There’s Power in Prayer
MATTHEW 18:19-20
“ Again, truly I tell you, if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.’’”
From day one in the ministry, I understood and sought the presence of God in times of crisis and great need. My first pastorate was in Melbourne, FL, a church “looking up to see bottom.” So said Ray Davis, the church secretary, as they helped us unload our belongings in the parsonage.
Is your church looking
up to see bottom?
After a productive two-year stint as a Youth Pastor in Princeton, FL, my second pastorate was Columbia, SC, a church fractured by a doctrinal crisis.
A few caring saints gathered with my wife and I for all-night prayer meetings calling upon God to intervene and help us. He did. But it was not until we moved to St. Louis Overland, a church that had just voted its pastor out that we began weekly, Saturday night prayer meetings with a few of the praying saints. Mom and I needed healing and so did the Overland people, so God orchestrated that unlikely pairing.
What crisis are you facing? Will you go to your phone or the Throne?
We prayed our way through a church in financial crisis in Pekin, Illinois, a church devastated by the ‘83 Recession and the loss of over 200 people (on friendly terms) who had to leave to find work elsewhere.
Miraculously, because we prayed, we met every financial obligation and attendance never dropped. I still shake my head in amazement. How do you lose that many people over a four-year period without the collapse of a church? Only God! And people who prayed.
Miracles are ordinary happenings in a praying church!
But not until my 5th pastoral assignment at Ft. Wayne Lake Avenue, Indiana, did I “formerly” mobilize Prayer Partners. Amazing things begin to happen when church members get serious about prayer.
Why not mobilize intercessors to help
you pray?
I sat under the teaching of C. Peter Wagner at the School of Large Church Management—the foremost authority on church growth at the time. As he talked about intercession and the power of intercessors, I came back and issued a challenge, after scribbling a message together on the plane as I flew home on that Sunday.
People will respond if
you ask them to pray.
God gave me nearly 50 people who committed to do three things: (1) To pray daily for their pastor and staff and as often as the Spirit impressed them to pray; (2) to gather together with at least one other Prayer Partner on a rotating schedule to pray for me before we entered to lead the worship service. And (3) Pray their way through the Order of Service.
“There is nothing the devil dreads so much as prayer!”
A daily prayer calendar of each church family was provided so that over the course of 30 days everyone in the church was prayed for. Unfortunately, I’d have to say we had a Prayer Ministry but didn’t really become a praying church. Prayer was just one of many ministries in the church, but not quite the heartbeat of all we did.
Put prayer at the center of all you do in ministry!
But God blessed us anyway. We were moving toward prayer at the center of all we did, but we had a long way to go. The anointing of God was upon us and somebody got saved. Every. Single. Week.
I introduced what I called the Salvation Candle using the text, “The fire should not go out on the altar… it must be kept burning (Lev. 6:9,12) to introduce the idea. (The full story is in my book, It Only Takes a Spark).
“The fire must be kept burning.” (Lev.6:12)
The candle kept burning for the next 18 months and I’m told it never went out for 3 straight years! That means that every week, somebody got saved and was added to our number. Incredible? Not when evangelism is sparked by fervent prayer.
After 18 months, God interrupted my plans and sent me to another church in crisis.
But then, unexpectedly after those 18 months, God inexplicably called me to Nashville Grace church, a church in crisis and badly in need of stabilization.
My very first week there, God awakened me in the night and said…
“The only way this
church is going to move
forward is on its knees in prayer!”
I had my marching orders. The following Sunday I went to the pulpit in a seriously divided congregation and called for a 24/7 Chain of Prayer and 148 people stood in line to sign up to pray in one of the half-hour segments.
I took the 2:00 o’clock a.m. slot, since that was the time I received the mandate from God. Literally, God made us pray our way forward, on our knees in contending, round-the-clock prayer for 11 months before anything that looked like victory obtained. There is great powerinprayer_480p_mov .
A praying pastor
becomes a praying superintendent.
After 27 months, I was appointed DS of the Dallas District and didn’t understand until almost seven years into that assignment that what worked in the local church, could work on a district family of churches as well.
God helped me overcome all my excuses in about 2002, and I called for District Prayer Partners and God gave us nearly 1,000. I discovered that people are willing to pray if they have a leader who will lead with vision and have the courage to ask them. The primary assignment was to pray daily for several pastors and their families, and each church on the District throughout the month.
“As goes the leader, so goes the church.”
When the appointment came to Southern Florida, in the same fashion, the Lord prompted me to begin mobilizing Prayer Partners from Day One. He gave us over 1,600 (about 10% of the membership) before I asked Him if we should stop mobilizing. In like manner we repeated the pattern of praying daily for each pastor, spouse, children, and church from a monthly prayer calendar. Frequent emails were sent with special requests for prayer.
In January 2007, I traveled to Cali, Colombia, with a group of Southern Florida pastors and laypeople to visit the Casa de Oración, a true House of Prayer, experiencing exponential growth and blessing.
There is great power in praying together!
