This country of over 20 million is officially a Buddhist country, a religion claimed by around 70% of the population. Sri Lanka’s Buddhism has being growing more intolerant, more fundamental and it is reported that a bill seeking to prohibit religious conversion is in the pipeline which is especially targeted at the growing Christian evangelical movement. Wars, ethnic conflicts, tsunamis and other disasters have had a very negative impact on Sri Lanka’s history and current situation.

Abandoned Devotion & Spiritual Awakening:

Pray the Sri Lankan church and believers will be “steadfast and immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord” (1 Cor. 15:58) even in the midst of the onslaught against them by fundamental and radical Buddhists. Pray the church will embrace peace and forgiveness in dealing with their Buddhist persecutors and oppressors, and be the peacemakers. Pray for the church to grow in quality but also expand quantitatively. Just like Israel in Exodus, the more they were persecuted, the more they grew and waxed stronger. Pray the very persecution meant to crush Christians in Sri Lanka will cause it to grow deeper and stronger.

Great Commission Vision/100,000 New Message Bearers:

A fair amount of missions vision has sprung up in the Sri Lankan church. Pray for Sri Lanka’s best and brightest to hear and respond to the call of missions globally. Pray the emerging generation will not “count their lives dear unto them” (Acts 20:24) but be willing to abandon their small and selfish dreams and ambitions to embrace God’s global purpose of reaching the unreached. Pray for a reversal of the often popular notion that missions is for dummies and failures that do not have good grades or a promising career. Pray Sri Lanka’s best and brightest young men and women will be sent.

100 Million Global Harvest:

There are “25,000 villages without a church” in Sri Lanka. Pray for God to unleash a workforce who will plant churches, and to open hearts and minds. Pray against the evil spiritual forces influencing the people and keeping them bound to Buddhism. Pray for the wisdom and ability for contextualizing the gospel, so that its message makes cultural sense to the people. Pray thousands and even millions of Sri Lankan Buddhists will begin to question their long held Buddhist beliefs and ideologies and then become aware of its emptiness and shallowness. Pray the understanding of Christianity as a foreign religion of westerners will be banished from the minds of the people.