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Published by
Charisma, August 18,
2003
Christians Hope to
Win Souls in 2004 Olympic Games Intercessors aim
to pull down the 'spiritual stronghold over
Greece'
World-class athletes will be going
for the gold next summer when the Olympic Games
return to Greece, but believers hope to win souls
in Athens.
Thousands of Christians plan to use
the event to evangelize a spiritually needy
country, whose language God chose for
communicating the gospel to non-Jews.
Twenty centuries after the apostle
Paul made history-making mission trips to
Thessaloniki (Thessalonica) and Korinthos (Corinth)
and eternalized the ancient cities through his
letters to the Christians there, Greece today is
anything but a Christian country.
Though 98 percent of the population
belong to the Greek Orthodox Church, evangelical,
Pentecostal and charismatic churches comprise some
0.14 percent of the population, or a mere 15,000
people out of 10.5 million.
But as the birthplace of the
Olympic Games, Greece is poised for a spiritual
awakening, Christian leaders told "Charisma"
magazine in a forthcoming report on evangelism
plans for Athens in 2004.
"The international church will
focus on Greece, and there will be a global wave
of prayer for our country that will release a wave
of revival," predicts Johnathan Macris, a
high-profile Greek Protestant and director of
Hellenic Ministries.
"I aim at mobilizing 100,000
committed intercessors," he adds. "It is time for
the Western church [in Europe and North America]
to return a measure of the blessing it has
received by way of Greece and through the Greek
language."
Macris claims the Olympics are
critical not only to saturating Greece with the
gospel -- in August thousands of believers will
come to Greece for evangelistic outreaches -- but
also to reaching the 1.2 billion Muslims in the
Asian countries that lie between Athens and
Beijing, the host city of the 2008 Olympics.
Macris views the Olympics as a step
toward a unified worship of the Antichrist as
outlined in the biblical book of Revelation, which
was written on the Greek island of Patmos. The
worship of idols, and of man, is a fundamental
element of the world's most famous sporting event.
Macris believes the 2004 Games will
be the largest event of idol worship in world
history to date. But he says God's plan is to
mobilize an army of intercessors to pull down the
"[spiritual] stronghold over Greece" for the
purpose of opening the door to evangelism in the
country.
Macris and local church leaders,
though, anticipate a spiritual battle. An
anti-proselytism law is in place, but church
leaders and missionaries say the government
currently takes little action. The general
mentality of the Greek Orthodox Church and the
public remains strongly anti-Protestant.
"The real problem is that the Greek
are very skeptical toward non-Orthodox churches,"
Timotheos Antoniadis of Thessaloniki, who pastors
a typically small Protestant church, explains. "The
perception of Protestants as a threat is a
[spiritual] wall that we need to breech!"
Antoniadis' congregation attempts
to break this stereotype by reaching out to the
needy, the poor, the prostitutes and the
immigrants. In the last four years, the average
Sunday attendance at his church has doubled from
20 to 40. Most of the new attendees, including
Russian-speaking converts, belong to socially
marginalized groups.
Read the full report on evangelism
plans for the 2004 Olympic Games in the September
issue of "Charisma," out now.
Source URL:
http://www.charismanews.com/online/articledisplay.pl?ArticleID=7990
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