Mission Frontiers

July-August 2014:

Lifestyle of Prayer

Contents:

Intercessory Missions

From the Guest Editor

by David Taylor

Critical Mass

How the 24/7 Movement is Poised to Make a Massive Impact on the Last Remaining Unreached People Groups

by John Lambert

Informed Intercession

The Wonderful Marriage of Research + prayer

by C. Graham, C.S. Riggs, R. Waddell, C. Hall, A. Wright

A Culture of Prayer In One Local Missional Church

by John Lo

Every Home for Christ

A Case Study on the Effectual Convergence of Prayer & Mission

by John Lambert

Hydrate

How One Ministry is Using Prophetic Prayer to Serve Those Working in Dry Places

by Cheryl Allen and Ajay Samuel

Pray! Ekballo!

A Prayer Revolution for the Great Harvest

by Lou Engle

Massive Prayer and Missions Movements of the 90s

by John Lambert

National Prayer Initiatives

by John Robb

Prayer Changes Things

Convergence in the Ethne Ephesus Vision

by Liz Adleta

Prayer

The Work of Missions

by John Piper

Students Stirring on the West Coast

A Report on "March to May Day" and the "21 Project"

by John Lambert

The Prayer Life of a Movement Catalyst

Kingdom Kernels

by Steve Smith

A Call to Prayer

The Challenge and Opportunity of Lima 2014

by David Taylor

Called Together

New Site Connects Globally-Called Single Adults

by Rebecca Lewis

Recovering the Kingdom

A Book Review

by David Taylor

Light the Window

A Billion Hours of Prayer and $1 Billion by the Year 2020

by David Taylor

Could Inspiring More “We Did It” Stories Help Break the Dependency Mindset?

Raising Local Resources

by Dan Carl

Can We Pray Too Much?

Further Reflections

by Greg H. Parsons

Editorial

Intercessory Missions

From the Guest Editor

by David Taylor

A missionary colleague of mine, who served for many years in South Asia, once told a story of when a top-government official came into his office asking for prayer. The official, who was from a Muslim background, specifically requested my friend’s co-worker to pray for him—someone who was known by everyone as a man of prayer. However, at the time, he was not in the office.

“I’m sorry,” my friend said, “He’s not here. Would you like me to pray for you?”

The leader replied, “No, I want the other guy.”

Curious, my friend asked, “Why can’t I pray for you?”

“Well…” the leader mused aloud, “You are like a diplomat. Your friend is a man of God.”

That was the last thing my friend wanted to hear!

Is this what Muslims are looking for? Genuine men and women of God? Many workers among Muslims are coming to this conclusion, and it’s not just in the Muslim world. It’s in every culture where spirituality is highly valued. Is this something we have missed in our approach, both in terms of preparation and field-practice? We train our missionaries to be good teachers, church-planters, and cross-cultural evangelists. But do we mentor them to be mystics, faith healers and prophets? These very concepts make some of us cringe! And yet, these are the kind of people God has used all throughout history to ignite gospel movements. Why might that be?

Almost all innovation and breakthrough in the Kingdom is pioneered by the apostolic and prophetic gifting. But once the ministry is established, the work is turned over to pastors, teachers, and administrators. These are a much more conservative crowd. They are far more likely to toss out an apostle or prophet than to nurture one! So while these giftings might have difficulty finding a place in their home church, they are a perfect fit for the frontiers. They are also the kinds of people whom God uses to birth revival and renewal in the “home front” as well.

This is why we are excited about the growing convergence of the prayer and healing movements and the frontier mission movement. Historically, there has always been a strong synergistic connection between renewal movements and missions. So it should not be a surprise that we are beginning to see a passion for mission in the midst of the prayer “furnaces” which are being ignited in this country and all over the world.

Daniel Lim, a Malaysian leader who serves with the International House of Prayer, recently described what is happening at a meeting which drew together 30,000 intercessors, many of whom are full time intercessory missionaries:

Despite the pressures and inherent dangers, we see 24/7 prayer centers coming forth in the Muslim world, in nations like Egypt, Turkey, Syria, Indonesia, and Lebanon…. Many are asking the Lord to establish 24/7 prayer with worship in every tribe and tongue before the Lord returns, by bringing multiple ministries together in unity to accomplish the work in every region of the earth. Imagine a missions movement that reaches every tribe and tongue, with the gospel being preached in every language, deeply connected to 24/7 prayer with worship.

This exciting potential has many mission strategists wondering and thinking aloud: Could it be that God has reserved the most powerful forms of mission for penetrating the last frontiers of the Great Commission—the places we call the “hardest and darkest” on earth? What might happen if thousands of houses of prayer and healing rooms were to spring up throughout the 10/40 Window, in every major city and town throughout the non-Christian world? From what we know of history and Scripture, the world will never be the same.

The significance of this strategy is that it combines two important components required for breakthrough. First, these houses of prayer will be interceding 24/7 for spiritual strongholds to be broken—you might think of this as the “air war.” But secondly, these ministries will also engage in healing and deliverance ministry on the ground in their communities. What is so strategic about this is that in most of the world’s least-reached places, the gospel has only gained a foothold when supernatural ministry was present. This begs the question, “Why not lead with this approach?” Isn’t this how the Roman Empire was won to Christ? Paul said to the Corinthians, “My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power...” (1 Cor 2:4 NIV)

For this reason, we have decided to dedicate this issue of Mission Frontiers to the topic of intercessory missions—or what you might call prayer as mission. The paradigm is so obvious and so biblical it is incredible that we have just begun to explore it in modern-day evangelical missions. Frankly, we are merely re-discovering some ancient paradigms for mission going all the way back to temple worship in the Old Testament; to missional monasticism in early Christianity; to the Moravians in the 18th century, who kindled a 24/7 prayer furnace for missions that went on for a hundred years.

All Authority

What are some of the lessons we can glean from the last three decades of the modern-day prayer movement? John Robb, a veteran intercessory missionary, gives us some important insights about this in his interview beginning on page 23. He observes that when spiritual breakthroughs happen in a nation they involve a common pattern, which is characterized by a three-step process. The first step begins when leaders come together and humble themselves before God and each other. From here they enter into unity and concerted agreement with one another. Finally, once they are in this place of alignment with each other and the Holy Spirit, they are enabled to exercise the authority given to the saints to prophetically declare the will of God over their nation. To put it succinctly, “humility + unity = authority.”

The governing rights given to God’s people are incredible. Jesus said, “Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven…”(Mat 18:18, NKJV) He promised, “You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.” (Joh 14:14, NIV) He declared, “I have given you authority… to overcome all the power of the enemy, nothing will harm you.” (Luk 10:19, NIV) The common denominator in all of these promises is that they were given to the disciples as a group—meaning corporate prayer, concerted asking, united contending.

But in the midst of these incredible promises, we have also been given a warning: “You do not have because you do not ask God.” (Jam 4:2, NIV) Why has it been almost two thousand years since the Great Commission was given and still over 2 billion haven’t heard the good news? Why do 3,600 unreached people groups still have no missionaries among them? The answer is almost scandalous: We are not asking!

Light the Window

Of course, it is not as though the church has been completely idle in prayer over the last few decades. Some have been quite dedicated, even though they are a minority. Through this committed few, in the last thirty years we have seen more breakthroughs among unreached peoples than ever before in history. Many of these breakthroughs can be directly connected to intentional, united prayer efforts. For more on this read John Lambert’s article on page 21 which describes the various prayer initiatives for the 10/40 Window that have happened over the last twenty years, and what has happened as a result.

One new initiative called Light the Window aims to raise up 10 million intercessors to pray for the peoples of the 10/40 Window through the year 2020. The goal is to raise up 1 billion hours of prayer for spiritual breakthrough among the 365 largest unreached people groups, which collectively make up 2.5 billion people. To learn more about this initiative read the article on page 40 and visit http://www.ltw2020.org.

About The Author

David Taylor is the research director of the Global Network of Mission Structures (http://www.gnms.net). He is the senior editor of the Global Mission Database (http://www.gmdata.info) and author of Operation 10/40 Window (http://www.op1040.info). You may contact him at david.taylor@uscwm.org

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Feature

Critical Mass

How the 24/7 Movement is Poised to Make a Massive Impact on the Last Remaining Unreached People Groups

by John Lambert

“In 1984, the number of 24/7 houses of prayer in the world was fewer than twenty-five. Today there are over ten thousand—and most of that growth has been in the last ten years; they are springing up all over the globe at a staggering rate.”1 This is a unique phenomenon that is unprecedented in history. There is a critical mass forming.

These houses of prayer often act as missional “sodalities.” This means they are second-decision communities that serve in a role outside of the local church like other specialized non-profit ministries. Others see themselves as expressions of a type of local missional church, with a 24/7 prayer culture built into its core.

Many who embrace the full-time occupation of “intercessory missionary” are called to commit to fifty hours of service per week, including being in prayer for at least four hours a day, six days a week. Those working through this paradigm also emphasize three main dimensions of missions work: continual prayer, deeds of mercy, and sharing the gospel. They believe that all three must go together and that “prayer is the greater work.” The vast majority of these houses of prayer reject any form of cloistered spirituality that separates them from the needs of the world. They believe in turning prayer into practical action.

Some point out that the model has not yet had strong exposure to the broader world of missions and missiology, especially as it relates to frontier missions. In distinction they are said to have an emphasis on prayer for Israel, many times to the exclusion of other ethnic groups. Critics are quick to point out that the term “intercessory missionary” is not in the Bible, but proponents are also quick to point out that the Bible doesn’t give a comprehensive list of ministries that the Spirit has used to meet the specific needs of various cultures in the different generations throughout church history. For instance, in the Bible we do not see the title or a detailed job description of a senior pastor, youth pastor, missionary, marriage counselor, minister to the poor or to children, but we do see one for apostle.

Below are a couple of examples that are given when proponents speak about the background and basis of this kind of ministry.

The Anna Calling

Those who serve as intercessory missionaries cite Anna in the New Testament as an example. Though many would not claim to live as consecrated a life in prayer, Anna is still a model that some hold in high regard.

“Now there was one, Anna, a prophetess.... She was of a great age, and had lived with a husband seven years from her virginity; and this woman was a widow of about eighty-four years, who did not depart from the temple, but served God with fasting and prayers night and day... she gave thanks to the Lord, and spoke of [Jesus] to all those who looked for redemption in Jerusalem.” (Luk 2:36–38, NKJV)

Anna is seen as a prophetess (v. 36), intercessor (v. 37), and evangelist (v. 38). She is said to represent those who have the grace to sustain long hours of prayer over the course of many years.

Day and Night, Night and Day

Luke 18 is another key scripture for those who are ministering in the prayer movement.

“Shall not God bring about justice for His elect, who cry to Him day and night? He will bring about justice for them.…However, when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?” (Luk 18:7–8, NASB)

The verses immediately preceding this passage are in the context of the end of days when the Son of Man, Jesus Christ, will return. Many who serve as intercessory missionaries live with a kind of eschatological urgency that ties ongoing prayer and intercession with the return of the Lord and his release of justice to the earth.

J. Philip Hogan, former missionary to China and Executive Director of the Assemblies of God from 1960-1990, said, “We believe you cannot separate missiology and eschatology; they belong together. The end of this function is to bring Jesus back, we believe, and those are our goals.”2 This is also the belief and goal of many serving in these prayer movements.

Davidic Worship

King David was said to be the first to create a full time occupation of singers who ministered to God night and day. David commanded all the kings after him to uphold the order of worship that he received from God, because it was God’s command (2 Chr 29:25; 35:4, 15; Ezr 3:10; Neh 12:45). In Psalm 132 king David is said to have made a vow to God to find a “resting place” for God.

Many in the prayer movement interpret this verse in distinction to Genesis 6 where it speaks of God’s spirit not always “striving with man.” The resting place then is said to be the place where the Spirit of God “rests” in the midst of his people who seek to live in agreement with his will rather than striving with them in order to convince them to obey. It is one of the aims of the culture of prayer to provide a resting place for God, both as individuals and as a corporate community.

Monastic Communities

Throughout church history examples have been cited as precedents for night and day prayer and worship: Alexander Akimetes and the order of the Acoemetae—literally “the sleepless ones;” Comgall and the Bangor Ireland monastery that combined both prayer and missions work; Abbot Ambrosius who planted monasteries that continued night and day in prayer for over 400 years; the monastery in Cluny France, Bernard of Clairvaux, and most famously, to many in the Protestant missions movement, the Moravians.

The Moravians

The Moravians lived by Leviticus 6:13, “The fire must be kept burning; it must not go out.” The prayer meeting they began with their little band of persecuted followers continued non-stop for 100 years. Out of this movement over 200 missionaries were sent around the world during a time when the rest of the Protestant world had virtually no missionary outreach at all. Their influence was even instrumental in the life and ministry of John Wesley, a contemporary of Jonathan Edwards and the founder of the Methodists.

