YWAM Main Page

July 1997 Main Index

July 1997 News:

YWAM Ministries: 

Mercy Ships International  

University of the Nations

A MONTH OF prayer for the world's 900 million Hindus is to be
"echoed" later this year.

        Following the success of the event in the United States,
England and New Zealand, the 30 Days Hindu Prayer Focus - which ended on June 16 - is due to be staged in Germany and India, in October.

        Interest in the initiative is expected to be fueled further by
the global Praying Through The Window III event, also happening
in October. The AD2000 & Beyond movement's prayer month
spotlights the 10/40 Window - the region of the world with the
greatest number of unreached people groups, which includes India.

        More than 10,000 copies of a daily prayer guide were
distributed for the first 30 Days Hindu Prayer Focus, organized
as a three-way partnership between Youth With A Mission, South
Asian Concern in England, and the Reconciliation! Fellowship of
Churches in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

        Starting on Pentecost Sunday, the prayer focus gave participants daily profiles of different Hindu people groups, and details of history and culture, together with specific points for prayer. Topics included Hinduism's influence on the spread of New Age beliefs in the West, India's divisive caste system, and the roles of men and women.

        "Although the Hindu world is not much smaller numerically than the Muslim world, there has been far less attention focused on
it by Christians thus far," said Paul Filidis, director of the YWAM communications office which published the 52-page prayer guide.

        "That is partly because there is much less known, generally,
about Hindus than Muslims, but also perhaps because with its multiple gods and pantheism it has largely been seen as too strange a world for many monotheistic Christians to think about.

        "We hope that the prayer month has played a small part in
changing that, by informing people so they better understand the
Hindu world, and also turning their hearts towards a people who
need to know Christ as much as any group."

        Although India has 18 million Christians, mostly in the south,
they make up just 2.5 per cent of the population - most of whom
follow one of the many streams of Hinduism with its belief in
reincarnation and millions of deities.

        The 30 Days Hindu Prayer Focus is set to become an annual
project, like its forerunner the 30 Days Muslim Prayer Focus which was started in 1993 and this year drew an estimated ten million participants.

YWAM Press & Media Services