July 05, 2006
Outsourcing prayer requests
As life treads a new course in the Western world, marked by a fast pace and a lack of time and inclination for pursuing spiritual needs, India come to the rescue. The number of practicing priests in the US and the UK is diminishing rapidly, and the churches in these countries are not able to meet the demand for fulfilling all prayer requests.
The solution seems to lie in India, and churches in India are being inundated with requests for prayers from the Western countries. India offers over twenty-five priests who manage resource-crunched churches, and the demand for prayers from the West is a welcome relief.
The requests are routed through the Bishop's office to the most suitable priest for a particular request. The prayer is conducted on behalf of the sponsor, and money reaches the priest conducting the prayer. There is an increasing trend to route prayer requests to the most needy of churches, such as those in north India.
A reverse effect is also beginning to emerge; English-speaking priests from India are migrating to Western countries to fill in for the shortfall there. This might, in the long run, make it difficult for Indian churches to continue servicing the offshore prayer requests. However, the factor that works in favor of India is that there are seventeen million Catholics in India. As the Times of India reports:
[This number is] over four times the number of Catholics in Britain, where the sect is a minority, and an impressive one-third of the total number of Catholics in the US. India's youthfulness and English-speaking talents are fetching it attention in the spiritual world too, though it's still not clear what language the lord speaks in.
--
Did you enjoy this post?
Comments
The comments to this entry are closed.
« How secure is your outsourced IT data? | Main | Community Dept signs on Unisys West for developing software »
Recent Comments