World

Answers to Prayer

Renewal movements have grown at an unforeseen rate – from the birth of the Pentecostal movement at the beginning of the 20th Century, to the first stirrings of charismatic renewal in the 1950s and 1960s, to the Third Wave in the latter part of the 20th Century, and finally to the 21st Century and what many believe is a new (and possibly final) global outpouring of the Holy Spirit that exceeds them all. Pentecostals grew from 12 million in 1960 to 178 million in 2010; charismatics from 167 million in 1990 to 426 million in 2010. The charismatic renewal has touched many parts of the Church, in thousands of denominations, in nearly every country. Despite imperfections (sinful humans are involved, after all), charismatic renewal has revitalized the faith of approaching half a billion people in an era where opposition and temptation come from myriad quarters.

The gospel took root within hundreds of the world’s least reached peoples. In many cases, peoples with no known believers ten or twenty years ago now have churches within them, some of them thriving, growing churches now involved themselves in the Great Commission! The 1990s saw the most concerted attempt to analyze the need of the world – a process in which Operation World itself played a part. And 1995 saw the beginning of the Joshua Project List (JPL), originally a list of 1,583 of the world’s least reached peoples. While this is expanded to now include all peoples in the world (16,350), the original list served as a catalyst for the Church to pray for, adopt and engage with every one of these least reached peoples. It also inspired national-level research in many countries where the 1,583 were found; this missiological and people group research by Majority World Christians has been a major step toward completion of the Great Commission. Much pioneering work remains, but praise God for miraculous opening of doors and receptivity to the gospel in new places – some once considered all but impossible to reach.

     For an additional 3 Challenges for Prayer see Operation World book, CD-ROM, or DVD-ROM.