"But the Lord said to me, 'Do not say, "I am only a child." ...Now I have put my words in your mouth. See today, I appoint you over nations and kingdoms to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant." (Jeremiah 1:7, 10)
 
"History belongs to the intercessors, who believe the future into being!" (Walter Wink)
 
The Lord seems to have His hand on Europe these days! A number of prayer and mission events (I count nine so far) have been happening or are still scheduled during a four month period from May to September. You just read about the Nordic Summit for marketplace people that took place in Stockholm and was much blessed by the Lord through our prayers. During those same days, May 14-16, it was my joy to be part of another such event- the Rise-Up Arab Europe prayer conference in Wiesbaden, Germany. 300 Arab immigrant believers gathered from all over Europe- Egyptians, Iraqis and Syrians, including some who are refugees from the conflicts going on in the Middle East. What a dynamic and thrilling time of worship and prayer for the nations of Europe in which they now live!
 
J. Edwin Orr, the scholar on the history of revival summed up his research with the following sentence: "When God gets ready to do a new thing with His people, He always gets them a-praying." If so many prayer and mission initiatives are now taking place in the continent of Europe formerly regarded by many Christian leaders as a hopelessly secularized place, what does the Lord intend to do with all of this?
 
It all reminds me of a visionary experience years ago not far from where we were meeting in Germany. During that middle of the night experience, I saw pin pricks of light approaching in the great darkness. As they got closer, they first looked like torches but then coming even closer were actually burning swords in the hands of people who were cutting through the dark canopy over the land. Then I heard the words, "These are the intercessors" followed by two more words-- "New Reformation." A few days later, I received a communication from Loren Cunningham, the founder of Youth with a Mission, in which he was calling Christians in Europe to pray and work for a "New Reformation"! Wow, could the Spirit of the Lord be doing this now before our eyes, moving brothers and sisters in Christ to gather with a new prayerful expectancy across a  continent that has known wonderful revivals in the past and was the world's major mission- sending center for centuries?
 
On the same trip, with Berthold Becker, founder of Intercessors for Germany, I visited Herrnhut (The Lord's Watch). It was the place where Count Zinzendorf and the Moravians began a 24/7 prayer chain in the 18th century that went on for 100 years and sent out thousands of missionaries, the first Protestants to go to the ends of the earth. A few years ago, some local believers started it up again! It was a joy to worship and pray with some of them, then to have a moving tour of the 6000 godly Moravians' graves nearby. They told us stories of how the Lord moved among those 18th century children, calling them to go out into the fields and pray at night, much to the consternation and upset of the adults. There, they received their callings to leave home never to return in order to take the Gospel to the unreached peoples of our world. I was deeply moved by being there and felt led during the morning worship to prophesy that the Lord will again bring revival on Europe- as He has done previously through such movements as the Reformation, the Pietist Revival, and the Moravian prayer chain. This time I believe it will come through the youth and children who are as always very much on His heart.
 
The next day after returning to the USA, a friend of mine from Holland called to inform me that he and other pastors just about to commission 3000 young people as carriers of revival from the very town where the 1749 revival happened in that country. Surely God is up to something for this continent!
 
Thanks for your continuing prayers as the Lord leads you for His revival, restoration and transformation to come upon Europe and other "developed" nations that have lapsed into paganism from the light they once knew.
 
Would you please pray with us for a great outpouring of His Spirit on these prayer gatherings and upon the nations of Europe over the coming months?
 
1 Pray for great unity and clarity for the leaders and participants to know how they should pray for their nations and for this continent as a whole.
2 That the prayer movement which has at times been a trickle will become a mighty river, stirring Europeans so accustomed to empty, deadening secularism, to be hungry to know the Lord and return to Him with all their hearts.
3 Pray that the principalities and powers that have influenced the thinking of so many with their various -isms will be bound and driven to the feet of Jesus and that people here will go free from the materialism that blinds so many.
4 For genuine and widespread spiritual revival as happened in centuries past. It can happen again!
 
The Lord wants Europe back! Let's pray and trust Him to do "far more abundantly". He can transform regions as easily as individual nations when His people pray. "According to your faith, it will be to you", He said. Thanks for joining in!