News & Updates.

The following report is from College of Prayer President Fred Hartley, III.

God is doing something extraordinary in Japan today—something historic! Thirty years ago I preached in several cities in Japan and returned to Atlanta with a profound burden for the small churches, and the 121 million unreached Japanese, one of the largest unreached people groups in the world today. When I returned to Japan last week, I was overwhelmed with joy to witness the spiritual hunger for God's manifest presence and to see how the Revival Prayer Group (RPG) movement is impacting the Church throughout the nation. 

The RPG movement began in Taiwan 5 years ago, where there are now 17,000 Revival Prayer Group's throughout the nation. In order to understand the depth and significance of the RPG movement in Japan today, you need to understand some history. 

There are 3 phases to the church development in Japan. Phase 1 was the missionary church that taught the gospel and formed somewhat of a subculture of mission-based churches. Phase 2 was the denominational church growth of many denominations throughout the nation. Prior to World War 2, when the emperor insisted that every church declare their worship and allegiance to the emperor first, many churches sold out their faith in allegiance to the emperor. Today, however, the church in Japan is experiencing Phase 3, the growth of the grassroots, indigenous Japanese church, which is being fueled by the RPG movement. 

Coming out of the COVID shutdown, 25-30% of the churches in Japan have closed, and those that are still open have lost 50-70% of their members. However, because the Christians are hungry for God, and eager to meet in fellowship with one another, the RPG movement, which gathers 3-5 believers together in weekly prayer, is meeting a profound felt need. In addition, God is using GOOD-TV Japan to fuel the movement, because they are a non-threatening organization that is able to give kingdom leadership to the movement and attract churches from virtually every denomination. God is using them for such a time as this. GOOD-TV began in Taiwan and the Japanese have great respect for Taiwan. GOOD-TV is available on every smart TV and streaming service. All of their videos are of top quality, and they already have a full archive of the 36 lessons of the College of Prayer curriculum being taught predominantly by "Papa" Don Young. Up to 80 million Chinese Christians have viewed these videos and they are now all subtitled into Japanese. 

When I accompanied Don Young last week to teach the RPG curriculum in 5 different locations, we were overwhelmed by the strong response of Japanese Christians. We discovered that they have already started close to 1,000 RPGs, and it is only the beginning. In addition to fueling the RPG movement, we were surprised to hear their desire to be taught the full College of Prayer curriculum. Praise the Lord! For the past 10 years, I and our Give Us The Nations Prayer Team of the College of Prayer have been praying for the 121 million unreached Japanese, and for revival in the Japanese church. It is overwhelming to see that Japan is now becoming the land of the RISING SON. All glory to Christ! 

Please take 10 minutes to listen to this inspiring video interview with Dr. Paul Arigo, a church father in Japan.

The College of Prayer continues to grow at an astounding rate throughout Pakistan. In the last 3 years more than 100 campuses have been planted across the entire nation. Our National Coordinator in Pakistan has gained significant influence and churches are being revived as prayer is spreading.

We also launched the College of Prayer in partnership with the Full Gospel Seminary in Lahore to serve their students. It was a powerful gathering with the second and third year students. We experienced times of repentance, freedom, and Spirit empowerment.

“I have been a full time pastor for 5 years, and before that I was an evangelist. The first time when I heard the message on the Upper Room that message not only changed my own life, it changed my entire church. That was the first time I felt the presence of God. When I heard that message I received the power of the Holy Spirit and went back to my church and preached the fullness of the Holy Spirit and my entire church was filled. God has changed our hearts and minds. I have enjoyed these last 3 days also. I have learned that there are people doing worship and doing preaching, but they are not actually encountering Christ because there is no prayer and fasting. For four months after first attending the College of Prayer we stayed in fasting and praying in our church. The College of Prayer has put this into our hearts. Wherever we preach these messages, the people are changed.” ~ Pakistani Pastor

- Over the past 38 weeks, we have pioneered ministry in 38 new nations.
- We have begun ministry in some of the most persecuted nations on earth. For security reasons, we cannot mention names.
- We have utilized Zoom to rapidly expand ministry into new nations. By the grace of Christ, we have identified a number of key leaders with whom we have already begun mentoring relationships.
- We anticipate pioneering 20 more new nations in the next 20 weeks. Keep praying.
- Revival Now Media has launched well. Our new app and new small group series are getting traction.
- New campuses are set to launch this Fall in the US.
- We are scheduled to facilitate Encountering God Weekends in several great churches.
- We are developing new partnerships in the US with some exciting new church networks and other ministries.
​- We are adding a number of new pastors and leaders from across the US into mentoring groups within the Revival Prayer Institute.

The following report is from our National Coordinator, Rev. Zeeshan.

Blessings and greetings from all pastors and leaders living in different areas of Pakistan. We salute you for making us part of the College of Prayer. As we told you, the College of Prayer is making great changes in leaders' lifestyles and their relationship with God. Through the College of Prayer we are able to understand the Father’s love, which is now flowing to other people and churches.

We have completed the College of Prayer 1st book, Lord, Teach Us to Pray, in 20 churches. Almost 300 church members are attending the College of Prayer regularly and have finished the first year. But this is not only about completing the curriculum. This has been a life-changing experience through the fire of the Holy Spirit .

