Indonesia
Indonesia is the world's largest archipelago — seventeen thousand islands, three hundred ethnic groups, seven hundred languages — and the most populous Muslim-majority country on earth. For centuries, Hindu and Buddhist kingdoms flourished here, leaving behind monuments like Borobudur and Prambanan. Islam arrived through trade beginning in the 13th century, spreading gradually and taking on distinctly Indonesian forms blended with older traditions. Dutch colonization under the VOC lasted nearly three centuries. Independence came in 1945 under Sukarno, who built the new nation on Pancasila — five founding principles including belief in God and national unity — creating a deliberately pluralistic state that recognized multiple religions without establishing any one of them.
285,721,000
People live in Indonesia today in the world's third-largest democracy, navigating a growing tension between its pluralistic founding ideals and the rising influence of conservative Islam. Blasphemy laws are used against minorities, churches are burned or forcibly closed, and Christians in majority-Muslim regions face significant pressure. Yet the church in Indonesia is also large and vibrant — Batak Christians in Sumatra, Ambonese believers in Maluku, and the vast Christian communities of Papua constitute one of the largest concentrations of Christians in Asia. More than two hundred people groups remain unreached, most of them in the Muslim heartlands of Java, Sumatra, and Kalimantan.
Prayer points
The Unreached Muslim Heartlands
Pray for the more than 234 unreached people groups in Indonesia — Javanese, Sundanese, Madurese, and dozens of others who have heard little or nothing of the gospel. Ask God to raise up Indonesian Christians with a passion to cross ethnic and cultural lines to reach their own neighbors. "Go and make disciples of all nations." (Matthew 28:19)
The Persecuted and the Witnesses
Pray for Indonesian Christians who face church closures, mob violence, and legal harassment for their faith — and for those who respond not with fear but with witness. Ask God to use the suffering of the church to open doors for the gospel, as it has done throughout history. "For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for him." (Philippians 1:29)
A Nation of Many Peoples, One Gospel
Pray for Indonesia's stunning diversity to become a testimony to the gospel's power to unite what no human ideology can. Ask God to raise up believers from every island and every tongue who will carry the message of Christ across the archipelago. "After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language." (Revelation 7:9)