Pakistan (MNN) — While much of the world celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ today, the people of Pakistan will be celebrating the birth of someone else today.
Pastor Naveed Malik says while most Christians in Pakistan celebrate Christmas, "The 25th is the day when the founder of Pakistan, Quaid-e-Azam, was born."
Malik says, "When we talk to our Muslim friends, they believe that Isa is a prophet. It's sad to say that mostly in media, the founder of Pakistan is honored more than Isa."
However, Christians do get opportunities. "On some television channels they ask us to say something about our Lord Jesus Christ. But only on Christmas, or maybe on Resurrection Day, there are a few minutes for us."
Christians have been the target of violence in Pakistan in recent months. Recently a mob of Muslims attacked Christians in Gojra and Korian. Many Christians were killed and homes were destroyed. However, Malik doesn't believe this violence is persecution. "These are the places where some attacks were, but it was not because the Christians were giving testimony, or they were witnessing, but there were some religious issues behind that."
According to Malik, the majority of churches aren't actively sharing their faith with the majority religion. He's encouraging the church to do that with educated outreach. "We can take free literature with Islamic terminology. They know that this is the day for Christians — when Isa El Masi [Jesus Christ] was born. The Muslims honor that, and they will hear, and they would like to hear. I don't think there would be any suicide bomber."
Malik has written a booklet about Christmas and will be using Christmas as an outreach event. "We are going to distribute about 2,000 booklets here in our city and all over Pakistan. Our Christian people will share these books with those who are not Christian,explaining why we are celebrating this joyful occasion."
He's also encouraging Christians to go out at midnight, and when they start singing and celebrating to be ready to share their faith.
According to Joshua Project, less than one-percent of Pakistan's population is evangelical Christian. Malik doesn't believe the evangelical church is doing all it can to change that. So, he's asking you to pray. "Pray for revival of the church and pray for evangelists to come out of the church and reach the nation with the Gospel of power."
He's also asking people pray for the country this Christmas day. "Sometimes we hear rumors that there are threats on Christmas. So, please pray that there won't be any terrorism on Christmas."