We have received many testimonies from people, who have told us:

• Family relationships restored through forgiveness.
• Family love started because of receiving the Father’s love.
• Their prayerlessness is finished. Revival has come into families and churches.
• Pastors told their churches to get revived through the College of Prayer. Some pastors told us that they were a dead church, but now they are burning under the fire of the Holy Spirit.
• Many people received the Holy Spirit for the first time.
• Many people have heard the voice of God for the first time.
• Young girls and boys have heard the voice of God.
• Pastors have been set free from adultery.
• The way of prayer is changing many and understanding of God's love has changed us.

We are teaching and leading almost 60-70 different churches in the College of Prayer and are grateful for your help and support and contribution for changing our nation!

The following report is from Rev. Fred Hartley, IV, Church Relations Director for the College of Prayer International. 

​This last month we have launched two new College of Prayer Hub Campuses in the northeast and northwest of India. These Campuses will serve to mentor, train, and equip pastors and church leaders who will launch and lead their own Campuses in their regions. 

The first training was held in the state of Gujarat. This is also home to one of the largest unreached people groups on earth, the Gujarati, numbering almost 45 million people. There were 85 pastors with us. Several came worn out from ministry. During our time together in the presence of God, we could see their burdens lift and the love of Christ filled their hearts. One pastor, who was there with his family reported on the last day that our time together saved his ministry. The power of forgiveness lesson brought freedom of bitterness he held against many people. We started high and kept going higher over our three days together.

The second training was in Bihar, which is a state in the northeast of India. This area is known for being a place of heavy persecution towards Christians. We had roughly 100 who participated in our training. Many of them told us stories of how they have endured persecution. This training started slow, many pastors traveled through the night to attend, so they were tired. We sought Christ together and breakthrough came with the lesson on Receiving the Father’s Love. There was one woman who shared that she was healed of terrible migraines. For the first day and a half she struggled, but following one of the teachings, Christ set her free and she was healed. There were many who testified to being renewed and transformed by Christ during our time together. We finished this training with a significant time of prayer asking Christ for the nations.

God is moving in India. Even despite the opposition to the gospel, Christ is building His church, a praying church. We learned from our National Director of India that there are now 18,000 Campuses of the College of Prayer, and we are now training roughly 600,000 church leaders. Each of the pastors and leaders we trained are anticipating launching their own Campuses in the next 3-6 months. To God be the glory!

Jon Mitchell recently returned from a trip to Sri Lanka and Nepal. He spent time at our Hub Campuses in these nations. He writes the following report:

Thanks to so many of you who interceded for me on my recent trip back to Nepal and Sri Lanka to continue mentoring and training College of Prayer leaders in these nations. It was a great encouragement for me to see how God is using us to strengthen, grow, and unify the Church in South Asia, and it’s always a blessing to minister alongside our leaders “on the ground” there who work so hard to coordinate, lead, and minister day-in and day-out. Here are a few testimonies:

“Before attending this College of Prayer I was empty. Now after the 3 days I'm completely filled.” - Nepalese Church Leader

“Last year [March 2018] I attended the College of Prayer and the teachings and experience I had were different than any other meetings I have ever had. I went and held the College of Prayer in my church and there are many changes that have happened in the church and we could see the growth in ministry afterwards.” - Sri Lankan Church Leader

“Thirty-two years now I have been ministering but I have never heard of the secret of the Lord's Prayer Pattern, especially the 7 rooms of prayer. It was a new revelation to me. I am thinking, ‘How could I waste 32 years of ministry without knowing this?’ The time we had of destroying the strongholds of satan I felt some strongholds in my mind that were hindering me. God healed me and gave me freedom from all those strongholds. Also, I felt the importance of ministering to the presence of God. Many times we minister for the Lord and we are proud of that, but ministering to the presence of God is very important.” - Sri Lankan Pastor

​Between July and October 2017, 6 new Campuses have launched in the Philippines and over 1,000 church leaders have been mentored, trained, and equipped. Our ministry there is led by Rev. Benji De Jesus. He recently sent in the following testimonies from Module participants.

​Thank you for your continued prayers for our growing ministry in India. I returned in September, which was my fifth time there since we launched in India in March 2015. I had 10 flights through 5 countries, was in 8 villages and cities, and preached/taught/exhorted 18 times in 10 days at our Campuses in 3 of our key zones there. I am so encouraged by the way God is using the College of Prayer in India. We are literally impacting tens of thousands of pastors, youth leaders, women leaders, and lay leaders! Every time I go to India the testimonies become more powerful. One of our key leaders told me while I was there:

​Please continue to pray as we are making plans to launch into other areas of South Asia in the next 12 months.

After thousands of miles and over 80 hours by plane and car, 14 days away, 5 different hotels, 15 times preaching/teaching to roughly 850 lay leaders and pastors, at least 4 confirmed physical healings (including partial deafness and kidney malfunction), 1 church dedicated in a village where I was the first American ever to visit, lots of emotional healings, many marriages restored and revived, significant times of repentance and forgiveness, powerful outpourings of God's love by the Holy Spirit on many wounded pastors and couples and lots and lots of spicy food, I'm home. 

The testimonies continue to come in, but let me give you three:

We now have over 550 Regional and Local Church Campuses throughout India. Our conservative estimate is that somewhere between 30,000-45,000 pastors, church leaders and lay leaders are going through our curriculum. Many leaders of the ministry we are partnered with there (India Gospel League) have said this is the greatest partnership in terms of spiritual growth that they have ever had. The impact is tangible and significant. All of this growth has come in only 18 months. Thank you for your continued prayers and support.