Ministry Executive: Singapore Christians Pray Less Than Others in SEA

Saturday, Jul. 4, 2009 Posted: 10:21:24PM HKT

The coordinator of a regional prayer network that sees itself as a spiritual ASEAN recently commented that believers in the ten nations around Singapore pray "a whole lot more" than in the republic.

"Singapore is the most developed nation in Southeast Asia in terms of economics and education and etc, but as far as prayer movement is concerned, it’s been lagging behind – at least in organised prayer movement,” said Lena Wan, the General Secretary of the Southeast Asia Prayer Council or SEAPC, during an interview The Christian Post conducted last month.

SEAPC connects national prayer networks in the eleven ASEAN nations with the primary goal of providing prayer coverage for the region and coordinating both prayer and action toward solving major issues.

Relating the depth of prayer life in a nation to the level of persecution experienced by Christians, Wan remarked that the relative prayerlessness of the Singapore Church is linked to the comfortable lifestyle of the people here.

Economic affluence has led to an illusion of self-sufficiency among believers. As a result, they either stop praying altogether, give prayer a token presence at meetings, or regard God as a vending machine from which to extort their needs.

Some even get angry at Him for not answering their prayers, when they should really have trusted in His providence and exercised patience and listened to Him speak, the ministry executive said.

Disunity within the Church was made apparent by the AWARE incident in recent months. Disagreement among Christians regarding the way the four believers involved had handled the issue went public with one individual launching an e-petition to faith leaders to discipline them and their pastor.

"It shouldn’t have come to that point,” she remarked, noting that human beings can only see in part and not in whole, suggesting that believers should not have been so quick to judge one another.

"Even [in] Singapore, we have to be wise at all times," she said.

In contrast, the “prayer movement is very, very strong in places where persecution is strongest”, she said.

She pointed out separately to this paper that there have been prayer and even transformation movements happening in the other ten nations. The strongest of them, Indonesia, has thousands of transformation projects occurring across the country, while a prayer initiative has gathered representatives from nearly every church in Brunei.

A major national prayer movement has started taking root in Singapore soil. Launched last year, the National Prayer Alliance gathers senior pastors and other leaders from various denominations and churches for regular prayer for the nation.

Nathanael Ng
Christian Post Reporter