Ready for Ramadan: Why Christians Worldwide Will Join Muslims to Pray for Next 30 Days
The Ramadan season of fasting and prayer for millions of Muslims around the globe started Tuesday night, but Muslims won't be the only ones praying.
Hundreds of thousands of Christians will take part in the 25th annual "30 Days of Prayer for the Muslim World".
The international movement began in 1993 and calls the global Church to make a focused effort to learn about, pray, and reach out to Muslim neighbors.
During the next 30 days, Christians pray for the salvation of Muslims and for God to reveal Himself to them.
"While media sound bites about Islamic extremism can too easily incite anger, fear and even hatred towards Muslims, we seek to resist this temptation to generalize, and instead, resolve to respond and pray with the mind and heart of Christ," reads the prayer website.
Nearly 100,000 copies of this year's prayer guide are being distributed in the United States and Canada.
Meanwhile, Open Doors USA is calling for prayer for Christians in these Muslim-majority countries.
According to SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks terrorist groups online, ISIS claimed responsibility for 300 attacks during Ramadan last year, including last year's attack on a bus of Coptic Christians in Egypt.
The terrorist group uses the month of fasting and prayer to encourage increased violent attacks against non-Muslims. And Christians are often targeted at this season.
"While here in the US the holiday is beginning to gain mainstream recognition...in other parts of the world it is so widely celebrated, the few who do not adhere to its traditions become the obvious outliers as they don't participate in the fasting or calls to prayer," Open Doors states. "In fact, Christians in predominantly Muslim countries often experience increased persecution during this time."
