Both also run TEE and short-term programmes which are of great strategic importance.

b) Denominational Bible schools and seminaries are also important in Bangladesh, run by AoG, GFA, ABWE, Free Baptist, Anglican, Adventist, Lutheran and Church of Bangladesh.

c) Indigenous Bible schools offer training in local community outreach, tailored to the needs of culturally Muslim followers of Jesus.

     For an additional 11 Challenges for Prayer see Operation World book, CD-ROM, or DVD-ROM.