Houses of Prayer Today

Night and day or “24/7” houses of prayer have emerged in places such as Kiev, Bogota, Jerusalem, New Zealand, Cape Town, and Hong Kong, among many others. Despite the obvious challenges, 24/7 prayer centers are also emerging in nations like Egypt, Turkey, Syria, Indonesia, and Lebanon.

Leaders in these prayer movements do not believe that it is God’s will for every local church or ministry to host 24/7 worship in their own building, but rather that He plans to establish it in each gateway center or city of the earth. They believe that this can happen if many local churches partner together in the work of night-and-day prayer rather than the house of prayer groups acting alone. Many of those seeking to establish houses of prayer see their role as catalytic in nature. They understand that practical applications may differ from city to city and from nation to nation, as well as from culture to culture.

The culture of the house of prayer emphasizes what they call the “first commandment established in the first place.” Mike Bickle, leader of the International House of Prayer in Kansas City (IHOPKC), says “Jesus defined loving God as being deeply rooted in a spirit of obedience in John 14:21. There is no such thing as loving God without seeking to obey his Word.”3 Daniel Lim, the CEO of IHOPKC, says that a common saying around their ministry is, “When you talk to the One who gave the Great Commission—day and night, night and day—you can’t help but be infected with missionary passion.” It is this kind of connection of loving obedience with the Great Commandment and the Great Commission that gives the prayer movement great potential for global impact.

Pete Grieg of the Boiler Room Movement out of the UK remarks, “In my experience the people who do the praying are infectious. They are full of the presence of God. They are exactly the people you want to get out among the lost. And often the people who are out here doing mission, if they are not praying, they’re burning out. And they’re the ones who are talking about the good news but they look the least like the good news. They’re the ones who need to go and get in the presence of God.”4

ACTS 13

One of the people who have led the way in the mash up between the new prayer culture and the frontier missions vision is Brian Kim of the Antioch Center for Training & Sending, also known as The ACTS School. Brian had his start at the IHOPKC base and has recently moved the ministry to the offices of Every Home For Christ in Colorado Springs, CO. When we spoke recently Brian said, “Missionaries have always been some of the most prayerful people I’ve met. But from a macro level, what we are beginning to see is movements recognizing that we have to link arms together.” This is the convergence that has been happening in recent history.

The ACTS School model is based on Acts 13:1-3,

Now in the church that was at Antioch there were certain prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch, and Saul. As they ministered to the Lord and fasted, the Holy Spirit said, “Now separate to Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” Then, having fasted and prayed, and laid hands on them, they sent them away. (NKJV)

Here we find a multi-cultural sending team with both prophets and teachers who were ministering to the Lord. They first had a God-ward gaze and out of this worship came forth mission. To those in the prayer movement, prayer is not simply about getting something done, it is about connecting with a real person, who also happens to be the Lord of the harvest (Mat 9:38, Luk 10:2). Prayer is both a means and an end. It unleashes Gospel movements and it is what worshipers do. Kim quotes one of his favorite authors, John Piper, when he famously said, “Missions exists because worship doesn’t.”

Harp & Bowl

When it comes to some of the elements that are a regular part of house of prayer worship, the term “harp and bowl” comes up often. It is taken from Revelations 5:8, which says,

And when he had taken it, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. Each one had a harp and they were holding golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of God’s people. (NKJV)

In this verse, leaders in the movement see a model of worship that includes both music and the prayers of God’s people mingled. Kim says that the house of prayer has been called by some a “singing seminary,” where you learn the Scripture as you sing the Scripture. The desire to make worshipers out of the nations is something that is fundamental to this paradigm of missions. Scriptures such as Ephesians 5:18-19 and Colossians 3:16 are used to demonstrate the belief that being filled with the Spirit is most evidenced by whether or not a person is sharing Jesus with others and telling the story of God (Acts 1:8,9) more than in any other single piece of evidence. It is also evidenced by the heart’s response to God in singing with gratitude.

Navigating Culture and Partnership

When I asked how this type of model goes over in places like Eurasia and among Muslim background people, Kim says, “People come in and gravitate to it. They are mesmerized by it. They see both liberty, reverence, and joy. It’s attractive.” The team at the Antioch Center desire for local believers to sing in their own heart language about their own experiences in God. He says, “Western music is not the highest ideal. Sometimes it may look radically different in another culture. God wants to redeem both peoples and culture.”

As we talked more about the question of “what the role of Westerners in global mission is?” We both agreed with missions specialist Paul Borthwick that “it depends.” In his book Western Christians in Global Mission: What’s The Role of the North American Church? Borthwick publishes two mock letters written by Bob Blincoe of the mission agency Frontiers. Each letter is a fictional representation of real encounters used to illustrate the challenges of partnership between North Americans and majority world Christians.4 The content illustrates the tension that is faced when trying to partner local leadership and pioneering ministries with unreached ethnic groups. Kim has also felt the tension as his teams on the field try to navigate the same challenges.

Prayer and Mission Leaders Gather

These growing prayer movements continue to reach out to the larger evangelical community as they grow into their second decade of existence. This past December, IHOPKC held its first annual OneThing Leadership Summit in conjunction with their annual OneThing conference, which drew over 30,000 people from all over the world. The leadership summit’s “by invitation only” gathering of 500 prayer and mission leaders was an unprecedented meeting and the beginning of a new conversation and collaboration between the prayer and frontier missions movements.

The goals of the 2013 summit were:

To strengthen relationships between key leaders from the prayer and missions movements as well as key local church pastors who have a value for both.

To begin the discussion of strategic goals and objectives, to see night and day prayer established in every language and in each geographic and ethnic region of the earth.

To explore the diversity of expression in corporate prayer with worship.

The meeting delegates were able to immediately act on their vision by adopting 300 language groups that are still in need of Bible translation in their heart language. The leaders present took up the challenge, adopted the people groups, and agreed to ongoing prayer over the next year for these projects.

In addition, IHOPKC, in partnership with The Seed Company, a subsidiary of Wycliffe Bible Translators, took responsibility for the funding of five Bible translation and Jesus film projects to the tune of $250,000. IHOP leader Mike Bickle told then Seed Company CEO, Roy Peterson, that he looked forward to raising the funds and adopting more Bible translation projects next year. He emphasized how prayer and the Word of God were essential for every tribe and language to worship God. The goal of The Seed Company is to help eradicate one of the greatest injustices of our day: Bible poverty.

Those attending the leadership summit included leaders like Roy Peterson of The Seed Company, John Dawson of YWAM, Mark Anderson of Call2All, Francis Chan who was also a keynote speaker, Lou Engle of The Call and Ekballo House of Prayer, Andy Byrd of Fire & Fragrance and The Circuit Riders, and other global leaders. In addition, the leadership team of IHOP (which included Mike Bickle, Daniel Lim, Wes Hall, and Allen Hood) was active in leading the forum and discussions.

The format of the summit included prayer, worship, exhortation from leaders, round table discussion, panel discussions, and one-on-one meetings. The meetings contained relational, strategic, and tactical elements with leaders gathered on the first day around their ministry affinities and on the second day around their geographic locations. The leadership plans to gather again this year.

Prayer > Revival > Mission

Let me leave you with a classic quote from a 1979 article in Mission Frontiers:

“The Christian faith has known a number of great revivals, waves of the Spirit of God which ripple across history. Dr. J. Edwin Orr of Fuller Seminary has studied these movements. He discovered no revival occurs without an initial wave of prayer. The world’s greatest mission movements have historically sprung from the soil of revival. To reach the 2.5 billion people who yet remain without the Good News, we must pray, we must sow seeds in prayer which will ultimately bear fruit in action. Frontiers still forbidding will be penetrated as we assault them with our prayers. People will be reached for God as we reach God in prayer.”5

Time will only tell if the global 24/7 prayer movement will begin to consistently focus its prayers, resources, and sending on the frontiers of God’s global mission, the last remaining unreached and unengaged people groups. But if I had to make a bet, I would bet that the time has come. I see a critical mass ready to take up the challenge for the glory of God.

Learn more by visiting:

ihopkc.org, 24-7prayer.com, actsschool.com, theseedcompany.org.

Profile of The International House of Prayer Kansas City

- The IHOPKC has been maintaining unceasing 24/7 prayer for 14 years.

- There are 84 2-hour prayer sets maintained each week.

- The IHOPKC base receives over 100,000 visitors a year.

- The base houses 700 students and staff.

- IHOP University and Bible School enrolls 1,000 students.

- The OneThing Internship drew 610 interns in 2013.

- Those who serve in prayer, worship, and service through IHOPKC are called intercessory missionaries.

- Intercessory Prayer Missionaries spend a minimum of 25 hours a week in prayer and worship. They spend another 25 hours a week in compassion, evangelism, and service.

- IHOPKC is run by 1,000 staff missionaries. They were inspired in the early days by YWAM and Cru and therefore all staff members raise support.

- 9 Languages are served with full worship teams each week.

- 50 missionaries are currently deployed to “creative
access countries.”

- 12.7 million people visited the ihopkc.org web site in 2013 alone.

- 10,000 gigabytes of teaching and worship resources are available online for free.

- 8,700 hours of live web streaming were displayed in 2013.

- IHOPKC holds 10 conferences a year including the OneThing conference.

- 35 artists have recorded on the Forerunner music label with 150 albums produced.

About The Author

John and his family served among the Isaan people of northeast Thailand before joining staff at the U.S. Center for World Mission. He is a product of God’s work through prayer, revival, and missions mobilization. John has ministered in over a dozen nations and continues to travel and serve as a missions speaker, strategist, and collaborative networker. He is currently working on new strategic initiatives for both the U.S. Center and the Frontier Mission Fellowship.

Blog: spreadtheflame.com Twitter: @johnlambert

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Feature

Informed Intercession

The Wonderful Marriage of Research + prayer

by C. Graham, C.S. Riggs, R. Waddell, C. Hall, A. Wright

Since October of last year, C. Graham, a long time veteran of the U.S. Center for World Mission, has been leading a new weekly convergence-style initiative here at our Pasadena campus along with young people from the Ekballo House of Prayer. She and four of her young partners share their experiences on how they have been working not only to bring research and intercession together in a collaborative environment but also to join the generations in weekly prayer for unreached people groups.

The team leads the collaborative group every Friday to pray for a different people group each month. Some of the people groups they have prayed for recently include the Aceh of Indonesia, the Jewish people of Israel, the Pashtun of Afghanistan, the Yadav of India, the Native American peoples, Tibetans, and the Wolof people of Western Africa.

The prayer set is a highly structured, yet intense, hour. During their research phase, the team meets early in the week and divides up certain areas to pursue in research. Everyone spends his or her own personal time researching throughout the week. They may research for 2-3 hours each and then meet again to share and process what they’ve discovered. Graham strongly emphasizes partnership with God throughout the process. She says, “We’re not just doing a lot of research and figuring out what’s crucial. The Holy Spirit is important to us. God is the one who guides us, leads us, and shows us.”

Below are the group’s answers to a few questions we asked when we met up recently:

MF: How has this convergence impacted your experience in prayer?

Riggs: For me, it’s brought in a different aspect of prayer that I haven’t really been a part of before, which is called “informed intercession,” where you go more in depth in research. It has been a huge blessing and a tool that I have been able to learn.

Hall: For me it has been a blessing getting to know the people group and their story and out of that being able to pray with understanding.

Waddell: It has helped me to engage my heart on a deeper level in partnering with the Lord’s heart. Part of that has been going through their history and trying to understand their story from God’s perspective. As I went through a historical timeline I was asking, “what have they been through, what are the challenges that they face, both now and in the past?”

As I was praying for a specific people group in Central Asia, that the Lord would raise up laborers, I was surprised that he would impact my own heart in a way that has actually changed some of the course in which I have planned my life. I didn’t expect the Lord to say, “Give yourself to prayer for this people on a personal level, not just corporately on Fridays, as this is something that you will potentially do later in life.” He wrote something on my heart that would transcend that one month of focused prayer.

Wright: I feel like I’ve received a greater burden for the unreached people groups. As a part of the Ekballo House of Prayer, we pray for the unreached, but it’s different when you are informed about it and praying from that place. Understanding the background before we pray has been really powerful for me.

Researching and praying about the practice of Bacha Bazi [child-sex slavery] in Afghanistan really impacted me. I was horrified and shocked. I was praying for things I had never even heard of before. My prayers and my heart have come alive through the research. I found myself in deep intercession for the people even after our prayer set was over.

MF: What are some of the tools you used in
your research?

Riggs: One was interviewing people who have worked among those people. I would ask them what were some of the things we could learn from them about this people group that we wouldn’t be able to find by simply searching for them on Google, watching YouTube videos, or even through research magazines and sites, but rather what is it that we can learn from first hand perspectives. This engaged my heart in a deeper level.

Graham: Sometimes we have called people in certain countries. Whenever we can, we do. We always have to recognize security concerns and give the people we are talking with the assurance that we are not going to publicize something that is going to compromise them. Most of the remaining unreached people groups are in areas where there is a lot of security concern, so we have to be wise. But there is still a lot that can be gathered and a lot of good people to talk with. We look to talk with not just foreign or Western missionaries, but local missionaries from the community itself.

