Historic Prayer Conference Held in Kuwait
The Church of God in Kuwait, under the leadership of National Overseer Dr. Sushil Mathew, has more than doubled since 2014. A Bible School has been established, which now has over 25 students. Tim Hill was the first general overseer to visit and minister there.
“One would not think of Kuwait, in the heart of Islam, as a starting place for revival in the Middle East,” Mathew stated. “It is a small nation about the size of New Jersey with a population of only 4.2 million people, 70 percent of whom are expatriates. While the constitution provides for religious freedom; other laws and policies restrict it, in favor of Islam.”
Mathew went on to state that underground churches are now flourishing. A legal compound, the National Evangelical Church of Kuwait (NECK), provides space for 200 churches of every persuasion to gather on Friday, Kuwait’s holy day, and the experience is like an international festival with Baptist and Methodist, Orthodox and Pentecostal churches worshipping next door to one another in two-hour segments in more than 60 languages.
Mathew and Gerald Golbeck, Senior Pastor of The Lighthouse Church in Kuwait, recently invited Dr. P. Douglas Small, Director of Prayer Ministries for the Church of God, to visit Kuwait and minister in the churches there. The idea expanded, and the first ever Interdenominational National Prayer Conference for Church Pastors and Leaders took place, on March 8, 2019. Over 2,000 people attended seven meetings where Small taught and encouraged them about intentional, focused, prayer for the nations including the need for a national prayer movement in Kuwait. A veteran pastor testified that such a meeting had never taken place in the fifty years he had served the nation, one calling for national revival and for Kuwait to be the first among its Arab brothers, to turn to Christ and see an Arab-Muslim harvest.
Small testified that he had gone to minister in a few churches and encouraged the Church of God congregations in the nation, but God had opened a wide door. Instead of a beleaguered oppressed church, he found extraordinary resilience and optimism.
“A spirit of revival is alive in Kuwait,” Small noted. “To see God moving in a place like Kuwait, so clearly, so definitively, is proof that revival and awakening can occur anywhere and everywhere and is also an indication that God is ‘on the move’ and He wants us to join Him in His mission.”
Mathew reports that a National Prayer Movement has begun in Kuwait. This historic conference was the first of its kind in Kuwait according to Pastor Golbeck who jointly sponsored the meetings with Church of God there. Plans are underway for a national prayer movement to help trigger a revival in Kuwait to spread into the other gulf countries in the Middle East.
Mathew exhorted all believers to pray for Kuwait. Sharia (Islamic law) is a main source of legislation, however Christians are officially allowed to practice their faith under restrictions. The Church of God started its first church over 50 years ago in Kuwait and has 13 churches – Indians, Egyptians, Bangladeshis, Syrians and Pakistanis being the Top 5 immigrant communities. There are only 250 known Arab Kuwaiti Christians from the 1.1 million Kuwaiti citizens.
For more information on sending a missions team to Kuwait or to visit Kuwait for ministry, please contact Dr. Sushil Mathew at [email protected]. To support the Church of God in Kuwait, please refer to World Missions Project Number: 065-0925.
