Malaysia

Challenges for Prayer

Religious freedom for all faiths is constitutionally guaranteed despite changes that threaten this. Pray especially that the Christian community may continue to possess the liberty to practice, profess and propagate their faith amid the discrimination and intimidation arising from the process of Islamization currently occurring.

The Christian community faces many challenges beyond the external issues of religious freedom and evangelizing Muslims. Pray for:

a) Unity among Christians. They face social ills, injustices and growing discrimination against ethnic and religious minorities. The Christian Federation of Malaysia represents evangelicals, Catholics and mainline denominations before the government. The National Evangelical Christian Fellowship (NECF) consists of evangelical churches and organizations focused on building unity, prayer, ministry and mission. The NECF assists evangelicals in transforming the nation by promoting economic sufficiency, justice/advocacy and national righteousness.

b) Godly leadership within the Christian community. Pray for godly leaders who are prepared, at considerable cost, to lead their churches by nurturing and empowering members to live godly lives – in the discipline of prayer and the task of evangelism – as they manifest witness to the concerns and needs of every sphere of society.

c) Lack of Christian workers. Many smaller churches have no trained pastor, even with a healthy number of Bible colleges, seminaries and church-training programmes. Too few respond to God’s call to service because of family expectations, materialism, a lack of role models and the perception that years of theological training are required.

d) Marginalization creates anxiety, a ghetto mentality and the desire to withdraw from being the witnesses Christians should be. Emigration rates of professionals and Bible school graduates are high.

     For an additional 7 Challenges for Prayer see Operation World book, CD-ROM, or DVD-ROM.