MF: What can others reading this article learn from your experience?

Riggs: I would definitely encourage people to research rather than just simply blindly praying for things. I was taught that the key to intimacy is knowledge. To really be able to love a people and pray for them is to learn about who they are in a deeper way. I found that the more I researched a people, the more I fell in love with them and the easier it was to pray. I didn’t have to just make things up. I began dreaming about this people at night, and they would be in my thoughts during the day. The Lord was stirring my heart for them in deeper ways. The more informed we are as intercessors, as people who pray for a specific people, the more our heart will come alive through it.

Waddell: In light of where missions is going and how the concept of unreached people groups is hitting our generation in particular, I think it is wise and noble to give ourselves to researching and praying for these people groups so that we as a generation can potentially understand where we will be going. I think for our generation many times missions is a fantasy where we simply say, “I want to go there!” We can galvanize around the idea of going without actually understanding the plight of the people, the spiritual realities, and the things they face. Research helps us to not only be equipped spiritually but also in practical ways.

Hall: Adding research to prayer opened my eyes to see. You can have this idea like, “Oh, I want to go to another nation, to another people,” but through research you understand that there are huge cultural and language barriers. And for some people groups, you can’t just go for a year or a few months, you have to give your life to it. I was studying about Tibet and seeing their culture of prayer and even the honor they have for that... it opened my eyes. I started dreaming about them and asking myself questions like, “how do we do worship in that culture without them losing their culture?” We don’t want to give them “American worship” or Western music. How does worship come forth in their culture and the way it sounds there? That is what has moved my heart.

Graham: What I’ve found to be really significant is that these younger people, it could be an older person too, but the people in the prayer movement have a level of passion and zeal in the place of prayer. And I feel like that is one element that I saw was so powerful. But what I was seeing in our community was that we were praying each week for a different people group. And the prayer movement on our campus was praying every night for a different people group. I was saying to myself, “what would happen if we asked the Lord to show us which people group we should all settle on and pray for this month and really settle into that and give God time to birth something in our hearts?” It just doesn’t get birthed in 15-20 minutes. I wanted to see what God would do in our people’s hearts. It’s that heart level engagement that is what prayer really is. It was the knowledge and the passion coming together that became really energizing in our praying together.

These young people bring the heart, they bring Scripture that is speaking to them, and because we’ve been studying and researching throughout the week together, we get really moved about these people and that’s what we have brought to the larger community. Our hearts are moved and that helps their hearts to engage. It becomes really powerful and by the end of the month we all feel like, “Can’t we keep praying for these people?”

It wouldn’t be this exciting if we didn’t have the elements that the prayer movement people have brought to us. But because we have a rich source of information and contacts with people and mission agencies and groups, it’s really a wonderful marriage.

About The Author

C. Graham has been a part of the USCWM since the very earliest days of its genesis. Both she and her husband have served as workers in South Asia and are currently back in the U.S. helping to lead the convergence of prayer and frontier missions.

C.S. Riggs, R. Waddell, C. Hall, and A. Wright are a part of the Ekballo House of Prayer, which is based at the historic Mott Auditorium on the campus of the USCWM.

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Feature

A Culture of Prayer In One Local Missional Church

by John Lo

The following is an interview by MF staff with John Lo, lead pastor of Epicentre Church in Pasadena, CA.

MF: How do you as a local church pastor make prayer a priority in both your personal life and in the life of your church?

JL: Prayer is the foundation of the work of the church, something that must precede, and set the tone for its life. And if the church is to be a house of prayer, then it’s something I have to lead in personally —something that I believe I should be modeling, both in personal and public ways. I personally try to spend at least an hour a day with the Lord, in listening and intercession, aside from times of personal retreat and reflection.

MF: How do you structure prayer each week?

JL: We have weekly staff prayer, a one-hour intercession service before our corporate worship service, intercession during worship service along with an intercessory prayer guide for Sunday service. We also send out weekly prayer updates to intercessors and regularly make time as a staff to stop and wait in silence for God to speak to us. Listening prayer is a very important part of our ongoing decision-making process for everything from budget to staffing issues and more.

Each one of our pastors has their own team of personal intercessors who are committed to praying for them as a part of their regular ministry. We send monthly prayer updates to our Antioch prayer room. We also send bi-annual prayer updates to the entire Antioch movement globally. When emergencies come up, we immediately mobilize corporate prayer as well.

MF: Do you have a person on staff that is responsible for maintaining a prayer culture? If so, what does this role look like?

JL: Yes, we have a person who oversees all of our prayer ministries. She oversees the corporate intercession service and staff prayer as well as training, organizing and overseeing the prayer ministers. She is tasked to raise up, mentor and lead prophetic people while bringing in spiritual formation perspectives and spiritual self-care to the staff and leadership of the church. She also initiates and leads the church in corporate fasting and prayer times and heads up strategic level intercession for the city and over our organizational history and needs. We work to keep intercessors in the loop on what’s going on weekly and really do everything we can to support their work.

MF: How do you feel prayer works together with missions?

JL: As I said before, prayer is the real work. It precedes, underlays, strengthens, sharpens, protects and fuels missions and missionaries. Living out Zechariah 4:6 means being able to hear his voice in prayer and doing what he says as key to mission to the people they work with. And then there’s the work of strategic intercession. Focusing intercession in the midst of spiritual battle clears the way for missions to take place.

Prayer also must be the foundation of missions mobilization. Recently, we have partnered with the Ekballo House of Prayer to this end.

Prayer is key to how a missionary is trained in understanding their work. And prayer also has to be part of the long-term pastoral umbrella, spiritual protection and ongoing missions fuel and strategic intercession for missions work. And it’s key to what missionaries pass on. Missionaries not only evangelize, disciple, plant churches and equip indigenous leaders to be agents of transformation, but they also equip indigenous intercessors to begin the work of healing prayer, intercession and strategic intercession for their own people.

MF: What are some local outreach initiatives your church has been a part of recently? How was
prayer included?

JL: We recently joined with many other local churches to prayer walk the city of Pasadena. As a group, we prayed door-to-door for over 50,000 homes locally and then followed up the next week. We also prayer walked the grounds of our outreach before Easter. We also regularly ask our cell groups to intercede for specific non-believing friends they want to invite to church or outreach.

MF: What advice would you have for pastors and church leaders who are struggling to incorporate consistent prayer into their lives and ministries?

JL: First, we need to back up our conviction of the importance of prayer through our schedule. I have to ruthlessly block off time in my daily schedule, lest the needs of people or ministry priorities invade that space. If I say God is first in our life as a church, then I have to put him first in my schedule (communing with him, listening to him, getting his directive, as well as intercession).

Second, don’t be afraid to ask for help and prayer support. Ask the Holy Spirit to bring you back to your first love. Don’t feel discouraged; the Spirit is more than willing to help! Prayerfully look for some personal intercessors. Peter Wagner’s book Prayer Shield: How to Intercede for Pastors, Christian Leaders and Others on the Spiritual Frontlines was really helpful for me.

Third, ask other pastors you know who have a strong prayer life to pray with you—praying with passionate intercessors rubs off on us.

MF: Anything else you would like to share?

JL: As our world changes more rapidly, the needs of people seem more insistent, the voices of the unreached continue their cry, and spiritual battles seem ever more intense, we need, more than ever, to learn how to listen and obey God. Jesus only said what he heard the Father speaking (John 12:49) and only did what he saw the Father doing (John 5:19). That has to be the starting place of my life as a leader. That’s what my church ultimately needs from me and what I want to reproduce in those under my care. My ideas, talent or zeal alone will not produce victory. To see God’s light invade the darkness requires spiritual weapons and spiritual power. I need to organize my life accordingly.

About The Author

John Lo is the Lead Pastor of Epicentre Church based in Mott Auditorium on the campus of the U.S. Center for World Mission in Pasadena, CA.  Epicentre is a part of the Antioch International Movement of Churches.  Learn more at http://www.epicentrechurch.org

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Feature

Every Home for Christ

A Case Study on the Effectual Convergence of Prayer & Mission

by John Lambert

Over the last 65 years of ministry, Every Home for Christ (EHC) has reached over 1.5 billion homes globally and received over 100 million responses to Christ through their outreach efforts in 216 nations. Their vision is “to serve the Church to reach every home on earth with the gospel.”

The evangelical ministry is led by Dick Eastman, a man who in 1971 saw a vision of a global prayer movement that would correspond with the greatest harvest of souls the world has ever seen. He is famous for saying, “The degree to which prayer is mobilized will be the degree to which the world is evangelized.”

In 1999, at the same time that both the International House of Prayer in Kansas City and the 24/7 Boiler Room movement began in England, Eastman committed EHC to the development of a 24/7 house of prayer at their Colorado Springs based ministry center. The Jericho Prayer Center was dedicated in 2003 with the model of “harp and bowl”/night-and-day prayer at its center.

EHC is known for keeping detailed records of their ministry’s numbers. At a conference on prayer and missions in 2012, Dick Eastman shared with the crowd about the dramatic difference night and day prayer has made on their ministry’s work globally.1 Below are dramatic examples from this particular ministry of how prayer has accelerated breakthroughs and resulted in real lives being impacted.

Something amazing is happening as God is working in his people in the convergence of prayer and mission! Could EHC be a model for other outreach and missions groups for what a convergence of night and day prayer and missions outreach could look like?

We’ll leave it up to you to decide.

About The Author

John is a product of God’s grace through prayer and revival. He has ministered in over a dozen nations and served with his family among the Isaan people of northeast Thailand before arriving at the U.S. Center For World Mission in 2012.

He blogs at http://www.spreadtheflame.com Twitter: @johnlambert.

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Feature

Hydrate

How One Ministry is Using Prophetic Prayer to Serve Those Working in Dry Places

by Cheryl Allen and Ajay Samuel

Hydrate is a program that offers prophetic prayer to missionaries via Skype. The prayer ministry is based on 1 Corinthians 14:3 with the goal of encouraging, comforting, and building up those who receive. Psalm 139: 17-18 says, “How precious to me are your thoughts, God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand.” (NIV) Jeremiah 29:11 speaks of the nature of the thoughts God has towards us. ‘“For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’” (NIV)

When people are sent to the ends of the earth, their experience can be like being in a “dry and weary land.” Through the ministry of Hydrate we want to do our part to help keep them well watered throughout their journey so that they will flourish in the land.

Hydrate began when two couples who had previously volunteered at Pasadena House of Prayer (PIHOP) and later went overseas for cross cultural ministry assignments. These couples desired to stay connected, so PIHOP leaders agreed to reach out and take one hour a month to prophetically pray for them. They enjoyed this type of ministry for many years via Skype before one couple invited a PIHOP team to come and minister on site.

While in Central Asia, our team ministered to a wide variety of denominations. One particular group was from a background that did not have prophetic prayer ministry as a part of their tradition. They were open to receive prayer, but had some reservations about the nature of what would be spoken over them. So they prayed about whether or not they should participate.

They prayed, “God, show us if receiving your voice in this way is appropriate for us.” They came into agreement that when they received prayer, if the message given emphasized shame or that they were not trying hard enough, then they would know that this type of ministry was not from God. The reluctant group was able to clearly see that the ministry we provided was not weird or mystical but was very practical and biblical.

Those receiving prayer spread the word of their positive experience and by the end nearly 60 workers from 12 different teams had come to receive ministry. Those who participated were from various backgrounds and traditions including  Lutherans, Assemblies of God, Baptists, nondenominational, Charismatics, and Pentecostals, among others.

One of the workers who received ministry had this to say: “Hydrate with PIHOP was the most refreshing ministry that we received while living overseas. As we were living in a very unreached place, having people listen to God and pray for us in our native language was like a cup of cold water in the midst of a spiritual desert.”

To learn more about Hydrate or how you can receive training on prophetic prayer ministry, contact the Pasadena House of Prayer at http://www.pihop.com.

About The Author

Cheryl Allen is the Director of the Pasadena International House of Prayer (PIHOP).

Ajay Samuel is the Director of Prophetic Ministry at the PIHOP.

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Feature

Pray! Ekballo!

A Prayer Revolution for the Great Harvest

by Lou Engle

While reading the classic book Rees Howells: Intercessor I was suddenly arrested by the following paragraph that could, if it is true, light a fire of prayer that would shape the face of the whole earth and trigger the return of our Lord Jesus Christ.

“Then, while in Africa, he (Rees Howells) had been struck by Andrew Murray’s comment on the Savior’s word in Matthew 9:38, ‘Pray ye the Lord of the harvest that He will send forth laborers into his harvest.’ Andrew Murray has pointed out on the strength of this verse, that the number of missionaries on the field depends entirely on the extent to which someone obeys that command and prays out the laborers; and the Lord had called Mr. Howells to do this.”

