Prayer Leader OnLine
April 2006
Vol. 3, No. 4

Introduction

What is it about getting away from the regular routine that can bring heightened sensitivity to the voice of the Holy Spirit? That has always been true in my life. Decisions made at a Christian summer camp, times of hearing the Spirit clearly on retreats, even times of clarity on issues while sitting in a boat fishing. . . . and times of connecting with Him at conferences.

I think we can all relate to that. Just this weekend a pastor couple stayed in their RV on our property. The wife told me and my wife--through cracking voice--how she met the Lord in our prayer chapel. There's something about getting away that makes us open to the gentle voice of the Holy Spirit.

When was the last time you got away, broke the routine? In our roles as prayer leaders, we need to break the routine often. We need times of refreshing. Times to spend with the Lord, where we don't have to worry about interruptions.

A major ministry leader I know takes a day every month and gets away--fasting and praying--to seek God for spiritual health, refreshing . . . and direction. He told me it revolutionized his life. How about you?

Jonathan Graf
President

On May 1st, the last early bird registration special for our annual convention runs out. If you plan to come to PrayerQuake but have not yet registered, you need to do so this week.

Already close to 1,100 are registered, and this year's event could be the largest in our history. Register before Monday, May 1st and save an additional 20%. As a CPLN member, your registration fee is only $80
Click here to register, or call 1-800-296-0659

Don't miss out on this powerful, uplifting event.

It Seems to Me . . .

. . . we jumped for joy too quickly a few years ago.

A medical study reported that patients who had received prayer, healed more quickly than those who were not prayed for. Upon reading or hearing this news, many of us not only gave praise but we thumped our chest; prayer works and now we can prove it!

Fast forward to a few months ago when a more recent study indicated that those receiving prayer healed no better nor more quickly than those who had not received prayer. "Foul!" we cried; the study must have been flawed. And subsequent reports indicate that it may have been.

The problem is not with the studies but with our need to prove that prayer works. Certainly it would be a blessing to have a definitive study that demonstrates the prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. In the case of the earlier study, we later learned the praying that achieved better healing results was not exclusively Christian prayer. Are we prepared to say that all prayer to any god is equally effective? Equally valid? Does prayer "work" no matter to whom it is addressed? Are results the only criteria to be considered?

And, in the long run, is our goal to prove that our praying works or that when we pray in the name and authority of Jesus, the One who hears our prayers is also the One who works?

Though well intended, when we claim "Prayer works!" we are encouraging a formulaic, rabbit's foot kind of mentality. The praying that works, works because we have entered a relationship with the Creator of the universe and have discerned His heart and He has filled our soul with His purposes and passion.

That, it seems to me, is worth jumping for joy!

Phil

Getting Back to Seeking God’s Agenda

By Jonathan Graf

I was recently in a church in a denomination that was voting on merging with a second denomination. The Sunday I was there was the last day members could enter their votes. I overheard the member in charge of the voting trying to collect a vote from another member. The member who hadn’t yet voted wanted to pass because she didn’t know what it was all about. But the vote collector tried to push her to vote.

I thought to myself, she obviously hasn’t prayed about the situation, and is wisely abstaining. We would all agree: Making significant decisions without much prayer is indeed foolish.

But how many decisions do we as individuals and churches make without getting a clear answer from the Holy Spirit. Probably quite a few. Oh, we all pray at the beginning of a board or elders meeting, or before a vote at a congregational meeting, but does that always give us clear direction from God? I for one do not think so.

Jesus sought direction from the Father, often with all nights of prayer. If you look at every time scripture says that Jesus went away (night, early morning, etc.) to pray, you will find something interesting. Each time Jesus did that, immediately afterwards he either made an important decision, or changed direction in His ministry.

Luke 6:12-16 shows us that He prayed all night before selecting the Twelve. Mark 1:35-39 reveals a time Jesus prayed and Peter interrupted Him because there were so many people looking to be ministered to. Yet, Jesus said, “Let us go somewhere else—to the nearby villages—so I can preach there also.” He changed direction despite obvious ministry needs before Him. Clearly, Jesus used those deep prayer times to get His marching orders.

