There is an organization in missions called “Live Dead.”

There is a new generation being called to go the hardest places of the world to proclaim and live out the gospel of Jesus Christ. The challenge is great because for too many years we have called these “closed” countries “hard” to the gospel. They are hard to the gospel because no one has gone into those areas to live out the gospel. When you have a nation flooded with missionaries and new national churches and people being saved, we can call it “revival.” Sometimes we should just call it “numbers.”

The most difficult thing in this challenge is not about the people going. It is about those who stay. It is about me. I don’t go. I am not “less” of a Christian, and there isn’t anyone in “Live Dead” that would say that about Christians in the developed world. It is not a status of being “super Christian.”

But the huge question for me is how to challenge myself and my congregation to think more about “living dead” right here. In the land of plenty we have a great challenge. We don’t “need” God like we think we do… and it’s difficult. You have to call yourself to more, and ask the Spirit to call you to more.

For the next 18 days there is a prayer challenge. I can “live dead” in prayer. I can ask for the Spirit to move in the hardest places in the Arab world. For the next 18 days I can be praying for 18 countries with the realization that prayer can get me anywhere in the world without a passport. I don’t need a visa. There isn’t a “closed” country in prayer.

But I must “live dead” to the distractions of my own culture to truly intercede for these great nations.

Let us rise to the challenge wherever we are in the world. Let us pray, really pray, for the “hardest” places left in the world. Let us pray for a fresh wind of the Spirit to move through those lands.