If this scripture and Andrew Murray’s commentary on it are true and the church really understood the implications, then Matthew 9:38 would be on the fiery lips of millions of believers every day worldwide. Jesus is very clear in Matthew 24:14 that he cannot return to the planet until every ethnic group has had a witness of the gospel of the kingdom. I am seriously asking myself and all those who read here this question: “Have I merely taken Matthew 9:38 as a simple suggestion from the Master? And have I trivialized the main prayer request that Jesus himself made of his disciples?”

I write this message believing that an earth-shaking revolution is about to take place because the Lord of the Harvest is breathing this prayer upon the church of the earth. Jesus uses the word “ekballo” in Matthew 9:38, where he begs his disciples to “pray to the Lord of the Harvest to send forth (Gr. ekballo) laborers into the harvest field. Ekballo is not the normal term used for “send,” as most of our translations have it. It is a spiritually violent word filled with passion and force. It is the same word that Jesus uses when he says, “If I cast out (Gr. ekballo) demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.” (Luke 11:20, NASB)

The authority and the force of Jesus casting out demons is the same spiritual force and authority by which he thrust forth laborers. It is the word used when Jesus goes to confront Satan in the wilderness. The Gospel of Mark says, “And the spirit drove (Gr. ekballo) him into the desert to be tempted by the devil.” It seems as if the power and the resistance of Satan and his evil spirits must be confronted by a greater forcefulness and empowerment. When Jesus ekballos demons, demons must leave. When Jesus ekballos laborers, evangelists and missionaries must go out. Suddenly Matthew 9:38 became a fire in my bones and an end-time war cry from heaven itself.

We are seeking to drive a million saints to JoshuaProject.net to pray for the unreached people group of the day. Can you imagine a million people a day praying for laborers to go to the hardest and darkest places of the earth? This is not out of our reach. And this is the very command of Christ; should we not believe that in our generation the task can be completed?

Will you join us in praying Matthew 9:38 daily for the last remaining unreached people groups?

To learn more about the Ekballo House of Prayer visit http://www.thecall.com Also .check out the new beautifully redesigned http://www.joshuaproject.net and download the Unreached of the Day App.

About The Author

Lou Engle is the founder and director of The Call and the Ekballo House of Prayer based at Mott Auditorium on the campus of the U.S. Center for World Mission in Pasadena, CA. Lou’s desire is to raise up massive global intercession for the last remaining unreached people groups.

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Feature

Massive Prayer and Missions Movements of the 90s

by John Lambert

The decade of the 90s was an unprecedented time for massive prayer movements focused on praying for the last remaining unreached people groups of the world. I was caught up in the fervor of the times myself. As I have taken time to reflect on my own history, I have asked myself if there is any correlation between those prayer movements and the great explosion of evangelical growth globally during the same period. Is there something that we can learn from the connection between massive global prayer mobilization and breakthroughs at the frontiers of God’s global mission?

Patrick Johnstone, author of the prayer guide Operation World and The Future of the Global Church, has said of the 90s, “That decade saw more evangelical converts to Christ than any other in history.”

David Garrison in his recent book, A Wind In The House of Islam, has revealed that 69 of history’s 82 movements of Muslims coming to Christ have occurred in the past two decades alone. That puts the genesis of this momentum squarely in the 1990s. Garrison goes on to say, “We are living in the midst of the greatest turning of Muslims to Christ in history.”

I want to spotlight, especially for an emerging generation, a snapshot of just some of what took place during this special decade. My hope is that by remembering history we will ask the Lord to send more mighty waves of prayer awakening and missions from all nations to all nations—especially the last remaining unreached people groups of the earth!

1993—Praying Through The Window I: 62 nations of the 10/40 Window

At one time it was called “the largest unified prayer effort in the history of the church.” For 31 days 21 million Christians were united, praying and fasting—each day praying for two nations in the 10/40 Window. One hundred eighty-eight prayer teams took 257 journeys to every nation in the 10/40 Window. The book Strongholds of the 10/40 Window by George Otis Jr. was published by YWAM publishing.

1995—Global Consultation on World Evangelization (GCOWE ‘95)

Held in Seoul, Korea, GCOWE ‘95 drew 4,000 leaders representing 186 nations gathered by both regions and tracks to consider the unfinished task. This event birthed thousands of plans to fulfill the AD2000 mandate of a “church for every people and the Gospel for every person.”

1995—Praying Through The Window II: 100 Gateway Cities of the 10/40 Window

Thirty-six million Christians in 102 nations prayed to God for the peoples of the 10/40 Window for one month and throughout the year. There were 407 dedicated prayer teams from 48 countries that participated in 607 prayer journeys to 100 key gateway people centers. The book Praying Through the 100 Gateway Cities of the 10/40 Window was published by YWAM publishing.

1997—Praying Through the Window III: The 1,739 priority unreached peoples

An estimated 50-million people were praying together as a result of this event. Thousands took prayer journeys to unreached peoples of their choice. The book The Unreached Peoples of the 10/40 Window was published by YWAM publishing.1

GCOWE ‘97

Over 5,000 global mission leaders attended this gathering in South Africa. A large percentage in attendance were from Africa.

1997—Bethany Prayer Profiles for Joshua Project

One local American church, Bethany World Prayer Center of Baton Rouge, LA, completed the production of all 1,739 prayer profiles for Joshua Project’s priority unreached peoples.

This effort was called “the most comprehensive prayer and resource materials ever produced on the unreached peoples.”

This accomplishment involved:

2 years of development

50,000 man hours

40 ministries participating together

$450,000+ invested in research and printing

2 million profiles in stock

…all from the initiative of one local North American church!2

This same year, the Southern Baptist Foreign Mission Board restructured to emphasize unreached peoples and opened their arms to work with other mission agencies. They also changed their name to the Southern baptist International Mission Board (IMB).3

1998

John Piper’s Bethlehem Baptist Church gave 30% of their annual budget to support overseas missions.4

1999—Praying Through The Window IV: Light The Window

Millions of believers around the world focused prayer on all the countries in the 10/40 Window for 31 days.

These are just a sampling of the major prayer initiatives that took place in the 90s.

Reflections of the time…

“The last 20 years have been a race to find the unreached peoples and start ministry among them. The next 20 years will change the emphasis from quantifying the task, to quality of ministry in the task.”—Patrick Johnstone and John Robb.5

Ralph D. Winter, founder of the U.S. Center for World Mission, called the AD2000 movement “the largest, most pervasive global evangelical network ever to exist.” Paul E. Pierson, Dean Emeritus of the Fuller School of Intercultural Studies, said, “The Church in this decade has gone through more change than any other time since the Reformation. This is also the most productive and creative era in missions since the first century.”6

So, what can we all learn from this decade? I am sure that in the middle of all of the good things that happened there are also many things that we can learn from mistakes that were made. But more than anything I have become more convinced that prayer and breakthrough at the frontiers of God’s global mission go hand in hand.

As scheduled, the AD 2000 and Beyond movement closed its doors in early 2001, but God had already begun raising up new night and day prayer movements, both in North America and in the Global South, that continue on to this day. What will it look like for this generation to catch the fire of the night and day prayer lifestyle, combined with a renewed focus on the remaining unreached people groups—the remaining task of world evangelization?

Though we have made incredible progress, there is still much left to be done. Who will join in the next global wave of massive prayer for the unreached and unengaged? I hope it will be you!

About The Author

John is a product of God’s grace through prayer and revival. He has ministered in over a dozen nations and served with his family among the Isaan people of Northeast Thailand before arriving at the U.S. Center For World Mission in 2012.

He blogs at http://www.spreadtheflame.com Twitter: @johnlambert

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Feature

National Prayer Initiatives

by John Robb

We talked with John Robb, coordinator of the World Prayer Assembly, about the impact of this gathering and his life-long ministry of facilitating national prayer initiatives.

MF: In 2012, you were involved in coordinating what may very well have been the largest interdenominational prayer meeting in history. Can you tell us a little about the background of this gathering and its significance?

JR: The roots go back to the International Prayer Assembly that was held in Korea in 1984. It was such a major catalyzing factor for the world prayer movement—a huge ignition happened there. One of the fruits was the formation of the International Prayer Council (IPC), which is basically a set of relationships which connect prayer leaders and ministries in many different nations and regions of the world. In 2009 the IPC agreed to organize a second international prayer assembly, this time in Jakarta, Indonesia. The only problem was we had no money!

MF: No money for a major international gathering? What did God do?

JR: One of my colleagues is a gifted prophetic minister, who gave wonderful words of assurance from the Lord to us. Then, in August of 2011, we began to see the money flow in. The intercessors had said, “Don’t worry, God is going to provide.” And that’s exactly what happened. Some well-to-do people began to write big checks and many others gave generously too. One person donated the use of the national stadium in Indonesia. Another donated the use of a convention center outside Jakarta that seats twelve thousand. To the glory of the Lord, it was just a story of His miracles that all of us, including thousands of Indonesian children, prayed for!

MF: What are some takeaways from the World Prayer Assembly?

JR: About 9,000 ministry leaders and intercessors from 86 countries came for the conference part of the WPA. In addition over 100,000 additional local believers gathered in the national stadium to pray. It was connected live with satellite dishes to almost 400 cities in Indonesia, where about two-million others participated. The Global Day of Prayer and God TV linked in many millions more around the world. It was one big prayer meeting! However, for me personally, it was the palpable presence of the Lord himself that was the really moving thing about the WPA. Also, the presence of tens of thousands of youth and children who took part as equal partners in the program, dancing, singing and praying. My colleagues and I believe a “tsunami of the Spirit” continues to flow out and that the Lord is particularly emphasizing the raising up of the younger generation in both prayer and mission. Prayer is the way we connect with God and are guided and empowered by him. It is the real catalyst for all mission and ministry. If we are not intimately connected with God, the author of mission, we will not see his grace and power manifested in our efforts.

MF: How do you see God using the next generation?

JR: We believe that, as children and youth connect with the power of the Holy Spirit through prayer, God is going to use them in all walks of life. They are going to be great missionaries. They are going to be great political leaders, as well as lawyers, doctors, or whatever he calls them to do.

If they become intercessors, God will definitely make them his agents of transformation. He did this with the child Samuel who became sensitive to his voice and later became one of the most influential leaders in history as prophet, priest and judge of Israel. Therefore, probably the biggest takeaway of the World Prayer Assembly, will be the impact the children and youth now in the prayer movement will have on the future of our world. Our next major project will focus on this, so we are now moving towards holding a World Youth Prayer Assembly in 2016. It will be tri-generational like the WPA, but will be primarily led by the youth and children, with the older generations in supporting roles.

MF: What have been some of the results from this involvement of youth in the prayer movement?

JR: We had been praying for Myanmar for many years, but nothing much seemed to happen. It was such a spiritually dark place, as well as being oppressed by its dictatorial government. In January 2011, 200 Christian leaders came together within the country and decided to include the children as part of their strategy for national transformation. A colleague and I were there with them for this purpose. They raised up many thousands of child prayer-warriors all over the nation, and within just a month or two, remarkable developments began to happen in the political situation.

In World Vision, a large international child-care organization, staff often observed the Lord’s miracles when the children participating in our projects prayed. We surveyed this phenomenon in five very poor countries where staff asked the kids to pray for specific infrastructural changes, such as the resolution of community splits. They did this for two years, and all were astonished by the miracles that occurred. Our staff exclaimed, “John, this is so incredible, we have never seen anything like this. When the children prayed, the parents got healed from terminal illness, governments chose those villages for the wells or the clinics, or the terrorists were kept out of those communities where the kids were praying.” The results were so extraordinary that the Children in Prayer program began to spread more widely within World Vision, going from five countries to 20 countries. Finally, 50 of the national offices wanted to investigate CiP as a resource for community transformation as well as for the spiritual nurture of the kids themselves.

MF: That’s really amazing. We are reading through your book, The Peacemaking Power of Prayer. Can you tell us how God has used prayer to bring about reconciliation and national healing?

JR: It has been my privilege with others to facilitate national prayer initiatives for over 20 years. During consultations and seminars for Christian leaders on mission to the unreached in many countries, I began to see amazing results when normally competitive and distrustful ministry leaders would begin to pray together. When they got into little groups to pray before planning their mission strategies, the Spirit of God came into the room and knit their hearts together. All kinds of new mission partnerships were established for the unreached peoples in this way. Through observing this process over and over again, I began to realize that prayer is much more than just a devotional or liturgical exercise. It’s the way we connect with God for his direction and empowerment.

This gradual dawning of realization began to impact World Vision’s work in the midst of war and suffering in many countries. Colleagues and church leaders in those countries started inviting me to bring teams to pray because the situations were so desperate—awful atrocities and no hope of ending these bitter conflicts. Ministry leaders gathered from across the denominational spectrum for three days to seek God’s face for the healing of their land according to his promise of 2 Chronicles 7:14. As we did that, we began to discover that the participating tribes and denominations weren’t right with each other because of past mistreatment of one another. Because of this we began to facilitate times of reconciliation and repentance for historic, corporate sins so the participants and the groups they represented could confess and forgive one another, then pray in unity for God’s deliverance and restoration of their nations. To the glory of God, over and over again, we have seen the Lord’s intervention, changing the headlines, sometimes suddenly, with resulting peace agreements, governments of national unity and removal of evil leaders from power.

