Recently, I moved to a city of about 500,000 people. Although some people put the number at closer to 600,000 people, neither figure includes the tens of thousand of individuals who commute here from local villages and other cities to attend the university or for work.
Yet despite these large numbers, I have twice attended the one and only evangelical fellowship in the city, and I sat among only 30 individuals each time. There are also several nonevangelical fellowships here, but there the message taught is watered down. The focus is on religion, not a relationship with our Creator, and even their numbers are unbelievably low.
What do you do? How do you even begin to address this massive and dire problem? There are at least 500,000 people living in this city, and on any given Sunday you find around 30 people attending an evangelical fellowship. I think one of the best answers to this problem is found in prayer.
Several days a week, we set out into a new section of the city, which we previously mapped out into 21 sections, and ask God to begin to work in this city. We ask for a revival, we ask for a church planting movement, and we ask for dreams. We ask that God be glorified by the people of our city—a place where currently his followers are few. We serve a great Father who is always faithful and will never cease to spread his kingdom. I am privileged to get to take part, and I eagerly await his promise.
J.R. is a Texas student serving in the Middle East with Go Now Missions. His full name is withheld for security reasons.
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