Displaying items by tag: Europe

A Christian in Romania writes, ‘We need prayer for President Klaus Iohannis to be strong in this time of battle against corruption. The left wing want to remove his right to nominate the general prosecutor and the director of the National Direction against Corruption. Until this time the justice representatives did their job and thousands are in prisons or attending court. The coalition majority is very corrupted. Many have committed felonies and should be in prison, but they have parliamentary immunity. Pray for those who are honest to dissociate from those corrupted and for this coalition to be dissolved. In this way we can hope for the election of a new government.’ The current law pardons politicians who commit felonies, receive bribes or offer favourable contracts for families and friends. This parliament wants to decriminalise these actions and set prisoners free. The people are demonstrating in the streets against this proposals.

Shaykh Dr Umar Al-Qadri, head imam of an educational and cultural centre in Eire, said there would be ‘a backlash’ against a new European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruling allowing employers to ban staff from wearing hijabs and other religious symbols in the workplace. He was responding to the ruling on the EU directive on equal treatment in employment and occupation. A Muslim woman in Belgium had challenged a company policy prohibiting the wearing of a hijab, on grounds of discrimination. However, the ECJ ruled that an internal rule prohibiting the visible wearing of any political, philosophical or religious sign does not constitute direct discrimination. Dr Al-Qadri said the ruling was ‘a very serious threat to the principles of tolerance, equality and religious freedom in Europe’. He warned that Islamophobia is increasing, especially in Belgium, France, and the Netherlands.

Many refugee children are abandoned, abused, or lost to trafficking because of neglect or being orphaned. They are forced to work or beg for money on the streets where refugees currently live. One child said: ‘Because my father died in the war, I was forced to work selling things on the streets. One day, some people visited my mother, sisters and me. They helped me go to a school for refugees and learn about Jesus.’ The compassion expressed in the story of the prodigal son gives us insight into the heart of God. He is the compassionate God who weeps over those who are lost and despairing. His desire is that those who have lost their way will return to Him and know the great love He has for them. Pray for refugee street children in the Middle East and Europe.

We recently highlighted THY KINGDOM COME 2017, launching a time of prayer from 25 May to 4 June. It is gathering momentum - not only in the UK but worldwide. An updated website is now live with more information on this call to pray individually, as families and as churches together, from Ascension Day to Pentecost. The site has a wide range of excellent resource material which can be downloaded and copied free, or bought if people prefer. Pray for awareness to continue to grow, through networking ministers and prayer groups talking to other local churches about joint prayer times. Pray for the communities of praying people to explore new ideas and ways of engaging people in prayer across their communities, towns and cities. The theme of the ten days is 'Praying that people come to know Jesus Christ'.

When prayer becomes intercession, we need to know what we are interceding for. It sounds simple, but this is one of our greatest challenges in today's society. We are bombarded with information and we often have neither the time nor the ability to check the facts. Even as Christians we can be cocooned in our own cultural, religious or denominational bubble where we only believe what agrees with our own views. As intercessors for Europe, we need to be aware of the realities of what is called a 'post-truth' society, where fake news becomes fact and what is popular and self-satisfying becomes my truth. The good news is that as Christians we have an open heaven and a God who wants to guide and correct us. We can be fervent in prayer as we navigate the minefield of information and opinions out there. We can look outside our bubble.

The Roma people, often referred to as Gypsy, are originally from India and now live scattered all over the world, especially Europe. After attending a training workshop, Marlute works with a Roma man on a OneStory project in a Central Romani dialect in Romania. OneStory works with mother-tongue speakers to develop and record worldview-sensitive, chronological Bible story sets. The whole project will take about two years. The team has drafted several Bible stories and is testing them. New-Neighbour-Bible.org was recently launched by Wycliffe Germany. The website provides information about Scripture resources in the languages spoken by the people arriving from other nations now living in Europe. Links to Bibles, Bible stories, videos and audio recordings are listed for the languages of Syria, Iraq and Lebanon. Resources for other countries will be added soon. Pray that churches and Christian refugee networks will find out about and use this site.

Unprecedented evangelical unity across the UK will run from April to October with 100,000+ Christians taking part in '17:21'. The initiative is named after Jesus prayer in John 17:21: 'May they all be one that the world might believe'. Christian groups, conferences and festivals will read the same Bible reading, prayer of commitment, and declaration of a shared life in Christ, and play the same worship song. Malcolm Duncan, representing Spring Harvest, added, 'The 17:21 initiative calls all of us who stand under the shadow of the Cross to link arms in the great responsibility that God has given us – presenting a living Saviour to a dying world. I have been humbled and thrilled to be part of this call to the festivals, conventions and Bible weeks in the United Kingdom to declare that we are united by far more than what divides us. May God take us beyond structural and mechanistic unity and give us the boldness and courage to stand together for Christ.' The initiative comes in the year of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation.

The following is from a Pray for Scotland pdf: ‘We are in unprecedented times of change and upheaval. But, praise God, we are also in unprecedented times of opportunity and openness to the Gospel. In modern warfare, ground assaults precede air attacks to remove defences, supply lines, etc. So it is in the spiritual battle. As the ground troops, our task it is to take back the ground lost to the forces of evil. We do this through mission and outreach, through acts of kindness and compassion, through being “salt and light” where God has placed us in the workplace or other part of society, and in other ways. The air assault to prepare the way for the ground troops is our prayers and worship; two warfare weapons that change the atmosphere in our streets, communities, towns, and cities - removing obstacles to the advance of the Gospel, demolishing strongholds, replacing “heaviness” in the atmosphere with “lightness”, and opening hearts and minds to receiving the truth about Jesus.’

A bill on abortion rules will be brought before Parliament on Monday under the ten-minute rule. This bill calls for the decriminalisation of abortion, without specifying any restrictions - allowing abortion up to birth, on demand, for any reason. Conservative MP Maria Caulfied commented, ‘We are surprised and deeply concerned that such a radical proposal is being brought forward. Already within our current legal framework we have seen doctors pre-signing forms, gender-selective abortions being offered, live babies being left to die following abortions that have gone wrong and children with minor disabilities, such as cleft palates, aborted.’ Also please pray for Roger Kiska, who in a historic case on Tuesday will present oral arguments before the EU Court of Justice on behalf of the 1.9 million Europeans who signed the initiative to protect the unborn child.

In France, teachers may teach about the Bible, but are strictly forbidden from proselytising or preaching. A step to keep religion out of schools was taken in 2013 when schools were ordered by law to put a charter in a prominent place to remind people of fifteen secular Republican principles. Last week a teacher in Malicornay, central France, was suspended after reading passages of the Bible to his pupils, aged between nine and eleven. Parents of pupils in the class objecting to the teacher's lessons wrote an anonymous letter of complaint to the headmaster, who then decided to suspend the teacher for his apparent disregard of France's strict secularism laws that separate religion from public sphere, in particular in education. The national education board is reviewing the case. France takes secularism - or laïcité - very seriously; however, it is unusual for a teacher to be suspended for reading a passage from the Bible.