MF: The story about Bosnia is really incredible. What happened there?

JR: During the Bosnian Civil War in August 1995, we formed a five person international team to facilitate a prayer initiative for Serbs, Croats, and those from Muslim backgrounds who had come to Christ. About 120 participants were all seated in separate ethnic enclaves within the gathering, and we were teaching about reconciliation and the need for confession and repentance of corporate sins. A Serb woman stood up with tears coming down her face, and said, “We Serbs have sinned against you Croats.”And then three Croats stood, replying, “No, we are worse than you Serbs.” And those from the Muslim background group also stood, humbly asking forgiveness for their people’s atrocities against the Serbs and Croats. At that point, they broke free of their own enclaves, running and throwing their arms around those from the opposing ethnic groups, weeping and asking forgiveness.

As heart unity was established, it was time to hold hands around the room and pray together. I reminded them of the Lord’s promise for such situations: “Jesus said if even two of us agree as to touching anything we ask the Father, it will be done. But the key thing is to agree in what we are asking, and we are really in agreement now.” So we agreed together, gripping hands around the room. “What do you want him to do for us, for Bosnia?” They all shouted: “Mir”—that means peace in Serbo-Croatian. “Mir, Mir” they again cried. So, I said, “Let’s all now agree in the name of Jesus Christ for peace to come to Bosnia.”

Four days later, a peace proposal was on the table. It was from the Serbian dictator, Slobodan Milosevich, a hard, wicked man that everybody thought would never allow peace to come. Richard Holbrooke, the American negotiator, later wrote that he could not understand what made such a hardhearted man soften. To our and the Bosnian Christians’ joy, we began to understand that the Lord Jesus Christ is one who can heal nations if his people will get right with Him and one another, then agree in prayer.

MF: That’s tremendous! Can you tell us briefly about what’s involved in organizing a national prayer initiative and how others can do this in their country?

JR: A national prayer initiative normally brings together ministry leaders and intercessors, sometimes with people from business and government, usually for a two to three day gathering. During those days, we are primarily seeking to identify, understand and pray for the issues of the nation. We have local people who have some expertise about the political, economic, and spiritual situation of the nation share. Our team members who are experienced prayer leaders and facilitators also give various teachings to encourage and build faith and understanding in the participants. We also find that in every country there is a battle with the “prince of this world” and those spiritual powers Paul describes in Ephesians 6 that seek to deceive, corrupt and destroy. We need to stand with the locals, using the authority Christ has delegated to us to overcome evil spirits (Luk 10:19-21).

Humbling ourselves before the Lord and one another is very important because humility leads to unity and unity enables us to exercise his authority. In Philippians 2, we see that if we humble ourselves, we can come into unity, no longer competing. It’s not about me, it’s about the Lord, it’s about the whole church, and it’s about what he wants to do for the nations. When we are in unity, we can use the awesome authority that Jesus gave us.

MF: What are some lessons you have learned over the last thirty years and any advice for the next generation
of intercessors?

JR: First, a key thing is to not to get too bound with your particular denomination or organization to the exclusion of connecting with the rest of the body of Christ. It’s so essential that we look beyond the labels that we all bear because ultimately, when we stand before Christ, all of that will be gone in an instant. The Spirit of God is seeking to unite his people across denominations and traditions so they can be one body, connecting with him and one another in prayer that transforms us, our communities, and nations.

Secondly, there is the issue of praying with his authority because a lot of Christians shy away from doing that. I’ve heard so many say, “God, would you bind the devil in this situation?” But that’s not what the Lord said. He said that we his people are to do the binding: “Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven.” We believers have been raised up and are seated with Christ, even now, in heavenly places. Though we are not there physically yet, we are joined through the Holy Spirit to him. Because of that organic connection we can exercise his authority as he leads. He wants us to use that authority to break the influence of spiritual darkness in our communities and nations. This is not something we should undertake by ourselves, but when we get in heart unity with others, we can begin to pray in faith-filled, authoritative ways so as to see wonderful breakthroughs happen.

The spiritual atmosphere in our community or nation will change as we persevere. Dramatic increases in the receptivity to the Gospel among the unreached, spiritual revival in the Church, and real transformation in the midst of corruption or other social ills will result. To the glory of God, you will see such shifts happen as you partner with others in ongoing prayer, starting with humility and proceeding through to unity and authority. Learning how to do this with other brothers and sisters is simply revolutionary and world-changing!

For more information about the International Prayer Council or the World Prayer Assembly, please visit www.ipcprayer.org and http://www.wpa2012.org<./p>

About The Author

John Robb serves as Chairman for the International Prayer Council, and International Prayer Connect, a network of regional and national prayer ministries and networks around the world. The IPC focuses on global issues of common concern to the Body of Christ such as war, terrorism, HIV/AIDS, and other humanitarian issues as well as on the fulfillment of Christ’s Great Commandment and the completion of the Great Commission.

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Feature

Prayer Changes Things

Convergence in the Ethne Ephesus Vision

by Liz Adleta

Editors Note: In March 2013 we introduced our readers to the Ethne Ephesus Vision, which is a global strategy, network and collaboration platform to catalyze Church-Planting Movements among the least-reached peoples. We are excited to learn how prayer is increasingly becoming central to this strategy. We asked Liz Adleta, coordinator of the Ethne prayer strategy group, to give us an update about this convergence taking place.

The Ethne movement is building relationships of trust and cooperation, empowering field workers with cutting-edge strategies that actually increase fruitfulness, and mobilize focused fervent prayer. Ethne has linked these in a powerful way for the glory of God and the catalytic growth of his family among all peoples. In 2009, several of the working groups began to wonder what might happen if we purposely worked to catalyze movements in the “gaps,” clusters of people groups where little or nothing was happening. Out of this has grown the Ephesus Vision featured as a highlight of Ethne 2012 in Seoul, Korea—an effort to catalyze movements to Christ among clusters of 50 or more people groups with little access to the gospel. The goal was that the resulting movements would ripple throughout the entire cluster of peoples.

One of the earliest Ephesus teams to form focused on what is often called the most unreached island in the world. This particular location is the home of 49 unreached people groups of over 25 million people. It was estimated there were only 5,000 followers of Christ! When the people groups there begin to turn to Christ, they could be instrumental in carrying Jesus throughout the rest of their nation and throughout their entire region.

Workers have labored among these groups for some time and have seen little fruit. However, as the Ethne movement grew, several working group facilitators began to consider what could be done to intentionally apply what we were learning towards catalyzing movements to Christ among these 49 people groups. In January 2010 a small group of about 20 people were continuing this discussion in the Dallas area, just as the deadline was approaching for the Global Prayer Digest’s (GPD) June 2010 issue. In that room the editor of the GPD agreed to shift their theme to the 49 unreached peoples of this island for the June 2010 issue, partnering with the field personnel who had their feet on the ground to work with us and see what God might do in answer to these millions of prayers.

Within a month of the GPD release of the June 2010 issue, the evidence was clear: several people groups that had previously had no believers saw new believers come to faith and begin sharing their faith with others. Indications of small movements to Christ were beginning and growing. The practical synergy that developed through the joining of hands of extraordinary global prayer with diligent field efforts brought clear breakthroughs!

Just one year later, in June 2011, the peoples of Cambodia were highlighted for prayer in the GPD partnership with field teams. Within a month, clear new breakthroughs came (according to our field partner) which were directly attributed to the additional prayer boost. He noted, however, that as the year wore on, they were seeing that window of opportunity closing once again. They encouraged workers in other places to make the most of the opening, knowing that it might only be open for a brief period. By being ready and working to conserve the harvest gained, further progress can be made even past the closing of that window by those who came to faith during the open times. Linking massive global prayer efforts to concerted and strategic field outreaches bears incredible fruit!

Taking it to the Next Level

In addition to and alongside the Ethne Ephesus Vision, this new strategic approach to igniting movements, leaders connected to the Ethne prayer workgroup realized that prayer is strategy and that part of the overall strategy for seeing these wholesale movements to Christ must include prayer. So from January 31 through February 2, 2014, a group of 45 leaders from 6 nations gathered near Dallas, Texas for the first Fellowship of Prayer Strategists meeting to consider the role of the prayer strategist in igniting these movements to Christ. A dozen seasoned leaders shared case studies that included individual intimacy with God, prayer journeys, spiritual warfare, houses of prayer and 24/7 prayer, prayer partnerships, onsite prayer teams and prayer as ministry, prayer in crisis response, prayer strategists as strategy team members, and more. Momentum is growing as we learn from and connect with one another to harness the synergy of effective, fervent prayer in agreement with God and each other.

For example, the GPD’s November 2012 issue featured unreached peoples of Central Asia that were without scriptures in their own language; During that month our prayers focused on the need for the Word of God among all peoples in their heart languages. One of the Central Asian unreached people groups with work ongoing for more than two decades is suddenly demonstrating an unprecedented interest in God’s Word! In the 13 weeks following the initiative, more people have accessed and received Scripture portions and interacted with the message of the good news than in the last 10 years of Scripture distribution combined! This amazing “miracle” has opened doors to “first ever” conversations and inquiries and to people hearing about our Savior. You could say that this is the single greatest opportunity in recent history to reach these people with the good news!

Over the years a significant barrier to the spread of the gospel has been getting God’s Word into the hands of this populous but widely spread out and remote people. Scripture portions have been hand distributed, which has left the vast majority of people without any contact with the Good News. For years many have prayed for God to break through barriers so that these millions of people could hear the gospel and read it in their heart language. Then, earlier this year, in a way that caught everyone by surprise, these Central Asians started showing up on the internet on a Scripture site—but one in a different language.

What could be done to help them find his Word in their own tongue? A link was created and a fresh website was designed in their language that drew viewers in with biblical answers to questions about everything including marriage and family life, getting along with neighbors, money and wealth, and God’s character. On each page there is an opportunity to read related Scripture passages, and throughout the website users have the option to print portions of the Bible, download the whole Bible (or at least what is currently translated) or listen to audio files. Visitors to this website may post questions or comments that will be passed on to our growing response team. And many visitors to the website are writing in—some with earnest questions and requests, others with hostile comments. In a way only God could have arranged, this single website has made it possible for thousands of people to read and/or download the good news in the last three months!

Is this coincidence or a miracle in response to believing prayer? We believe it’s our prayer-hearing/prayer-answering God moving as we have joined in unity to pray for harvest among peoples with the least access to the good news. This fruit has encouraged us to press on together even further, looking for ways to grow deeper and even more laser-focused in our efforts toward finishing the task Jesus set before us so many years ago.

Join this growing prayer force as we look to open doors for the harvest among the remaining 6,000 unreached peoples around the world in partnership with Ethne’s Harvest-Linked Prayer Strategy Initiative! Contact us at prayer@ethne.net to get connected, find specific resources and visit the http://www.ethne.net site for more resources and information on the entire Ethne movement.

About The Author

Rev. Elizabeth A. Adleta and her husband, Rev. Thomas L. Adleta served for 30 years as missionaries in Central America and Asia, and now across Africa, Europe and Latin America as well as in their role as intercessory coordinators. Liz serves on the steering group of the Ethne movement, co-facilitating its prayer workgroup which mobilizes prayer and outreach on behalf of the more than 6,000 remaining least-reached peoples in 12 regions of the world.

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Prayer

The Work of Missions

by John Piper

Very few people think that we are now in a war greater than World War II, and greater than any imaginable nuclear World War III. Or that Satan is a much worse enemy than Communism or militant Islam. Or that the conflict is not restricted to any one global theater, but is in every town and city in the world. Or that the casualties do not merely lose an arm or an eye or an earthly life, but lose everything, even their own soul and enter a hell of everlasting torment. (Rev 14:9-11) Until people believe this, they will not pray as they ought. They will not even know what prayer is.

In Ephesians 6:17-18 Paul makes the connection for us:

Take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance. (ESV)

Prayer is the communication by which the weapons of warfare are deployed according to the will of God. Prayer is for war.

Let me show you this more specifically from John 15:16-17: “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.”(ESV)

The logic is crucial. Why is the Father going to give the disciples what they ask in Jesus’ name? Answer: Because they have been sent to bear fruit. The reason the Father gives the disciples the gift of prayer is because Jesus has given them a mission. In fact, the grammar of John 15:16 implies that the reason Jesus gives them their mission is so that they will be able to enjoy the power of prayer. “I send you to bear fruit so that whatever you ask the Father…he may give you.”

So I do not tire of saying to our church, “The number one reason why prayer malfunctions in the hands of a believer is that they try to turn a wartime walkie-talkie into a domestic intercom.”

Until you believe that life is war, you cannot know what prayer is for. Prayer is for the accomplishment of a wartime mission. It is as though the field commander (Jesus) called in the troops, gave them a crucial mission (“Go and bear fruit”), handed each of them a personal transmitter coded to the frequency of the general’s headquarters, and said, “Comrades, the general has a mission for you. He aims to see it accomplished. And to that end he has authorized me to give each of you personal access to him through these transmitters. If you stay true to his mission and seek his victory first, he will always be as close as your transmitter, to give tactical advice and to send in air cover when you or your comrades need it.”

