International (MNN) — Want to pray for billions of people at once and be specific about their needs? Prayercast has you covered.
It all started with a conversation between Prayercast’s Chris Ruge and other leaders in the world of missions.
“As we were discussing the incredible things that God’s doing in the Muslim world, there was a very clear sense that we want to be a part of not only sharing that with the Body of Christ around the world but in stirring the Body of Christ to pray,” Ruge says. “God is doing things in the Muslim world that are unprecedented.”
Enter LoveMuslims, a series of themed videos that will explore God’s work in the Muslim world and help Christians know exactly how to pray. The video series will get the usual Prayercast treatment, Ruge says. That means “As we look at what God’s doing in the Muslim world, we’re going to ask, ‘How can we use the arts to speak to the Body of Christ not only at a mind level but at a heart level in a way that touches their emotions?’”
(Photo courtesy of Prayercast)
The videos are based on feedback from missions workers who interact with the Muslim world on a regular basis. “We’ve asked them all the same question: If you could get people to pray anything from the Muslim world, what would you want them to pray? From that, we’ve generated a list of about 104 different topics that we’re focused on right now.”
“We’re going to create somewhere between 70 and 150 videos, and each of those videos is going to be focused on stirring Christians to pray for Muslims,” Ruge says. In all, that means 13 themed sets.
This hasn’t been an easy project to handle. Ruge and his team have been working for two and a half years to get it all together. Now, pre-production is finished and production is officially underway. Ruge hopes to have LoveMuslims launch by the end of 2018.
When it does launch, Ruge hopes the impact will be tangible right from day one. They’re partnering with hundreds of Muslim-reaching ministries so that “the day that this goes live, it’s going to reach in the millions of people around the world just because of our partners and their networks.” Translators are going to get materials into Arabic and Chinese so those numbers can grow.
Ruge says prayer for Muslims is something many Christians struggle with. “One of the most controversial things that I have found that I can say in church in America when I go and I speak is that God loves Muslims,” he says. “God loved us because we were all sinners. Anybody today who loves Jesus was a sinner, but he reached down and loved us. Right now, 1.8 billion Muslims are in the same situation.”
(Photo courtesy of Prayercast)
Want to find out more about Prayercast? Check them out right here. In the meantime, you don’t have to wait until the launch of LoveMuslims to start praying.
“If we’re going to be followers of Jesus, we need to follow him,” Ruge says. “It’s not ok for us to simply identify ourselves with Christ without listening to what he taught.”
