Lebanon
Lebanon is one of the oldest inhabited places on earth — home to the ancient Phoenicians, who gave the world the alphabet. Christianity arrived in the first century; the Apostle Paul preached in Tyre and Sidon. The Maronite church, in communion with Rome, has maintained an unbroken presence here for fifteen centuries. The Arab conquest brought Islam, and over the centuries Lebanon became one of the most religiously diverse societies in the Middle East — Maronite Christians, Greek Orthodox, Shia and Sunni Muslims, and Druze all carved out territory and identity in this small mountain country. The modern Lebanese state, born under French mandate and independent in 1943, was built on a careful confessional balance that collapsed into a devastating fifteen-year civil war in 1975.
5,849,000
People live in Lebanon today in the middle of one of the worst economic collapses in modern history. Since 2019, the currency has lost over ninety percent of its value, the banking system has frozen savings, electricity runs only a few hours a day, and the middle class has been destroyed. The 2020 Beirut port explosion — one of the largest non-nuclear blasts in history — killed more than two hundred people and devastated the capital. Through all of this, Lebanon's Christians — still roughly thirty percent of the population — face a historic choice: stay and rebuild, or join the mass emigration that is draining the ancient church from its homeland. Meanwhile, over a million Syrian refugees have swelled the population, creating both enormous need and extraordinary gospel opportunity.
Prayer points
The Church That Stays
Pray for Lebanon's Christians — who have maintained a witness in this land for two thousand years — to choose to stay in the face of collapse rather than emigrate to safety. Ask God to renew the church from within, to move it from cultural Christianity to living faith, and to make it a source of hope and bread for a nation in desperate need. "Let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven." (Matthew 5:16)
Muslims and Druze Open to the Gospel
Pray for Lebanon's Shia and Sunni Muslims and Druze communities — people who live alongside Christians and see the church every day, but who rarely encounter a clear and living presentation of the gospel. Ask God to use the crisis to soften hearts, and to raise up Lebanese believers willing to cross religious and sectarian lines with the love of Christ. "There is neither Jew nor Gentile... for you are all one in Christ Jesus." (Galatians 3:28)
A Generation Refusing to Give Up
Pray for Lebanon's young people — the most educated in the Arab world — who have watched their parents' savings evaporate, their country implode, and their future emigrate. Many are leaving; those who stay carry a grief that goes beyond politics. Ask God to meet them in that grief and to raise up young Lebanese who know that the collapse of every earthly system is an invitation to build on the only foundation that holds. "For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ." (1 Corinthians 3:11)