But what have millions of Christians done? They have stopped believing that we are in a war. No urgency, no watching, no vigilance, no strategic planning. Just easy peacetime and prosperity. And what did they do with the walkie-talkie? They tried to rig it up as an intercom in their cushy houses and cabins and boats and cars—not to call in fire power for conflict with a mortal enemy, but to ask the maid to bring another pillow to the den.

God’s Sovereignty in Prayer

Until we embrace the sovereignty of God, we cannot pray consistently that God would actually save lost sinners.

We can’t do what Paul does so passionately in Romans 10:1, “Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for them is that they might be saved.” (ESV)

Paul’s heart’s desire is for the salvation of his fellow Jews. When our hearts ache for something, we pray for it. And so he says that his prayer to God is that they be saved. He wants something accomplished in his mission—the salvation of Jews—as he preaches in the synagogues. So he prays to God that this would happen. He asks God to save them. “O God, that they might be saved! Do it God! Do what you need to do!”

Now my point is this: that kind of praying is inconsistent if you do not believe in the sovereignty of God. And what I mean by the sovereignty of God here is that he has the right and the power to save unbelieving, unrepentant, hardened sinners. Now there are a lot of people who do not believe God has that right. They do not believe that God has the right to intrude upon a person’s rebellion, and overcome it, and draw that person effectually to faith and salvation. They do not believe that God dare exert himself so powerfully in grace as to overcome all the resistance of a hardened sinner. Instead they believe that man himself has the sole right of final determination in the choices and affections of his heart toward God. Every person, they say, has the final self-determination in whether they will overcome the hardness of their hearts and come to Christ. And so it is finally in the hands of man, not God, who will be saved and how many will inhabit the Kingdom.

The effects on prayer for such people are devastating if they try to pray in a manner consistent with this rejection of the sovereignty of God.

They can’t ask God to actually save anybody.

They can’t pray, “God, take out their heart of stone and give them a new heart of flesh.” (Eze 11:19)

They can’t pray, “Lord, circumcise their heart so that they love you.” (Deu 30:6)

They can’t pray, “Father, put your Spirit within them
and cause them to walk in your statutes.” (Eze 36:27)

They can’t pray, “Lord, grant them repentance and a knowledge of the truth.” (2 Tim 2:25-26)

They can’t pray, “Open their eyes so that they believe in the gospel.” (Acts 16:14)

The reason they can’t is that all these prayers give God a right that they have reserved for man—namely the ultimate, decisive determination of his destiny. If they ask God to do any of these things, He would be the one who actually saves.

How then do you pray, if you really believe that man and not God must make the ultimate decisions about salvation in the universe?

I take an example from a well-known book on prayer that does reject God’s sovereignty in the salvation of sinners. This writer says that the way to pray is to “Ask God to cause a specific person to begin questioning whom they can really trust in life.” But my question then is: Why is it right for God to cause a person to think a question and wrong for God to cause that person to think an answer? Why is it legitimate for God to take control of a person to the degree that He cause the person to ask a question he would not have otherwise asked, but it is not legitimate for God to exert that same influence to cause the person to give an answer that he would not otherwise have given—namely that Jesus should be trusted?

Here is another example of how this writer thinks we should pray for unbelievers: “Pray that God will plant in the hearts of these people… an inner unrest, together with a longing to know the ‘Truth.’” Now my question is, if it is legitimate for God to “plant a longing” in a person’s heart, how strong can the longing be that God chooses to plant?

There are two kinds of longings God could plant in an unbeliever’s heart. One is so strong that it leads the person to pursue and embrace Christ. The other is not strong enough to lead a person to embrace Christ. Which do you pray for? If you pray for the strong longing, then you are praying that the Lord work effectually and get that person saved. If you pray for the weak longing, then you are praying for an ineffectual longing that leaves the person in sin (but preserves his self-determination).

Do you see where this leads? People who really believe that man must have the ultimate power of self-determination can’t consistently pray that God would convert unbelieving sinners. Why? Because if they pray for divine influence in a sinner’s life, they are either praying for a successful influence (which takes away the sinner’s ultimate self-determination), or they are praying for an unsuccessful influence, (which is not praying for conversion). So either you give up praying for conversion or you give up ultimate human self-determination.

Paul leaves no doubt where he stands on that issue in Romans 9:16, “It depends not upon man’s will or exertion, but upon God’s mercy.” So he prays that God would convert Israel! He prays for her salvation! He does not pray for ineffectual influences, but for effectual influences. And that is how we should pray, too.

We should take the new covenant promises of God and plead with God to bring them to pass in our children and our neighbors and on all the mission fields of the world.

The Place of Prayer in God’s Purpose for the World

The role of prayer is so unspeakably significant in God’s design that we are prone to overstate its role, especially in relation to the Word of God and the preaching of the gospel. So let me say, loud and clear, that I believe the proclamation of the gospel in word and deed is the work of missions. And prayer is the power that wields the weapon of the Word, and the Word is the weapon by which the nations will be brought to faith and obedience.

Everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. But how are they to call upon him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard, and how are they to hear without a preacher?… Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ. (Rom 10:13-17)

Not only has God made the accomplishment of his global purposes of salvation hang on the preaching of the Word, he has also made the success of the preaching of the Word hang on prayer. God’s goal to be glorified in a world full of white-hot worshippers from every people and tongue and tribe and nation will not succeed without the powerful proclamation of the gospel by people like you and me. And that gospel will not be proclaimed in power to all the nations without the persevering, earnest, global, faith-filled prayers of God’s people. This is the awesome place of prayer in the purposes of God for the world. They won’t happen without prayer.

How do we know this?

We know it by the way the apostle Paul and the Lord Jesus make prayer the servant and power of the ministry of the Word.

Ephesians 6:19:

Pray also for me, that utterance may be given me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of
the gospel. (ESV)

Colossians 4:3:

Pray for us also, that God may open to us a door for the Word, to declare the mystery of Christ. (ESV)

2 Thessalonians 3:1:

Finally, brethren, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may run and be glorified. (ESV)

Prayer is the walkie-talkie on the battlefield of the world. It calls in for the accurate location of the target of the Word. It calls in to ask for the protection of air cover. It calls in to ask for fire power to blast open a way for the tanks of the Word of God. It calls in the miracle of healing for the wounded soldiers. It calls in supplies for the forces. And it calls in the needed reinforcements.

This is the meaning of the amazing Word of the Lord in Matthew 9:38: “Pray therefore the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” (ESV) Reinforcements come into the missionary enterprise when the churches know they are in a war, and when they bow down in their trenches with bullets flying overhead and get on their walkie-talkies and cry out for more troops. This is the place of prayer—on the battlefield of the world. It is a wartime walkie-talkie, not a domestic intercom to increase the comforts of the saints.

This article was edited and used with permission from Desiring God Ministries. For the full article, please go to http://www.desiringgod.org/conference-messages/prayer-the-work-of-missions<./p>

About The Author

John Piper is founder and teacher of desiringGod.org and chancellor of Bethlehem College & Seminary, Minneapolis. For 33 years, he served as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, and is author of more than 50 books. His sermons, articles, blog posts, and books are available free of charge at http://www.desiringGod.org

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Other

Students Stirring on the West Coast

A Report on "March to May Day" and the "21 Project"

by John Lambert

In our role as mobilizers we desire to see the message of God’s glory among the nations being brought to each new successive generation. Typically the place where the world of missions and the university have crossed has been at the triennial Urbana conference in St. Louis, Missouri. Other ministries, like The Traveling Team, have traversed the U.S. university circuit to mobilize students into God’s global mission. The Traveling Team holds their summer intensives on our campus each year and we have benefited from the mutual exposure to each other’s ministry. New groups like the Circuit Riders and Movement 133 have recently come on to our radar. These groups are opening up new opportunities for the mobilization message to make inroads into new streams, especially here on the west coast of America.

This summer the Circuit Riders, and some other collaborative partners, completed a circuit tour they called “March to May Day.” During this tour they visited 22 college campuses all along the California coast and gathered more than 4,000 students. This past May 1-3 was the culminating gathering in downtown LA. It was called ONELOVE: MAYDAY. Kicking off the first night was Banning Liebscher. He encouraged the students present with the importance of servanthood. There was a sense that a foundation was being laid for the future of a healthy and vibrant movement that could eventually touch nations. The next night, Francis Chan captivated the crowd by recounting Christ’s experience in the Garden of Gethsemene, and the need for the students to understand the crazy love of the Father. Brian Brennt brought the closing message on Saturday night on the power of mercy. The team remarked that they had never heard a message specifically calling for a love revolution in America that would embody the mercy of Jesus.

The next event is being held July 13-Aug 3, 2014 on the campus of the U.S. Center for World Mission in Pasadena, CA. It is called “21 Project.” The gathering hopes to draw a core group of the students from all over the West Coast who participated in the March to May Day events for three weeks of training, gathering, and mobilization. The “21” conference is intended to equip these students to and be a life-altering experience that prepares them to continue on a path of friendship with Jesus, collaboration, and societal transformation.

In the mornings, those participating will all be together undergoing training in what the team calls “the cultures of Jesus.” In the afternoons they will break out into customized tracks for specific and practical skill set applications. Evenings will be spent together for explosive nights of worship and inspiration from what are said to be “some of the great spiritual fathers and mothers of our time.” Throughout the three weeks, the teams will seek to share transformative, box-breaking experiences to expand hearts for Jesus and their understanding about how to develop and grow.

The dream of this “21 Project” team is to see a new awakening in America. They believe, like many, that college campuses are the key. If they see a realization of their dream, we know from history that a missions renewal movement that touches the nations will not be far behind.

Learn more:

www.21project.com
http://www.thecircuitrider.com
http://www.thetravelingteam.org
http://www.uscwm.org

About The Author

John is a product of God’s grace through prayer and revival. He has ministered in over a dozen nations and served with his family among the Isaan people of Northeast Thailand before arriving at the U.S. Center For World Mission in 2012.

He blogs at http://www.spreadtheflame.com Twitter: @johnlambert.

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Kingdom Kernels

The Prayer Life of a Movement Catalyst

Kingdom Kernels

by Steve Smith

Every Church-Planting Movement (CPM) and Discipleship-Multiplication Movement is also fundamentally a prayer movement. Fervently calling upon God in faith is foundational to the miraculous move of God’s Spirit. Of course, CPMs do not occur only through prayer; reproducing evangelism, discipleship, church planting and leadership development are all essential. But without a move of the Spirit, and thrusting ourselves upon Him in prayer, these latter elements are mere mechanics.

What does the prayer life of men and women in the center of movements look like? Let me describe common characteristics, and especially take you in for a closer look at the prayer life of Ying and Grace Kai who were for many years used by God in catalyzing a church planting movement in Asia—over 1.7 million baptisms and 158,000 new churches.

Person not just principles, man not just methods

CPM methodologies and processes are essential in helping us raise our ministry sails to catch the wind of the Spirit and move as he is moving. However, the closer we look at
CPMs, the more obvious it becomes that God uses men not simply methods, persons not just principles or programs.

A colleague who tracks CPMs around the world co-trained with Ying Kai for six days, watching him interact with people. Listen to his observation:

The person, Ying, is successful, not the program. The man is the key to the results, not the method that is being used. We had numerous comments during the week indicating that his particular lessons were nothing special . . . . What did become evident is that the person God uses, Ying, exemplifies, models and lives out what it is he is teaching.

In other words, the quality of spiritual integrity and seeking God’s leading at every juncture were more important than the reproducible methods he was using successfully. The Spirit was empowering the reproducible processes to produce life. We cannot say that if you are more spiritually mature, you will have a greater movement of God. What we can say is that no movement will occur if we are not spiritually in-tuned people.

Time in prayer daily

This begins in seeking God deeply in prayer. Fervent, faith-filled intercession is the spiritual climate of every movement. Since a movement is, by definition, a move of God’s Spirit, we must beseech the Father to act powerfully in bringing his kingdom and redeeming the lost.

Movement catalysts each have different patterns for their daily prayer life. But Ying and Grace’s prayer life serves as a helpful model. Again listen to my colleague’s observations from that six-day trip:

When various participants asked Ying further about the practicality of always praying in advance [before every ministry encounter], he described his DAILY practice of rising early and often praying one to two hours for his ministry every single day. He insists that those he trains [his main leaders] must become persons of prayer, and he communicates to them that it would be best if they pray at least two hours every morning prior to going out to begin their other ministries.

Ying and Grace rise early each day to pray through every name of every person they will encounter that day. Ying trains his trainers that their witnessing will have much more effect if they pray for God to open the hearts of the lost before they themselves open their mouths.

It is not coincidental that the breakthrough for a CPM in our own work in East Asia came when we as a local team and our global partners seriously began to humble ourselves in intercession through weekly prayer and fasting.

