One of Canada’s mission field desperately needs prayer. I’m referring to the portion of our population that consists of students, mostly children and young adults. They are under spiritual assault, and we must cry out to God for them.
September is when most students are returning to schools and post-secondary education programs. It’s a good time to lift them up in prayer.
Why is this group a mission field? Considering the Bible’s agricultural imagery, we can picture fields that must be prepared for harvest and then harvested. Children and young people in our nation need to hear of God’s love and salvation often and be given opportunities to learn God’s ways.
To estimate the scope of this largely untouched mission field, let’s do a bit of math. Before COVID, beginning in 2020, research indicated that about 4% of Canada’s population regularly attended an evangelical church of some kind. Two years later it appears that attendance is down significantly overall. If we consider the 4% minus the recent decrease, it’s safe to say that the majority of children and youth don’t even have a basic exposure to the gospel nor to the significance of biblical truth for their lives. We could say that they are an unreached people group.
However, they are being discipled every waking moment. Their worldview is being formed, but not in a godly direction.
Children and youth are bombarded by messages through digital media, some elements of their education, peer groups, and more. The result is confusion about the most important things in life and further distancing from a possible relationship with God.
The bad press Christianity has been receiving in our own nation (legitimate and illegitimate), further reinforces negativity, skepticism and even hostility towards all that is called Christianity.
Despite the advances in technology and increased material goods that promise so much, there are unprecedented, alarming trends among youth today. Despair, hopelessness, crime, depravity, and suicide rates are on the rise.
This is no accident. The Scripture tells us clearly that Satan’s agenda is to kill steal and destroy all that has to do with life that God has created. One of his tactics is to create confusion, which happens all too easily when the authority of Scripture is missing in the church and outside the church.
This confusion intends to undermine the Bible, the ways of God, the value of a human life right from conception, life’s origin and meaning, identity at the most fundamental level and the truth about eternal destiny and salvation.
What we see all around us is what the Bible describes as a famine of the Word of God.
In his latest book, American Worldview Inventory 2021-2022, expert researcher George Barna discloses shocking statistics that reveal so clearly the need to pray for a revival of the Church. He concludes that “each generation of people living today has adopted a way of life that is at serious odds with biblical teachings”. His comment refers to people who identify to some degree with Christianity.
We must pray for a revival of God’s people in their devotion to the Lord, his Word and his mission, and for a spiritual awakening across the land.
I invite you to join me in praying regularly that the Lord would give encouragement, strength, and protection to the people and groups listed below, adding in your own thoughts as you pray.
- The people of God and church leaders
- Parents and the children and youth of Christian homes
- Christian teachers, professors, and academic administrators
- Christian student groups on and off campus
- Christian ministries to children
- Government leaders, particularly ministers of education
May God pour his grace upon each one and lead them in his paths.
Researchers claim that worldview is mostly formed in someone by age of 13. Let’s ask the Lord often to make a way for the gospel message to reach children and youth.
There still is a harvest, there still is a God who by His Holy Spirit can break through to revive his people and awaken the lost to his saving grace. So, to him we pray.