We invite you to join in prayer for the nation of Indonesia this month.
Indonesia is one of the most important nations for Missions, both in terms of a Mission Field and as a Mission Force.
Interesting Facts about Indonesia for Prayer:
- Indonesia has 17,508 Islands strewn across nearly 10 million square kilometres of the ocean.
- It has a population of 285 million people spread over 6,000 inhabited islands
- It is the 4th most populous country in the world.
- Indonesia has 673 airports and is divided into three time zones! The vast spread of Islands makes accessibility to some areas difficult.
- It has 33 provinces, 722 languages, even more ethnic groups, and myriad religious expressions.
- Indonesia has 76,000 villages where 42% of the population lives in rural areas. Over 45,000 villages still lack a single church.
- The world’s most populous island, Java, is home to 151.6 million people, or 56 percent of Indonesia’s total population. And more than 10 million people live in the capital city, Jakarta,
- Christianity is Indonesia’s second-largest religion, after Islam, with around 15% or 40 million Christians.
| Religion & Geography | |
| Category | Statistic |
| Capital: | Jakarta |
| Population: | 285,721,236 |
| % Urban: | 59.8 % |
| Pop Under 15 | 26 % |
| Official Language: | Indonesian (Bahasa Indonesia). |
| Languages: | 722 |
| Largest Religion: | Muslim 80% |
| % Christian: | 15.9 % |
| % Evangelical: | 5.6 % |
| People Groups: | 786 |
| UPGs: | 233 |
| Unevangelized | 39 % |
People of Indonesia
Religious Influences:
- Indonesia is the World’s Largest Muslim Nation!
- It is estimated at approximately 239-242 million, followed by Pakistan, which has around 227-230 million Muslims.
- The Spread of Islam across thousands of Islands is a great challenge for Evangelism.
- There are 4 million Hindus in Indonesia, mainly in the island of Bali.
- Bali has 49,000 Hindu temples, as most Balinese practise a version of Hinduism. Occult, magic, and spiritism all influence the people. Balinese Christians are few.
- Hinduism has the longest history in the archipelago over all other Religions, but in its history has been erased by time or conquest.
- Buddhists are only 0.7 percent of the Indonesian population – or 1.7 million people.
Christianity, History and Revivals:
- Portuguese missionaries arrived in Indonesia at the beginning of the 16th century and Saint Francis Xavier brought the Gospel to the Moluccas in 1546.
- The Dutch Missionaries brought Protestantism in 1602 with the Dutch East India Company.
- The wars between Catholic and Protestant Nations in Europe caused religious conflict among Christians in Indonesia which was a set back to Roman Catholics.
- The Maluku Protestant Church was founded in 1605 is Asia’s oldest Protestant denomination.
- Some areas have been Christian for centuries (in North Sulawesi, North Sumatra, West Timor, Maluku).
- Indonesia also has the second-largest Christian population in Southeast Asia after the Philippines, the largest Protestant population in Southeast Asia and the third-largest Christian population in Asia after the Philippines and China.
- Indonesia also has the second-largest Christian population in the Muslim world, after Nigeria, followed by Egypt.
Indonesia is a nation of Revivals.
- Praise God for many people movements in West Papua in the last 100 years. Over 90% of indigenous peoples are Christian!
- A great outpouring of the Spirit in West Timor in 1965-68 resulted in renewal within the Church and thousands of conversions. About 20% of Timorese were converted.
- Sumba, an island long known for its animism and resistance to the gospel, saw a movement of the Spirit in the late 1980s, with Protestants doubling from 75,000 to 160,000 in five years.
Transmigration:
- Indonesia has one of the largest human movements called the “Transmigration Scheme”.
- Over 8 million people are relocated as they need a new place to live, since the Islands of Java and Bali are highly crowded. The government organized this to relocate people to other islands, such as Sumatra, Kalimantan, Sulawesi, Papua, and West Papua, where more space is available.
- Since most of the people relocated were Muslim Javanese and Madurese, in certain places like Papua and West Papua, the indigenous people have become minorities who are also Christians.
- Some have called the process “slow motion genocide”. This flared into violent protests in Papua in 2019.
Spiritual Conflict
A spiritual conflict rages for Indonesia. Ancient and strong occult powers seek to oppose the influence of the gospel, while modern Muslim stratagems seek to eliminate Christianity and remove the presence of the good news.
Pray specifically for the binding of these powers and for the continued growth of the Church in the midst of intense opposition and growing persecution.
Thank You for Praying for Indonesia!
For more prayer resources on Indonesia: Operation World -Indonesia.
Sources:
Operation World, Wikipedia, Vatican News, Indigenous people of Indonesia,