Led by the Spirit

Starting the day in prayer is just the prelude to walking in the Spirit throughout the day, following his promptings. How easy it is for us to begin the day in prayer and the Word, asking to be filled with the Spirit, only to walk in our own leading when we get off our knees and into the streets! Abiding in Christ (Joh 15) is much more than a quiet time. Rather it is a posture of reliance upon God, following the leading of his Spirit. It is praying without ceasing (1 Thes 5:17)—staying in connection with the Father. It is how Jesus lived his life:

Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise.(Joh 5:19, ESV)

In their days while working in East Asia, there was a remarkable focus, even “narrowness,” to what Ying and Grace were about. Daily they tried to do three things well: 1) pray, 2) witness, 3) train. Everything else took a back seat. They prayed before they left their home and then prayed throughout the day. If they met lost people, they witnessed to them. If they led them to faith, or met an existing believer, they offered to train them. Prayer guided each encounter.

Prayer with the lost, prayer with the saved, prayer on every occasion

A common factor in every CPM is that God is demonstrating Himself in miraculous ways. This is often in direct response to disciples praying aloud to the Provider for the needs of lost people in their presence. It is reminiscent of Jesus’ instructions to the 70 disciples He sent out:

“Heal the sick in it and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’” (Luk 10:9, ESV)

Similar things are occurring in various gatherings of faith-filled believers who, like the church in Acts, are amazed at the wonders of God:

And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles.
(Acts 2:43, ESV)

In CPMs believers are calling out for God to act as He has always acted in His Word and then trusting Him for results. This can be a bit challenging for many of us who are concerned that God’s reputation is on the line when we pray in this manner. But listen to this insight:

When Ying was asked about praying for others, he indicated that he always prays for others when asked. When the subject of healings and such came up, he indicated that he would ask God in advance what to pray for people, and he would pray what God communicated to him was God’s intention for that situation. Ying has no reluctance whatsoever in following this pattern to pray for healing, pray for deliverance, pray for freedom from sinful habits, pray for the restoration of relationships, and pray for a myriad of other results. It is because he always prays first to ask God what to pray that he has no reluctance to publicly or privately “put God on the spot” and to pray for dramatic results.

Four Areas to Pray Daily

Let’s zero in on four areas that Ying and Grace pray for daily, and teach to all their trainers, so that they may walk in the power of the Spirit.

1. Jesus’ blood to protect us

Just as Jesus taught us in the model prayer to beseech the Father to “protect us from the evil one.” (Mat 6:13), so also Ying and Grace pray this daily. As the enemy sets his sights on the faithful, we must cry out to God for His protection from these fiery darts. The battle is real but the blood of Jesus conquers.

It was interesting to me how many times in teaching a variety of subjects Ying referred to the blood of Christ. He referred to his daily practice, during personal devotions requesting Jesus to cover him with the blood of Christ as a protection against various obstructions and intrusions from the evil one. He often referred to praying that the blood of Christ would cover the groups he is training and protect them from the evil one’s attacks. He often referred to the blood of Christ when he presented an evangelistic message and dealt with the cross. He has memorized a number of scriptures that deal with the blood of Christ and frequently quotes them in his teaching and his personal interaction with others. It struck me how infrequently I pray for the protection of the blood of Christ, or make reference to the blood of Christ in my witnessing or daily conversations.

2. Putting on the whole armor of God in prayer – piece by piece

We are commanded in Ephesians 6:10-20 to put on the whole armor of God for the spiritual battle. One way that Ying and Grace do this, and train others to do it, is to put on each piece—one at a time—in prayer. They make a conscious effort to go through the entire list and, in faith, dress themselves in spiritual armor.

3. Ask for whatever gift you need in order to serve God

Ying frequently exhorts his trainers to ask the Holy Spirit to give them whatever gifts they need to serve God. Don’t think spiritual gifts, as we commonly think, but rather, any ability they need. If a trainer needs the gift of speaking better, giving more generously or serving more lovingly, then he is encouraged to ask God for this ability, and then to take active steps to learn how to do that. Our Father is ready to give good gifts to His children. He wants us to ask (Mat 7:11).

4. Give thanks in and for everything

One of the greatest acts of faith is to give God thanks not only in every circumstance (1 Thes. 5:18), but for every circumstance. But Paul makes it clear that this is a fruit of being filled with the Spirit (Eph. 5:20). Ying and Grace encourage their trainers to thank and praise God for all things. It is often in thanking God for the difficult things that they actually see spiritual breakthrough.

Ying Kai credits God freeing him from a life-long anger problem to his giving thanks for this problem:

For me it was very strange. I did not really believe yet, but I prayed to God. “God, I know it’s very strange but I’ll try to give thanks to you because You created me. My attitude has been bad and I always lose my temper but I give thanks to you because I belong to you. I know in myself I cannot change or heal myself so I pray to you. Today let me know that I am nothing; only You can help me.” I tried to just give thanks to the Lord and praise him. So I praised and sang and praised and sang. Every day I did this.

One day my wife told me to come and look at the calendar. Every day since we were married she had marked each day when I lost my temper. Some days it was three times, some days five times. Then she said, “How many days do you think it has been since you lost your temper and fought with me? Six months!”

I had prayed for 26 years and many other people prayed for me. I asked, asked, asked but now I only sang to the Lord and praised the Lord. God changed my mind; He changed my attitude. So when you praise the Lord he’ll change everything. Grace said, “When you praise the Lord, that means you honor God and his power.”

Prayer is the spiritual climate of every movement of God. The personal prayer life of each movement catalyst is a precious treasure to the Father. It is this interaction with God that sets the foundation for a movement:

My bottom line summation is that it is not the tools that are the key. It is the modeling, holy life, intense focus on heaven, hell, judgment, and the need for salvation which are some of the keys to Ying’s effectiveness. All this is to say that those who “catch his spirit” and model it in front of new believers are more likely to see the same type of results than those who came, copied the lessons, and plan to go back and just repeat the methodology.

About The Author

Steve Smith

Steve Smith planted a church in Los Angeles and then helped initiate a church planting movement (CPM) among an unreached people group in East Asia. The last ten years he has trained believers in CPM and currently oversees the work of the International Mission Board (SBC) in reaching Southeast Asian Peoples.

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A Call to Prayer

The Challenge and Opportunity of Lima 2014

by David Taylor

In October of 2012 the heads of state from every Middle Eastern country came to meet with the heads of state of every Latin American country in Lima, Peru. They brought with them thousands of business leaders who pledged to invest billions of dollars into Latin America. In addition to this display of investment power, they also brought their Islamic faith, making a point in the middle of meetings to stop and pray, while cameras broadcasted their piety throughout the continent.

It is self-evident that with this financial investment will follow both political and religious influence, as this has been the case wherever Islam has been attached with business ventures. The increasing presence of Islam in Latin America has caught the church off-guard. A recent report in the Latin Times revealed that an estimated 200,000 Hispanics in the United States have converted to Islam over the last decade. Many of these are women who convert through marriage to Muslim men. Since Islam allows men to marry multiple wives, international Muslim businessmen and traders throughout the centuries have used this tradition to spread the faith around the world.

How should the Latin church respond to this challenge? Many leaders are seeing the growing alliance between Latin America and the Middle East as an opportunity for reaching the Muslim world. The economic highway being built between the regions will enable traffic going both directions. This means increased opportunity for Latino believers to take the love of Jesus into the Muslim heartland through business and professional jobs. Unfortunately, there is very little training available for the church to equip them for Muslim outreach.

For this reason, the church in Peru will be hosting a three-day “global mission council” for 3,000 leaders from all over Latin America this October 22-25. The gathering will culminate with a rally of 100,000 young people. Over the course of these three days, leaders will be enrolled in a credit-bearing course from World Link University on global Muslim outreach. This course will be made available online in Spanish and Portuguese following the event and can be taken by anyone. The live three-day training will also be duplicated in other countries throughout Latin America which desire to bring together pastors and national leaders for prayer and training. The ultimate goal is to see the course taken by 1 million Latinos in the next five years. More information can be found at http://www.limaperu2014.org or by, writing to david.taylor@uscwm.org. Observers and participants from non-Latin countries are welcome to join.

A sampling of topics which will be covered:

- The State and Islam

- Muhammad and the Origin of Islam

- History of Islam

- Overview of the Quran

- Islamic Eschatology

- Shariah Law

- Jihad in Islam

- Human Rights in Islam

- Islam and Woman

- Islam and Finance

- Treatment of Christian Minorities

- Muslim conversions to Christianity

- Discipling New Muslim Converts

- Reaching Children in Islam

About The Author

David Taylor is the research director of the Global Network of Mission Structures (http://www.gnms.net). He is the senior editor of the Global Mission Database (http://www.gmdata.info) and author of Operation 10/40 Window (http://www.op1040.info). You may contact him at david.taylor@uscwm.org

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Called Together

New Site Connects Globally-Called Single Adults

by Rebecca Lewis

Single people have been crucial to the spread of the gospel historically.

In the Catholic era, the bulk of mission work was done by single men in missionary orders. In the post-Civil War era, thousands of American women, whose potential husbands had been killed in the war, trained and went as missionaries to distant lands. Fully one third of the Protestant missionaries in China and Korea were single women. Single women also proved to be highly effective, even in areas where men could not go, and women believers were instrumental in bringing transformation in these societies.

Nevertheless, singleness is not the first choice for many hoping to serve God in some capacity that advances his kingdom on earth. Those working alone suffer significantly more from loneliness, feelings of isolation, and burnout. Historically to address this problem, single workers were usually either sent out in pairs, or even matched by sending agencies and married before leaving. Though helpful, it has always been difficult to find other singles of like mind and calling to team up with as partners, on teams, or to marry.

Today many single adults are looking for someone to serve with before making long-term commitments, and others are reluctantly giving up their calling in order to marry someone who has other concerns. Parents, mentors and agencies would often like to help but do not know how, so often singles feel abandoned to solve these problems by themselves.

The internet is an amazing tool that can be brought to bear on this age-old problem of providing the community which globally-called singles desire. It has the potential to help thousands of kingdom-minded singles find co-workers or partners to join with them in their endeavors. But until now a site has not been available that specifically seeks to serve this need enabling its members to search for others based on the things the Lord is calling them to do.

On March 1, 2014, a new website, CalledTogether.us, was launched and is hoping to fill this gap and empower evangelical single adults to find others with their same burden or calling from the Lord—whether it be working with unreached people groups, walking with the poor, outreach through the arts or media, or many other specific callings. Each person who joins is encouraged to add a mentor of their own choice who can help them connect wisely with others on the site, and contribute to the discussion forums with godly insight.

Because many today are working in sensitive locations, CalledTogether.us is committed to providing extra levels of security for members by having 3 levels of profiles with increasingly limited access.

CalledTogether.us is offering agencies the opportunity of getting a 50% discount in perpetuity for their single members. At a meeting of a couple dozen mission CEOs in mid-February, many were excited to offer this opportunity to their single members. Those interested in connecting with other globally-called singles can sign on directly. Agencies interested in getting a discount for their members should contact Gerin St. Claire at CalledTogetherus@gmail.com.

About The Author

Rebecca Lewis

Rebecca Lewis studied Christian history at both the BA and MA level, and taught it at the university level for over 10 years. She also has 30 years of experience with the Muslim context and currently lives in India.

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Recovering the Kingdom

A Book Review

by David Taylor

What was so unique about the message and vision of Jesus? And is it possible that after 2,000 years we still don’t get it?

Jesus came preaching about the kingdom. It was a radical message because he was preaching about God’s kingdom, not the Jewish kingdom. He was crucified for it. But lest we be too critical of the first century Jews, we need to be reminded that we also can be somewhat tribal when it comes to understanding the kingdom. A new book published by WCIU Press, First the Kingdom, is a helpful reminder of this reality and will prove a useful contribution to recovering the message and implication of the kingdom of God for our time.

Written by the friends and colleagues of Peter Kuzmic to honor his life, First the Kingdom captures some of the best practical thinking on how to apply the message of the kingdom in today’s world. Peter Kuzmic’s life and theology was shaped by the geo-political forces that roiled Eastern Europe in the 1990s. He was instrumental as an agent of peace and reconciliation following the aftermath of the ethnic conflicts that devastated his homeland in the former republic of Yugoslavia. Daniel Darko, editor of the volume, describes this context well:

The Orthodox Serbs believed God was on their side while the Catholic Croats felt empowered by God to gain victory over their enemies. Christians versus Christians! Ironically, it would take Christian leaders who espoused a vision of Missio Dei that transcends denominational boundaries, ethnic divide, and social status to mobilize “Kingdom” missionaries in a decisive effort to bring hope and reconciliation, and to garner socio-political forces for transformation.

This is precisely why we need an accurate theology of the kingdom. When we are seeking first the kingdom it affects every level of society and every dimension of our world. The reality of the incredible divisions which still haunt us and are still the underpinnings of much of the world’s conflicts, tell us we need to take the message of the kingdom to heart—that there is something bigger than all of us, more important than all of us, and without it none of us will survive, and nothing will ever heal.

