Can prayer really change history?

. . . Right now, the Gospel is sweeping the globe at a rate that is unimaginable. . . People’s hunger for the good news of the Gospel is reaching an all-time high. Across the planet followers of Jesus are increasing by more than eighty thousand per day! China now has more followers of Jesus than members of the Communist Party. In Africa the church is growing by thirty-four thousand every day. We are living during the greatest time of harvest ever seen in world history.

Avery Willis, the VP of the Southern Baptist International Mission Board, reports as high as 70 percent of the total number of people who have been saved throughout world history, have come to Christ in the last hundred years. But get this: 70 percent of that number has been saved since 1945! Let me boggle your mind with one other layer of observation from this world mission’s expert: 70 percent of those saved since 1945 have been saved since 1990! That's how fast the Gospel is storming our world today.

What does that look like? In Nepal, just 2000 Christians were known in 1990; ten years later that number had grown to more than half a million. Cambodia has turned from a killing field to a mission field.  Cambodia claimed only 600 believers in 1990; there is a reported 200,000 today. In Korea during the 20th Century, the country advanced from being 2 percent Christian to about 29 percent Christian today. Ethiopia and East Africa are experiencing one of the greatest movements of God in history.

In Uganda alone, HIV/AIDS once claimed the lives of one-third of the population. The World Health Organization predicted the complete collapse of the Ugandan economy by the year 2000.But revival has come to that country. With the salvation of many has come a transformation in morals; AIDS is down to 5 percent. So great is this revival that one church alone went from seven in attendance to an average of 2000 in just two weeks! Currently, that same church has a membership of 22,000 and has planted 150 other churches.

In Ethiopia there is a small region where evangelists have seen 10,000 people come to Christ, but there is not even one pastor to shepherd them. This is just more evidence of why God is leading me to write a pastor’s training book and why Cornerstone is ready to provide the resources to train 9000 pastors serving 8 million believers.

In South Sudan, Dennis Neal reported that Cornerstone Church is funding scores of teams who are taking the Jesus Film to about a half million souls per year! Such explosive growth is hard for us to imagine.

In almost every quarter of the globe, Christianity is advancing...except for four primary areas: North America, Japan, Australia, and Western Europe. Guess what one of the common denominators is everywhere Christianity marches forward: Christians spend time in prayer together. Track what God is doing in Korea, in China, in India, in Eastern Africa and you will find behind-the-scenes prayer meetings. . .


From Cornerstone Church, Long Beach e-newsletter, Summer 2016