Of this I am absolutely convinced: there is great power in praying together. Private, in-home praying is absolutely essential. It’s the best place to begin, because Jesus is knocking on the door of every Christian home, seeking to come in through prayer. He wants to glorify His name through the love, holiness, and unity that He creates in each family.
Don’t fly solo in your prayer life!
“Most Americans when asked, say that they pray privately.” Most personal prayer seems to be a solitary activity. I am saying we also need to pray with others, striving to unite under the headship of Christ.
“That’s where the power is… we need to listen to one another’s hearts in the presence of God” (Price). Better still, we need the power of God’s Spirit breathing in us and through us. Remember, the church began not as a preaching service with a small prayer meeting (Acts 1:14); rather, the church was a prayer meeting!
Make prayer the heartbeat of your home and church!
To put it another way, prayer must become the heartbeat of our homes and churches! Prayer is a biblical priority, and it must be for any genuine Christian and any authentic church.
In 1 Thessalonians 5:17 Paul said, “Pray without ceasing…” He might as well have said, “Never stop breathing.” “If Spirit is breath to the body of Christ, without which we die, then prayer is breathing itself. It is the means by which we inhale the very Spirit of God’s life into the body of Christ” (Doug Small). Hence, a further admonition in 5:19, “Do not quench or stifle the Holy Spirit?” Don’t hold your breath. Breath is essential to life just as much as prayer.
Prayer is oxygen to the soul.
It is better to breathe (pray) than try see how long you can hold our breath (fail to pray) and pass out. When you are running (working hard) you breathe harder. Why is that? Our lungs need more oxygen.
Striving to do what is good (5:15) requires even more strength. We never get too busy to breathe. Why then is it so easy to forget to pray? We leave God out of the equation to our own peril. Don’t be seduced by the good to the neglect of the best or both the good and best may perish, to say nothing of your joy and thanksgiving.
“A church without prayer is an absurdity; it does not exist.” (Small)
It may be a warm corpse, but it is dead. Prayer breathes life into the soul of the church. It is the means by which the Spirit guides and empowers the church, by which the Christ-life is infused” (P. Douglas Small, Project Pray)
God is not a Cosmic
Vending Machine or Divine Requisitioning System!
Prayer must be more than TRANSACTIONAL—it must be TRANSFORMATIONAL! This is to say that goal of prayer is intimacy with God himself, not the acquisition of things. “The rewards of praying are greater than the answers to prayer. God himself is the great reward of prayer.”
Similarly, prayer is more than a divine requisitioning system. As I often say, God is not our Cosmic Vending Machine! “Prayer is so much more than bringing a list of requests to God. Prayer is letting Jesus Himself come into our midst to commune with us and glorify His name through meeting our needs … To pray is nothing more involved than to let Jesus into our needs” (Oliver W. Price, The Power of Praying Together).
It’s time to move from duty to delight in your prayer life!
Our time with God demonstrates our love, our longing for His presence, and our willingness to be obedient. So I think it is time to move from duty to DELIGHT!
“We can get so busy even working for the Lord that we lose the power and blessing of His presence and never even notice!” When He departs from a congregation, it dies. Unfortunately, the dead church does not even know it, just as a pastor once said, “If the Holy Spirit left the church, no one would notice because it runs so smoothly without Him.”
United prayer produces
atmospheric change!
Praying together can produce atmospheric change! That’s precisely what praying together did when Dorothy Oegler and Althea Bullar felt led of God to start a prayer meeting! Such united praying together gives Jesus permission to employ His powers in the alleviation of our distress and needs. “To pray is to let Jesus glorify His name in the midst of our needs.” The Holy Spirit stands ready to fill the church, including our marriages, our families and small group gatherings with His transforming Presence and Power.
Don’t wait for a crisis to call upon God. Wake up and honor His presence!
Perhaps you feel the way
that I do. You desperately want the special presence of Christ in your midst. Do you want to welcome Him in every aspect of your life? Thankfully, we don’t have to wait until the church falls into desperate spiritual need before we wake up and honor His presence!
Refuse to settle for a spiritually dead church!
We can make the Lord Jesus completely at home in our midst, at all times, always! Prayer does this!
Don’t settle for a spiritually dead church! We must unite together in loving, trusting, and obeying Him, for He is our life! Without Him, our homes and our churches are spiritually dead. It never has to happen on your street nor in your zip code if we let Christ come into our midst by the Holy Spirit and actively take charge.
Let Christ take charge and transform you and your church.
Christ is ready today to settle down and make His home with any couple, small group, or church where believers open their hearts in one accord in prayer to welcome Him. Christ shows up where two or three gather in His name.
He is there and He is ready to take charge to transform our churches. But we must let Jesus take charge. Genuinely seek the Lord in prayer and your church will change. Let Christ come into your midst by the Holy Spirit and actively take charge [Adapted Oliver W. Price, The Power of Praying Together, 55-56]. To sum up, He’s waiting for you to join hands and hearts with others who feel as passionately about prayer as you.
