. . . Our message is starting to get through!
As I reflect back on several recent meetings, I am encouraged at the readiness factor in those who come to here me talk about corporate prayer or to lead them in corporate prayer. Such has not always been the case! I can remember times and places when those assembled seemed to be sitting with arms foiled across their chest, resistant to the call to prayer.
- In late summer I led a prayer retreat for attended by three people--the three members of a church staff. The senior pastor set aside two days for refocusing on prayer and wanted his staff to begin the journey together. Prayer will be forever integral to their ministry as a team.
- A former denominational colleague, now pastoring, invited me for a teaching/preaching weekend as a step toward creating a prayer culture throughout his new congregation. And his members came hungry and thirsty for my messages.
- In Greensboro, North Carolina three dozen pastors from the same association of churches met for a day of prayer. Their state prayer coordinator brought me in to model fresh corporate prayer methods. I could "see" light bulbs turning on as pastors realized they could replicate with their people what we were experiencing in that meeting.
- Other positive responses included: preaching on prayer at an evangelism conference, leading denominational executives in a new style of corporate prayer and being the main speaker at the Annual Meeting of a group of churches.
Prayer featured at an evangelism conference? In a meeting of denominational leaders (who had to voluntarily come a day early for the prayer time)? As the main topic at an annual meeting?
It seems to me, your work, our collective efforts, are beginning to bear good fruit!
Pastor Phil
http://www.PrayerLeader.blogspot.com
http://www.PrayingPastorblog.blogspot.com
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A few summers ago, while on vacation I visited a little church, one that had probably (hopefully) seen better days in its past. Upon arrival (10 minutes early) I walked in. No one was in the foyer to greet people, so I walked into the empty sanctuary—empty except for two little kids plunking on the piano. I sat half-way up the 10-row little auditorium. I was warmly greeted when people started arriving (all 22 of them).
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The World Missions Atlas Project (www.WorldMAP.org) and its partners in cooperation with the greater missions community have, with expanded and updated data and technology, completed the "Global Status of Evangelical Christianity" wall map. This map illustrates the status of evangelical Christianity and church planting based upon the Church Planting Progress Indicators (CPPI) database maintained by the Global Research Department of the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention. Included on this map are three inset maps displaying the global status of Bible Translation, global status of Jesus film translation, and global response to the film.
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Prayer leader Online interviews Ray Pritchard, senior Pastor of Calvary Memorial Church, Oak Park, Illinois.
Q. Ray, you are a pastor-teacher who recognizes the role of prayer in the life of both the believer and the corporate body. What factors led to this awareness?
After serving as a pastor for 26 years in three churches in widely differing circumstances, I can look back over some wonderful high points and some very difficult low moments. I have known the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. Often they came in the same day. When I look back to those early days of my ministry, I smile because like a lot of young people, I came out of seminary with no shortage of self-confidence. That in itself is a good thing and even a gift from God because the young often approach life with a kind of fearless courage that enables them to do things the rest of us think can't be done. Time has a way of refining our self-confidence and ideally replacing it with a new kind of God-confidence.
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Vol. 3, No. 10
Introduction
We were recently stunned by a response from a large, well-known church in the Akron, Ohio area. A member of the host church for our Cleveland regional was calling churches to invite them and ask if they would hand out brochures to people from their congregaton who were interested in prayer. While she had felt the rejection of other churches who didn't want to promote something from a competing church, this response was a new one. Upon turning down our flyers, the personal assistant to the senior pastor resonded: "prayer is for old people, and they certainly are not going to travel that far."
Aren't you glad you aren't the prayer leader at that church! I mention
this story as a "backhanded" encouragement. Many of us, because of
frustrations, often look on our church's prayer responses negatively.
But it is often all in the perspective. We need to develop a more
positive picture. I recently led a concert of prayer at a church of 600
or so--40 people showed up. Some were a little discouraged, but a
pastor commented how wonderful it was that virtually all the pastoral
leadership came. While soem saw a negative, due to the numbers, he saw
a positive. Keep looking for the positive. It will encourage you!
Jonathan Graf
President
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October 2006