How much more do we need those times of prayer—both individually and especially as churches. But these times of prayer are certainly rare these days. Thinking, “we can do it” Westerners that we are, it’s not easy being dependant on God for direction. We have everything we need to make logical decisions—and we do. That, plus being used to instant everything, does not make for the patience necessary for the “God, we need to get your heart on this,” decision-making process.

I wonder if that isn’t the reason so many of our churches are stagnant, status quo churches, that have not seen growth—-numerically or spiritually—-in years. We have left seeking God out of the mix in how we operate. When we fail to seek God’s agenda, we depend solely on the latest church growth or leadership books; we are at the mercy of the controlling board member who always gets a convenient “check in his spirit”; we can only go as far as our human resources will take us (certainly not into God’s immeasurably more than all we could ask or imagine!--Ephesians 3:20).

What would happen if we all went back to the truth of Jeremiah 29:11-13 (which are corporate verses, by the way—written for a group). If we will seek God with all (meaning collective) our hearts, we are going to find the plans He has for us. And Jeremiah says they are plans to prosper us, plans to give us a hope and a future.

How about a new pattern. Pray for 45 minutes to an hour before board or elder meetings. Have half- or all-nights of prayer as important decisions loom (or even just to show your dependence on God!). Develop a weekly, biweekly, or monthly prayer meeting solely with seeking God for direction in mind (no needs-praying). And if the people won’t come to you, bring prayer to the people. Turn some Sunday morning services into prayer meetings if needs be. Have a time of corporate prayer (10-15 minutes); get people into small groups, give them a topic to pray over, and set them praying.

If we want to see the power of God at work in our congregations again, then we need to seek Him for direction and blessing. We need to stop giving lip service to prayer in churches, and truly pray.

Join in a Year-Long Missions Prayer Focus

By Lisa Flake and Dave Imboden

The US Center for World Mission’s Global Prayer Digest and Ethne are partnering together to provide a year’s worth of daily prayers for the least-reached peoples on every continent from June 2006 through May 2007. Joshua Project is teaming together with Ethne to identify the unreached people groups (UPG) and least-reached peoples of the earth within 12 geographical regions–one for each month of the year.

The launch—June 2006--of this unprecedented year-long prayer initiative for is strategically aligned with this year’s Global Day of Prayer (GDOP) on Pentecost Sunday, June 4. The GDOP is preceded by 10 days of prayer and fasting and followed by 90 days of local outreach. Similarly, the Ethne effort works to see strategic harvest outreaches to the least-reached in each region of the world for the 90 days immediately following the global day of prayer. United prayer will open doors and fuel effective outreach efforts throughout the earth.

The following are some suggestions for getting your church involved in the world’s largest harvest-prayer effort in history:

1. Pray for these unreached people groups in church services, small groups, families, and individually.
2. Video clips, audio clips, and bulletin inserts on a monthly basis are available to download from www.ethne.net.
3. Network with your church’s mission outreach and those you know who are working among UPGs throughout the world. Let them know that a major prayer concentration is coming to their part of the world! Get them to spread the word and also make requests for them to send stories about preparations and results from work that is coordinated with the prayer emphasis to This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .
4. Place a high profile announcement or banner on your church’s home page, linking it further to a page just for recruiting involvement for this year’s GDOP and Ethne’s Year of Prayer. 
5. Provide links on your web page to the Global Prayer Digest so they can pray each day . . . or have them sign up for a daily email version at: http://www.global-prayer-digest.org/dailydata/getdaily.asp?which=today.
6. Send out prominently placed news with your regular church e-mailings, linking them back to your web page for more information.
7. Make announcements whenever possible reminding your people of the year-long emphasis.

In addition to the above, let Ethne know how you plan to be a part of this emphasis. This in turn has the potential to increase momentum as more and more people realize this is a truly global effort. All correspondence should be emailed to: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .

In closing, the current worldwide stresses and strains of human and natural disasters may remind one of Habakkuk’s complaint in Hab. 1:2-4, therefore, may our prayer be that God would grant us grace to pray for and reach out to the least-reached and unreached peoples of the world—in full expectation of the Lord’s answer:
 
“Look at the nations and watch--and be utterly amazed. For I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told.” (Hab. 1:5).

