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Operation World

Introduced by Jonathan Francis of Paternoster Press

Winning the world

A new 21st century edition of the missions book Operation World is about to be published. Jonathan Francis of Paternoster Press took time to introduce it to us.

Operation World is a book specifically written to change the world. The authors, many of whom have been working on the Operation World project for years, do not shrink from this fact.

Working in some of the toughest surroundings in the world, many churches, organisations, missionaries and individuals are part of the network of Christians who have helped to compile the most comprehensive prayer guide to the world. The entries join much of the research done by the team to catalogue vital country, population and cultural information taken from official sources such as United Nations databases and the Encyclopaedia Britannica.

Electronic methods

For the first time email has enabled information and statistics to be compared throughout the world with those in the field. When asked about the difference in this process from the first edition in 1974, author Patrick Johnstone said:
'I had to do all the typing myself, pecking on a portable typewriter with all the many mistakes and with carbon paper. Today we have email. For instance, I am now working through all the different returns from all over the world and we have had so many - to cover each country almost -so trying to in-corporate them is a tremendous challenge, but I know that this edition will be up to date and have real ground information.'

Notable trends

With the increase of available information, notable trends are identified throughout the book derived from dramatic statistics. In 1960, 84.5 million Christians professed to be evangelicals. In 2000, 420 million people declared themselves evangelicals, showing a massive increased growth rate. The 1990s proved to be a tremendous decade of God working in his church, and many will not be surprised that the majority of this activity was in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

However, future projections are certainly startling and have implications for the Western church. Conservative estimates made by the Operation World team, based on past activities and experience place over 83% of evangelical Christians in these countries in the year 2025. The facts are dramatic.

In Africa alone there are 351 million Christians. 116 million of these form over one quarter of the 420 million evangelical Christians in the world! This incredible number has increased dramatically since 1900 when nearly 1.6 million Christians in Africa professed to be evangelicals.

The fact that Christians can change the world through prayer should excite the church to reach out to God in this way, to bring the nations and peoples of the world before him for whom nothing is impossible. Patrick Johnstone and Jason Mandryk, the authors, have worked to provide the church with a resource that can be used effectively and for the glory of God. Helpful new features such as major answers to prayer encourage and lift our hearts while a calendar format will help Christians everywhere to systematically pray for the world.

Released this September by Paternoster Publishing, Carlisle, at an introductory price of £12.99, ISBN 1 85078 357 8, this book will help Christians everywhere to make a difference ...