In one of his final books, God and Government, Charles Colson writes of the importance of having a kingdom perspective with regard to issues of church and state. He remarks: “America is not the New Jerusalem or a ‘city upon a hill,’ though some of its founders harbored that vision. Nor are Americans God’s chosen people. The kingdom of God is universal, bound by neither race nor nation” (p.135).

To some this may sound like heresy. But to others, like the Native Americans who were victimized by America’s self-proclaimed “manifest destiny,” it is a much more hopeful message. Even today, Native Americans are less than 1% evangelical Christian in spite of living in the world’s most evangelical and missional country. There is something very ironic and bizarre about this juxtaposition.

Of course it is not just in the United States where we need to recover the message of the kingdom. When we think of the relatively recent conflicts among Christians in Rwanda, Ireland and South Africa, it is clear that the kingdom of God still needs to come among us even after centuries of Christian influence. The excellent collection of essays in First the Kingdom will no doubt help us get this conversation started, and may lead us to some valuable answers. Perhaps, then, in a small way the tragedy of what took place in the former Yugoslavia can be redeemed to the glory of God.

About The Author

David Taylor is the research director of the Global Network of Mission Structures (http://www.gnms.net). He is the senior editor of the Global Mission Database (http://www.gmdata.info) and author of Operation 10/40 Window (http://www.op1040.info). You may contact him at david.taylor@uscwm.org

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Light the Window

A Billion Hours of Prayer and $1 Billion by the Year 2020

by David Taylor

The 10/40 Window region is home to 3 billion Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus, the vast majority of whom remain with little or no access to the gospel in their language and culture. Over 90% of the world’s least-reached people groups are in this region, among which 50,000 people will die each day without Jesus.

One answer to this spiritual darkness is a new initiative called Light the Window, which aims to equip 10 million believers around the world to pray and give sacrificially to reach 365 influential people groups in the 10/40 Window region. These 365 groups represent over 2.5 billion individuals who are the least-reached and least-evangelized people in the world. Mission strategists refer to these large groups as “gateway peoples” because if a breakthrough happens among them it may have a huge impact on the surrounding peoples, who are often related linguistically and culturally to these larger groups. In one way or another, most of the world’s unreached peoples are influenced by or connected to these gateway peoples.

At its core, Light the Window is a strategic list for prayer and priority giving. Around this core are many related components which will equip the body of Christ for united impact in the 10/40 Window. Among these are monthly concerts of prayer, an online prayer exchange, a global strategic fund, and a service network. These four components are briefly described below.

Concerts of Prayer

Each of the 365 gateway peoples on the Light the Window list are grouped into one of 12 cultural regions, one for each month (see table). For example, in November the focus will be on Central Asian Muslims and in April the focus will be on Hindus of North India. Each month Light the Window participants will be encouraged to organize and gather in a “concert of prayer” for the particular region in focus. The concept of “concerted” prayer relates to two important dimensions of intercession: corporate unity and specific purpose. This is based on the principle which Jesus gave the church, “If two on earth agree about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven.” (Matt 18:19, ESV). Thus the purpose of a “concert of prayer” is not so much to mobilize or spread awareness about the 10/40 Window (though that will certainly happen), but it is more to enter into agreement as the corporate body of Christ in order to receive the authority God desires to give us to reach the nations.

Prayer Exchange

One of the major purposes of Light the Window is to equip intercessors around the world with prayer updates from the field, and to make these available in every major language with a significant number of evangelicals. To facilitate this field/intercessor connection, an online prayer exchange is being set up that will enable field practitioners to upload updates that will then be translated by volunteers in every country. In addition to this, a Light the Window app for smart phones is being developed which will allow participants to log their prayer participation and receive live prayer feeds from the 10/40 Window for the people groups they are following. Each year, these field reports will be edited and coalesced to update an annual Light the Window intercessory guide, which can be used in print or digital form.

Strategic Fund

If Light the Window achieves its goal of equipping ten million participants around the world, the potential for giving to fund strategic projects is enormous. Using “crowd-funding” technology and concepts, participants will be encouraged to give small regular contributions to fund big projects. Crowd-funding sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo are raising hundreds of millions for funding commercial ventures through large numbers of people working together. The time has come for the global body of Christ to leverage its enormous giving power to finish the task of reaching all peoples with the gospel. By faith, Light the Window is aiming to raise at least $1 billion dollars from 10 million participants to fund strategic projects in the 10/40 Window. (This comes to just $10 on average per participant each month.) With an estimated 800 million evangelicals in the world, it is reasonable to assume that at least 10 million believers will have the capacity to participate in this strategic fund.

PRIME Teams

In addition to prayer and giving, participants in Light the Window will be encouraged to join service teams, which are being called PRIME teams, that serve the ongoing field work among unreached peoples. PRIME stands for prayer, research, innovation, media and engagement. PRIME centers will also be established on the field that will serve full-time as coordinating hubs for PRIME teams, with a focus on a specific gateway people or people-cluster. These teams and centers will be linked together through a network of organizations and ministries which specialize in one or more of the five PRIME areas.

Participation

Light the Window and PRIME are networks which are owned by the entire body of Christ and mission community. Any ministry, church or organization committed to the Great Commission under the Lordship of Christ can participate in these initiatives and incorporate them into their existing ministry platform. They are free gifts to the global church with no strings attached (or to put it in tech-speak, they are “open-source” programs that can be freely deployed and adapted for multiple platforms). Light the Window and PRIME plan to officially launch in 2015. Those interested in participating in Light the Window can help beta-test the program by registering at www.ltw2020.org.

You may also write to david.taylor@uscwm.org for more information.

About The Author

David Taylor is the research director of the Global Network of Mission Structures (http://www.gnms.net). He is the senior editor of the Global Mission Database (http://www.gmdata.info) and author of Operation 10/40 Window (http://www.op1040.info). You may contact him at david.taylor@uscwm.org

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Raising Local Resources

Could Inspiring More “We Did It” Stories Help Break the Dependency Mindset?

Raising Local Resources

by Dan Carl

During my 10 years in Haiti I was involved in numerous construction projects. On one occasion, I arrived a few days in advance of a larger team to finalize the foundation for a church school which was being 100% financed with US dollars.

Although the local church had participated in the demolition of the old earthquake damaged building, they had yet to contribute even a small amount of money. Thinking I would further inspire local participation, I suggested the pastor take an offering from the church to help offset some of the costs of serving lunch to the workers. Although an offering was taken, no one from the church congregation gave any money.

When I asked the pastor, “Why?” I was told, “It’s because the people see you are an American missionary. They know you always have enough money to pay for everything. Therefore, they don’t give.” Besides feeling hurt and disappointed, I remember asking myself, “What would this congregation have done if we Americans had never contributed to their school?”

This past February, a Haitian friend of mine helped answer my hypothetical question while we were co-conducting a symposium in Haiti centered around the theme, “What is the current state of the Haitian National Church?” Valery Vital-Herne, a 3rd generation pastor and the Country Director for Micah Challenge said:

The Haitian Church is a dependent church and a church full of initiative. How can a church be dependent and at
the same time full of initiative? The Haitian Church is a poor church and a rich church at the same time.

We’ve been receiving missionaries for years—Missionaries investing in education, investing in orphanages, investing in building churches, investing in everything. The result in part is having dependent churches, dependent church leaders who said, “To build the next school we need to have a blan.” (foreigner) “We need a blan! We need someone from the United States.”

But at the same time, when those churches receive a “No No!” from a blan, or have struggled to find a white missionary, when they don’t find that white missionary, guess what? Years later you find a big building. And those pastors will tell you proudly, “We did it! We searched for international help. We didn’t find it. So, we told the church, ‘We serve a big God. Let’s put our hands together and let’s build that.’”

And you feel a sense of pride and a sense of ownership. That’s why I said, at the same time, the Haitian church is a dependent church. That dependency mindset is still there. But when they don’t find it, they work together and start schools and start churches. Some of the big buildings you see downtown or in Delmas are debt free, paid for only by Haitians.1

Why is being able to say, “We did it,” really important? As Valery shared about Haitian churches saying, “We did it” and “the sense of pride and sense of ownership” that pastors and their congregations experience through trusting in a big God, I was reminded of a couple of important principles.

The first is local dependence on God. In Revelation chapters 2 & 3, we learn that the Lord is watching each local church to see how well it utilizes the gifts and resources he has entrusted to it directly. Zambian missionary Dwight Kopp says, “If this were not so, Jesus would not have written seven separate letters to the churches in Revelation. Instead one letter could have been sufficient—blaming them all for the sin in the church of Sardis.”2

Secondly, he multiplies “few” resources into “many” resources based on faithfulness (Mat 25:21) and according to the power of the Holy Spirit at work within a community of believers. (Eph 3:20)

With these in mind, could it be that when we as Westerners give towards church building projects in a foreign land, that along with creating dependency on us, we are actually hindering that local congregation’s intimate trusting relationship with God? How often do we unintentionally bypass God’s process of maturing faith and steal the real blessings of “satisfaction” and “sense of ownership” God wants to instill in every local church? Instead of writing more checks to building projects, I’d like to suggest we look for ways to inspire more “We did it!” stories.

About The Author

Dan Carl (BPS, Bellevue University, Bellevue, NE) is co-founder of International Living Stone Ministries and lived and worked as a full time missionary in Haiti for 10 years. He is currently working with World Mission Associates to inspire a movement towards local sustainable ministry in Haiti. He lives with his family in Omaha, NE and seeks dialogue with missionaries, Haitian leaders and organizations that are interested in exploring answers to the question, “How can we share Christ in Haiti without sharing a culture of dependency?” Dan travels to Haiti regularly and by invitation.

See http://www.livingstonehaiti.com and www.wmausa.org.

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Further Reflections

Can We Pray Too Much?

Further Reflections

by Greg H. Parsons

Jesus said to pray without ceasing, but beyond early mornings and late nights of prayer, he demonstrated that prayer was integrated within his life and ministry.

In his prayer recorded in John 17 Jesus said, “I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do.” (vs. 4, NIV) Certainly his prayers on earth were included in that work. It is evident that everything Jesus said flowed from his relationship with the Father. I wonder if that communion and how Jesus lived it out was a form of prayer? Reading the Gospels, it is obvious that prayer is a moment-by-moment mindset that is to be integrated into a busy life!

Several times throughout the New Testament Paul describes the burden he carries for the churches for which he prays. We see Paul praying for guidance (Acts 13), for the elders (Acts 14) and for the sick (Acts 28), as well as admonishing us to pray (Eph 6:18; Col 4:2). But, like Jesus, these prayers were interconnected with Paul’s life, calling, ministry and work. Paul was a pretty active guy, but he prayed in the midst of it. Perhaps this tells us more about prayer than we see at first glance.

I admit I have struggled to understand the idea of someone praying as his or her only ministry. The Levites in the O.T., as those set aside for ministry, are often the model cited for this. Yet it is interesting that David, the king, is well known as one who talked with God more than anyone else. Daniel and Nehemiah were also men who prayed in the midst of their work.

We’ve all heard great quotes about prayer like, “Prayer is the real work of missions.” Martin Luther said he was “too busy not to pray.” John Wesley said, “God does nothing except in response to believing prayer.” S.D. Gordon has many quotes about prayer like, “Prayer strikes the winning blow; service is simply picking up the pieces” and “The greatest thing anyone can do for God or man is pray.” E.M. Bounds wrote, “Talking to men for God is a great thing, but talking to God for men is greater still.” And Billy Graham wisely said, “If you don’t feel like praying, it’s a probably a sign you should start praying right away!” Quotes like these used to make me feel guilty because I didn’t dedicate hours to prayer every day. But as I’ve thought, studied and prayed I’ve realized that prayer should be an integral part of my daily activities—in addition to having focused times of prayer.

One thing that helped me was Ralph Winter urging our staff to recognize that prayer should include a great deal of listening…times of quiet. I first heard him share this in the context of the establishment of our 24-hour prayer room, where we took shifts of 4 hours 2-3 times a month. I have found that by listening well—through the Word and the Holy Spirit—God leads me to pray and focus my efforts in ways I would have otherwise never considered.

One last quote I want to share with you is from John Piper. James 4:2c says, “You have not because you ask not.” Based on this verse Piper says, “Prayer causes things to happen that would not happen if you didn’t pray.” In other words, the sovereign God is inviting us to participate with him in the running of the universe by praying “things into being.” Not taking advantage of that, according to Piper, is folly! What do you believe you should “take on” in prayer? What, in God’s purposes, is “not yet” that you can begin to bring to fruition through prayer?

Can we pray too much? Yes!…if that prayer does not include listening and communion with God in the midst of everyday life. If we can learn to pray in tune with the Spirit, we will see “things come into being” like disciples from all peoples where there are none now.

Can I get an “Amen”? Why not post your thoughts or prayers under the online version of this page.

Follow Greg on Twitter: @parsonsgh

About The Author

Greg H. Parsons

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