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RUN! A plea for passionate Prayer
Advocates Reach the
Unevangelized Now! |
50
Advocates!
I was angry
A letter from Senegal made me seriously angry. "The JOLA people have had a church for 30 years" it said "but the church is not growing, because there is hardly a Christian in it who is totally free from traditional occult practices." I was angry with the devil for blinding these people, and also with myself and the mission prayer force that had failed to see these workers empowered and these people freed. I began to give a lunch-hour a week to intercession. I began to preach about it, and others joined me. I wrote to workers from four agencies working among the Jola, and as they all began to send news, I put together a monthly Jola news sheet. Things began to happen out there at last. One of the Wycliffe translators wondered why this project seemed to have fewer hiccups than most. Our passionate prayers, added to those of a whole generation of missionaries before us, were beginning to tip the balance. I discovered there’s a name for what I do. They call me an Advocate.
This Jola is still not free from fear
We are not willing to allow Satan to hold multiple millions of people in bondage any longer. This is a spiritual battle, though the outcome is guaranteed. We are seeking passionate prayer advocates for the 50 most resistant peoples we are working among.
What is an Advocate?
An advocate is a person who becomes passionate about the people he/she has adopted. Through prayer and any other means possible, he/she seeks to see Jesus Christ honoured and glorified among these people.
The
primary priority of the advocate is to recruit prayer partners for his/her
people, and to ensure a regular flow of passionate prayer fuel to those
intercessors.
How does one become an advocate?
God often uses information to alert us that a group is still seriously lost.
Take the Mandinka, for instance. A total of 35 believers after 37 years is an affront to the promise of Jesus ‘I will build my church!’ Or look at the Japanese, with 0.3% Evangelicals after 50 years of toil.
So we begin to pray demanding that this state of affairs be changed. Prayer is dissatisfaction with the status quo. We realise it would change quicker if there were more of us! So we decide to become an advocate!
Of course there are many other ways!
What does an Advocate
do?
An advocate not only prays for his people, but acts as the distributor for prayer information to churches, cells, women’s and youth groups, and individuals who pray for that people. This means either editing a newsletter, or distributing missionaries’ letters regularly to all those who have adopted that people. The advocate will try to visit his people group, and in subsequent years might lead a team to visit for prayer or participation.
(A few possible extras)
The advocate and the field worker become very close friends! The advocate might take photos or videos, draw maps, make displays and presentations to raise the profile of that people before the churches, or at least provide information to those who do. He or she might cooperate with the team on the field in publicising any field project. When workers are on home assignment, advocate and missionary might run a prayer retreat together.
Who needs an advocate?
EUROPE %E E W Y
Albanians 0.3 8550 5 9
Basque 0.01 220 6 5
Flemish 0.4 24000 4 2
French 0.5 210000 10 40
Greeks 0.3 27000 7 7
Italians
0.7 375200 8 38
Spanish
0.25 97000 15 34
AFRICA %E E W Y
Arab Chad 0.00 0 0 40
Arab N.Africa 0.01 4900 3 37
Barala
0.01 23 2 37
Biafada 0.00 4 1 15
Cape Malay 3.00 7200 4 8
Dagomba 0.6 4800 2 15
Dioula 0.01 13 1 6
Dogosi + 0.00 1 0 16
Fula 0.00 473 3 66
Gonja 1.00 1940 4 49
Jola 0.13 635 9 42
Mandinka 0.01 35 1 37
Pygmy Eq.Gui. 0.3 144 2 3
Mancanha
0.5 215 0 0
Nalu. 0.05 8 3 3
Ouaddai peoples 0.00 36 24 40
Soninke 0.00 0 2 6
Susu 0.02 181 3 12
Wolof 0.00 111 3 37
Worodougou 0.03 15 5 10
LATIN
AMERICA %E E W Y
Amazon tribes 0.00 0 8 2
ASIA %E E W Y
Fiji Indians 3.0 9000 6 6
Fiji Chinese 2.0 200 3 6
Hakka
0.3 6720
5 5
Japanese 0.3 375000 21 52
Khmer 0.5 46000 10 8
Thai
0.25 36750 35 25
Timorese
2.5 22100
6 3
Key:
%E = percent Evangelical
E =
number of Evangelicals
W = number of Workers
Y = years since we began
See website <iroteam.com/pl>
for info on many of these peoples, and write to IDEA for a CD of CAN profiles.
Each people needs more than one advocate
Each people group need an advocate for each language we have intercessors: Chinese, English, Finnish, French, German, Korean, Nederlandse, Portuguese, Spanish, Swiss-German.
One of the main functions of a sending base!
It is one of our major responsibilities in the sending bases to ensure there is sufficient prayer not just for our worker, but also for the people group our worker is trying to reach! This is the reason we sent someone there in the first place! We need to break down barriers to belief, so the church can be planted!
No individual sending base member can do that effectively for 50 people groups, but each of us can do it effectively for one! Here in the IO, we’re asking for every sending base staff member to seriously consider before the Lord the need to be an advocate for one people, recruit a prayer team, and pray your people group through to the kingdom. From Sending Base Leader down, will you ask God if he wants you to be advocate for one people?
Will you pray about being an advocate?
If you are willing to take on this strategic role, or if you have a question or comment, would you drop me a line?
John Bardsley