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PRAYER FOR YOUR CHURCH
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Lord, I lift up my deacons to You. May they walk worthy of respect with sincere hearts. Keep them from indulgence and greed. Help them keep hold of truth. May they keep short accounts with You so that their conscience is clear. Bless their households with peace and respect. Fill them with Your Spirit and let them operate in wisdom as they carry out their responsibilities. (1 Tim. 3:8-9, 12; Acts 6:3)
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Home  February 2006
February 2006
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While they couldn’t articulate this, I am positive one of the primary
reasons most people do not participate in all-church prayer meetings is
because they do not sense a connection to God while there. They are
bored with praying for needs and situations that they will never know
the outcome of. At most prayer meetings the focus of the prayer is on
circumstances not on God.
A number of churches today are finding that providing a more dynamic,
God-focused prayer meeting will bring people. The Brooklyn Tabernacle
has known this for years—it’s one of the reasons it draws 2,000 plus to
its Tuesday night prayer meeting. Grace Church in Eden Prairie, MN, has
just completed a year under its new pastor, Dr. Daniel Henderson—a man
who lives and breathes the importance of corporate prayer. Their Sunday
night “Fresh Encounter” prayer meeting, which focuses on worship and
the attributes of God, is largely responsible for changing the entire
atmosphere of the church. People are flocking to it—from area-wide
churches, not just Grace—because they sense the presence of God there.
King of Kings Church in Manahawkin, NJ believes one of the reasons God
is blessing it with life, is its vibrant, God-focused, Thursday night
prayer meeting.
Of course you shouldn’t stop praying for needs in the life of the
church. But find ways to do that so it doesn’t stay the focus of your
corporate prayer meeting (if you have one). Find ways to encourage more
people to pray through a list of needs (offered in the bulletin, or
emailed to church members each week). Make sure small group praying for
each other and prayer chains are functioning well. Offer a time for
leaders and trained prayer teams to pray for people’s needs during a
Sunday morning worship service. Positioning teams around the sanctuary
at a set time in your musical worship part of the service works well;
or at the end of the service.
Then change the focus of your prayer meeting! Weave worship—with songs
that are all focused on exalting Jesus Christ or on God’s
attributes—throughout the prayer meeting. Have set times of prayer in
groups, but around a theme that a leader gives to the people—no prayer
requests! Then, when you have had a few prayer meetings under your
belts, try something bold to get people to come. Without warning people
that it’s coming, turn one Sunday morning worship service into a
God-focused, worship-based prayer meeting. At the end, tell people that
they have just experienced the new format of our Wednesday (Thursday or
whatever) night prayer meeting. If they want to keep meeting God in
that way, come to the weekly prayer meeting.
For help on how to develop this kind of prayer meeting, purchase
Henderson’s book, Fresh Encounters: Experiencing Transformation through
United Worship-Based Prayer (NavPress 2004). You can purchase it
through your local Christian bookstore or go to
https://store.prayerleader.com to receive your CPLN discount.
--Jonathan Graf is the president of CPLN. He is available to put on a
prayer conference at your church. Contact him at
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
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By Jonathan Graf
I’m often struck by something odd in the prayers of Old Testament intercessors. Many times, when faced with a difficult situation, when they went to prayer they didn’t pray much about the problem. Their focus was upward rather than outward.
We never see Nehemiah pray about the wall, Jeremiah only in passing mentions the Babylonian onslaught, and David often changes his attitude mid-pray. Why? In many of their prayers, they simply focused on who God was, what He had done in the past. As they did this, everything around them faded away into unimportance. God would be faithful as He always had been.
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Growing Prayer Evangelists
By Kim Butts
It's a known fact about prayer: often we become the answers to our prayers. As prayer leaders and church leaders we would love to see our church families begin to pray more and begin to be more global believers. The two go hand-in-hand. Providing some practical ideas for families to teach their kids to pray globably can go a long wa to see people become world Christians. Here are just a few practical, creative ways to involve families in reaching the lost as prayer missionaries–-right where they are!
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By Kim Butts, Moody Publishing, 2002
$12--Special CPLN Member Price $8.00
One of the best long range ways to grow a praying church is to help families learn to pray. Mothers of young children are often looking for ideas on how to connect better as a family. The Praying Family is an excellent resource that will both bind a family together and develop kids into powerful prayer warriers. As prayer leaders, we recommend buying a copy for your church library, or buy a number of copies for interested parents.
The Praying Family is a valuable resource for developing and keeping a scheduled family prayer life. In addition to the helpful tips and ideas, Kim Butts points out several challenges to becoming a family of prayer and how to meet them based on her personal experience including: - Parents' feelings of inadequacy in teaching their children to pray
- Getting and keeping teenagers involved
- Finding time for a prayer journey in everyone's hectic schedules
- Persevering in prayer
Packed with creative and fun "journeys" that teach prayer concepts, this prayer tool will facilitate a day-by-day journey that will most certainly lead to a lifetime of answered prayer and a greater understanding of the heart of God.
It is also a great tool for children's Sunday school teachers and workers. Its ideas are easily adaptable for this use.
About the Author: Kim Butts is the co-founder of Harvest Prayer Ministries. A strong advocate for children and prayer, Kim serves on the advisory board of PrayKids! magazine. |
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Pray Forth the Kingdom: 50 Ways You Can Pray Through the Window
By Shane Bennett
The classic cleaning cliché, “I don’t do windows!” has never made much sense to me. Why make a big deal about windows? Now toilets, or maybe ovens, I could see refusing to clean them. But windows? I just don’t get it.
Unfortunately, “I don’t do windows” has been the historic, although unwitting, response of the Church to the lost-ness of two billion people who live in an area of the world that has come to be known as the “10/40 Window.” This window, located between the tenth and fortieth latitudes and extending from West Africa to Japan, is home to 97 percent of the world’s unevangelized people. Wonderfully, though, in recent months, that refrain has increasingly changed to, “Yes, we will do windows. Show us how.”
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February 2006 Complete Issue |
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Prayer Leader OnLine
February 2006
Vol. 3, No. 2
Introduction
Our conference season will be fast upon us. A conference is a great way to fuel a person's passion for growing in his or her prayer life. Encourage your people to join you--especially your pastor. Nothing will help him or her catch a vision for more prayer than attending Prayer Quake or one of our other conferences. We hope that you will avail youself of the opportunity to attend one or more of our conferences this year. Click here to find out more information on locations and themes.
And while you are at it, why not checkout the possibility of your church hosting a conference-- either one featuring a CPLN speaker, or a CPLN regional event. Click here for mkore information.
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