Greetings friends, users, readers, critics, and intercessors! We bless you in the name of Jesus. Thank you for joining us in unceasing prayer for the nations.
We get many emails coming to us through our website that range from spam (plenty of that!) to encouragement, from pointed criticism to requests for help, from ministry invitations to offers to volunteer, from questions about content to questions about methodology. The most common question is “When is the next edition coming out?” More on that later.
We appreciate everything we receive (well, except the spam). We love to hear how people are inspired and informed by Operation World, or how God has used it in their life. We love to connect the saints to others in their country or area of interest. We are always happy to hear from potential volunteers and team members and donors. We are also grateful when someone offers a source of new information or even disagreement/criticism. It helps us improve our material when there’s a typo, or something incorrect, or something that is out of date. It also helps offer perspectives other than our own into how we can write about and pray for the needs of the world.
That leads us to the main reason for this post. We do often have it pointed out to us that a prayer point is out of date in some way or another. Again, we are glad that people care enough to write in about it. If you’re one of those people – thank you! Yes, much of our content is pulled from earlier Operation World publications. The amount of free content available in the app and on the website would fill a book of several hundred pages if it were printed, and it’s a mix of older and newer content. The passage of time brings inexorable change, and with it, prayer needs often also change. Sometimes, there are prayer points that could be unchanged for more than 50 years – such as the suffering of the North Korean people under the ruthless hand of the regime. But sometimes, things change overnight. Last year, when Russia invaded Ukraine, or this year, when the earthquakes struck southern Turkey and Syria. What happens to OW content then? I have three thoughts to share:
- We hope that as people read our content, they become more and more equipped to “pray the news”, and to “pray God’s heart for the nations”. Equipping people to respond to any world event with biblical, Christ-exalting, mission-minded, Kingdom-oriented prayers means that no matter how fast things change, God’s people are ready to respond in intercession!
- We confess that we are a small team, we’re not flush with resources, and we simply can’t update our website and app every time some pieces of news occur. While that would be great, it is neither within our capacity nor our remit. It is hard for us to bear that. So please have grace to us when something doesn’t get updated as quickly as all of us would prefer. That being said, look for a significant update to the app and website content by the early part of March!
- We are trying to prioritize a whole new edition of Operation World that will be a completely new work, based on new research, with new input from the saints in every nation. If it is a contest between constant updates and a new edition, the new edition will be the priority in almost every instance.
It is an exciting time to be alive! Despite the evident decline of Christendom in many parts of the world, amidst rising persecution in many places, and even as we hear of wars and rumours of wars, we also celebrate the truth that the good news is spreading and the Kingdom breaking through in areas where the gospel has never been heard before. God’s people are mobilizing in prayer as never before. So many parts of the body of Christ that used to be considered the mission field are fast becoming the missionary force. When you put your ear to the ground, you can hear the approaching thunder of the mighty purposes of the Lord of Nations.