I, a Jew, pray for that too.
I have a question to you: why is it that you hear about the missionary work in Africa, Asia, and Russia --- but never in Western Europe?
With only 4% of Brits attending churches, is time not ripe for missionary work there? or in Germany?
The International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention has missionaries in Western Europe. You can read about it here: http://www.telleurope.org/
Missions to Europe are going on, but most folks don't hear about them. My Presbyterian (PCA) church supports missionaries in France and Siberia. The latter is a local guy from my hometown. He moved his young family there to spread the Good News (can you imagine?). He tells stories about shamins and witchcraft in Siberia which make your hair stand on end. And.... he's having a positive effect!
Probably because, as this article indicates, much of it is being done by those from the former colonies, the Third Worlders living in Europe. Many came for economic advantages, set up churches to minister to their own former countrymen, and discovered that they were ministering to the local Europeans as well. Then they discovered how apostate (Christian theological term for those who have fallen away from the Faith) that Europe has become.
There are more Black Pentecostals attending Church in Britain than white Britains attending.
I noticed this phenomena of African missionaries to Europe 20 years ago when some Zimbabwean friends of mine went to Europe as missionaries.
I think that the North American Christians have invested themselves heavily in the Third World, and in Eastern Europe when it was under communism (much work was done surreptiously such as Bible smuggling).
The most famous of the Bible Smugglers, a Dutchman named Brother Andrew, turned his attention to the Muslim world after the fall of Communism. Mission work since then has heavily focused on that area known as the "10-40 Window" an area defined as 10 degrees latitude north/south by 40 degrees longitude east/west as that is the area seemingly intransient to the Gospel.
It is only recently that Europe has gotten the attention of North American Christians as a mission field. Many of the most thriving Churches in Europe are either local Pentecostals, Third World Pentecostals, or American English speaking congregations who minister to expatriate Americans. The exception is the Catholic Church in Poland.
I hope this provides some insight into what is for you, a foreign world.
BTW, Pentecostals are those Christians who believe that the miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit which were delivered to the Church after Jesus ascended into heaven, are still available today.
The early Christians (all Jews at that time) were celebrating the Jewish Pentecost, the Gift of the Law given to Moses after 40 days at Mount Sinai. So it is the day that memorializes both the Gift of the Law, and for Christians, the Gift of the Holy Spirit active on the Earth.
Most Western Europeans who have an interest in religion are returning to their indigenous religions more than anything.Celtic,Saxon and Norse 'festivals' have a much larger turnout than anything else.
As for the dwindling popularity of Christianity......Christian 'charity' is increasingly being seen as the reason for mass immigration to Western Europe(and the colonies).A number of Christian churches in my own country are currently being 'blamed' for lobbying the government to accept 10,000 refugees to get permanent residency.That being said,numbers attending church here have actually increased over the past 5 years(possibly due to large numbers of non-anglo immigrants,which kinda fits in with this news item).
A strange phenomenon is that in America Christianity is associated with the political-right but everywhere else it is seen as firmly to the left,'one-worldy',pro-immigration and anti-nationalistic.
Western Europe is a good question. I am not called to missionary work so I can't really explain why they are being overlooked. My guess is that socialism is a big part. Seems that other than their growing muslim populations most of Western Europe is without religion. That will be their demise.
All Jews and Christians need to all pray and work toward a world that does not allow hate as a reason for genocide. It is a big job but together we can do it.
I did not just fall off the banana boat and know it is a stretch but that will not stop me from praying that we all wake up.
We have missionaries there. And in france, Austria and all through out Western Europe.
And they all have my sympathy and my prayers.
Even the Middle and Far Easts are not as hard as Europe.