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Prayer for the Persecuted Church Activity

The General Idea
This activity can be used in conjuction with a Bible study as a call to response or during a prayer emphasis. Spread cut-out slips of paper photocopied from the annual The Persecuted Church: Global Report at the altar area. Have people come forward and pick up a slip of paper. The paper will describe a Restricted Nation or Hostile Area. Allow 5-7 minutes for people to read the description of the country and pray for the country.

Materials Needed
Cut out slips of paper from country reports in The Persecuted Church: Global Report, available with the free monthly newsletter or purchase in bulk at 800.747.0085. For more information, go to http://www.persecution.com/.

Set Up
Prior to session, copy the pages from the report with the descriptions of individual countries in which a country is classified as a Restricted Nation or Hostile Area. Then cut the pages into slips so that each slip of paper has information about one country. (You may also be able to print the country information from the web site.) You will end up with 53 countries (based on 2010 report). If you have a larger congregation, you will need to do this more than once to get the correct number for your congregation. (For example, a congregation of 300 would neet to have about six copies of each country.)

Instructions
Place the slips of paper on the altar area and invite the congregation to come forward and take a slip of paper. Give them 5-7 minutes to read the slip of paper and pray for that nation and people described. If you want to do this for an extended period of time, then ask the people to exchange slips at the end of seven minutes and repeat the process. If you did this four times, it would take about 30 minutes.

Ideas for the Activity
  • You could use this as an activity at the end of a Bible study on persecution, Revelation 6:9-11, or Revelation 17:6.
  • You may have people in groups of 2-4 people praying for a single country. In that case, one person would read the description to the group, and then they would pray.
  • You may also use these slips of paper in the Stations of Prayer activity as an alternate method.

Tips for this Activity
  • Get a feel for how long it takes for people to complete their prayer for one nation, but do not extend the time too long. It is more effective to keep the activity moving than to let it lag and lose momentum.
  • If you have people who may be uncomfortable praying with others, let them know it is OK if they do not feel ready to pray yet.
  • For those who are physically unable to get around, deliver a prayer sheet to them.
 I taught at our church last Wednesday on Revelation 17 and had gotten a free resource packet from Voice of the Martyrs about a week earlier. As I read the passage, this prayer activity seemed like something good to do since the woman in the passage was "drunk with the blood of the (martyred) saints" (verse 6).
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