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The congregation in rural Tennessee was
struggling to survive. The young pastor was struck by the words of Jesus in Matt. 21:13,
"My house should be called a house of prayer" (NASB). He challenged the people
to pray biblically for every person in their community. Beginning with just two people,
they drove the country roads and prayed for every house. They walked the city streets and
prayed for every business. They made a list of church members and family members. They
began to pray daily. The congregation was reborn and began to grow as lives changed. The
lost were saved and believers were revived. As T.W. Hunt wrote, "It may be put down
as a spiritual axiom that in every truly successful ministry, prayer is an evident and
controlling force."
A. Three Parts to a Great Commission
Prayer Plan A thorough prayer plan will consider the differences needed for effective
prayer and witness in urban, rural, wealthy, or poor communities. The thorough prayer plan
could include these three parts.
1. Renew a personal passion to pray
unceasingly (1 Thess. 5:17). Begin your prayer plan by helping each person to begin a
system for daily prayer. One believer said, "I was a Sunday School teacher and felt
guilty about not praying enough. I would promise the Lord I would pray more. But after
five minutes I had prayed for everything I could think of. After I began a daily prayer
plan I soon learned that there is so much to pray for that I just didn’t have time to
get it all in. The quantity and quality of my prayer time grew a lot."
Create your own plan or use one of the
many helpful products in the bibliography. The Personal Prayer Plan provides a
notebook of categories to help with daily prayer. The categories include praying for
believers, unbelievers, and personal needs. Believers are reminded to make daily prayer
lists of everyone in their circle of influence. The Sunday prayer list may include the
pastor, staff, visitors, prospects and the personal need to share Christ more. The Monday
list may include international missionaries, school teachers, politicians, entertainment
and sports figures. The personal need may be to walk in the fruit of the Spirit. The
process continues each day. The On Mission Prayer Map
provides a monthly calendar to systematically pray for all of North America by state and
province.
It does not matter what system you use, or
even if you use a system. Prayer should be a program. What matters is to find a way to
improve the amount of time and quality of specific, intentional, biblical prayer.
2. Reclaim the church as a house of
prayer with a passion for the lost (Matt. 21:13 and Luke 19:10). Jesus was very clear
that the church is to be a house of prayer. This requires a lot of work. There are so many
important things that compete for our time and our energy. A praying church comes most
quickly through the leadership of a praying pastor. Praying leaders will develop praying
followers. Don’t forget that the biblical house of prayer is a community of
believers, not just a building. Those lessons from Luke 19:10 are important for
those who wish to follow Christ. Jesus said, "For the Son of Man has come to seek and
save that which was lost." Believers must follow Christ in seeking the lost to
introduce them to Jesus so they may be saved.
One way to build unity is to show
believers how to link together through agreeing in prayer. Matt. 18:18-20 and Acts
2:42 can be very powerful influences in a church that has begun to focus on the wrong
things.
Some helpful information can be found in
the Lifeway manual A House of Prayer: Church Prayer Ministries for your church.
There is a particularly helpful list of tactics and events that congregations can use as
part of their overall Great Commission prayer strategy.
a). On Mission as a Lighthouse of
Prayer. Making your home a Lighthouse of Prayer is one way to help the church
become a house of prayer with a passion for lost people. A Lighthouse of Prayer
consists of a group or an individual committed to intentionally praying for, caring for,
and sharing the gospel with individuals in their neighborhood or community. Lighthouses of
prayer are evangelistic prayer cells that are extensions of a local church’s
evangelistic prayer ministry.
Pray, Care, Share
You don’t need specialized skill and
training to begin a lighthouse of prayer. The only requirement is a passionate commitment
to a threefold mission—pray for, care for, and share Christ with five neighbors on
each side of your house and ten neighbors across the street.
Lighthouses of Prayer can be started
anywhere. A family can be a Lighthouse of Prayer in its community. Believers can unite in
a home to form a neighborhood Lighthouse of Prayer. College students can meet in a dorm
room and prison inmates can meet in the correctional facility. Lighthouses of prayer
effectively help take prayer to the streets of North America.
Evangelicals across North America
are working together on this project. Making your home a community lighthouse can be a
helpful as part of an overall prayer evangelism plan. Lighthouse of Prayer resources are
in the bibliography. For more information or to register your home to be On Mission as a
Lighthouse of Prayer visit lighthouses.
T.W. Hunt writes about the early strategy
of the church in Acts 13, "Imagine tackling the job of exporting a new faith, born in
Judaism, outside the borders of Israel without Prayer! The Holy Spirit initiated the
missions movement in prayer, communicated to all the participants in prayer, and carried
out what He had instigated through their prayers."
3. Link believers in focused prayer for
evangelization and awakening (Matt: 28:18-20, 2 Chr. 7:14). The national Great
Spiritual Awakening will begin in individual believers and in individual congregations. An
excellent resource is NAMB’s Prayer for Revival and Spiritual Awakening Seminar.
Believers must become passionate about the
absolute need for revival in North America. The United States has no hope of survival
without a radical spiritual awakening. Take the opportunity to pray for revival every time
you are confronted with the spiritual decline and relativism. Listen for God to call you
to some all night and seasons of prayer for true spiritual awakening in your life, your
church, and your community.
"When we pray, we must be ready to
take action."
II. Response Time: Pause for a time of
prayer. Allow each participant to ask God to renew a personal passion for prayer, to make
the church a house of prayer with a passion for the lost, and to send revival to North
America. Remind each person that revival will generate prayer and passion.
When God is about to pour out His unusual
mercies on His people, He first of all sets them a-praying." Matthew Henry
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