Lisa Flake is the missions prayer director at Harvest Prayer Ministries. A strong missions advocate, Lisa is available to do missions prayer seminars in churches.

Dave Imboden serves with ACMC as communications manager and prayer coordinator. Previous to ACMC, Dave served four years as a missions-active pastor and eleven years with the US Center for World Mission, where he helped facilitate the Adopt-A-People Campaign and edited the Missions Mobilizer’s Handbook and Vision for the Nations curriculum.

Children and Prayer

Adopt-a-Kid for Prayer

Statistics show that a vast majority of people make decisions to give their hearts to Jesus Christ when they are children. But at the same time, the statistics regarding those who grew up in the church, who leave the church as young adults, are absolutely abismal. What happens? Somewhere, something falls down. I wonder if it has anything to do with the level of prayer that a church prays for its kids and teens?

Many churches are getting more and more serious about seeing their kids prayed for. One of the most popular plans is to assign adult intercessors to each child in the church. Here's a simple ideas to get you started:

Prayer Cards
Develop an information card, complete with photo and important facts, for each child and teen. They can be made in Sunday school classes, or during children's church and youth meetings. Take photos of each child (bring a digital camera and printer to church). Paste the photos on 5.5 x 8.5 card stock paper. Write important facts below (child's name, number of siblings, school name, etc). For older children and teens, you might include other facts about their dreams, desires, etc.. Don't put anything a child is not comfortable having others see.

After these prayer cards are completed, give them to adults to pray. If possible, make an announcement about the program in church, the bulletin, etc. If you can have some platform time, make sure adults know why the church feels this is important to do. Set up a sign-up table in the foyer of the church for a number of weeks. There you will have adults pick up the cards. We recommend having a master list so you know which adult is praying for which child. You may want to put the phone number of each intercessor on the list. This is so you or the church can call them if anything significant (emergency health need, etc.) comes up in the life of the child. Keep setting up the table each week until all the cards are gone.

Instruct teachers to inform you when new kids come to church. You will want to get cards made for them as well. We also recommend making new cards every year. You want to have a resign-up each year. But allow those who want to, to sign up for the same child he or she prayed for during the past year. Solicit these people before you go public with a new program.

About three years ago, the church I was going to at the time, set up a similar program. I took a card of a four-year-old boy named Jonathan (my name). After church one day about six months later, I introduced myself to him; shook his hand, and told him I was praying for him. His mom especially was blessed. Today, years later, living a thousand miles away, I still have that card in my Bible. I pray whenever I see it. Your people will do that, too.

Jonathan Graf

Website to Bookmark

WHen you type the word "prayer" into a google.com or ask.com search engine, you come up with hundreds of thousands of possible websites. That overwhelming number proves not to be very helpful. From time to time, we will alert you to unique sites we have found. Here's one that can encouarge you and your people on a regular basis:

http://www.prayercentral.net

This website, run by missionaries Wayne and Kathleen Dillard, has a number of unique features. You can make and send prayer encourage cards to people who are hurting, (http://www.prayitsayit.net/); you can find simple ideas to encourage others and you family with prayer. But my favorite section is "inspire." In this section, you will find exciting, encouraging stories of faith, plus two 31-day devotionals: In His Name and The ABC's of Prayer. Each devotional has a word of instruction and encouragement, sriptures to read, and a prayer to pray related to the devotions instruction.

We recommend checking out prayercentral.net.

A Powerful Gift for Someone Special . . . or You

The Prayer Bible

Bar none, the most unique Bible to help someone grow in his or her prayer life is The Prayer Bible (New Living Translation) by Tyndale Publishers. More than most specialty Bibles that just include some devotional thoughts, The Prayer Bible literally teaches people how and what to pray. It is loaded with practical helps that will drive people into deeper levels of prayer. Among its many features, it includes:

• Prayer Prompts on every page of the Bible, that will inspire you to pray back the truths of Scripture to God
• Prayer Path notes will show you how to have a more intimate prayer life
• Stories of Answered prayer will encourage you that God is listening to and answering your prayers
• Prayer Programs will guide you through various topics on prayer such as intercession, praying when afraid, etc.
• A Topical Index of Prayers and who prayed them is listed at the beginning of each book in the Bible.

It is a practical resource for prayer leaders because it will give you lots of topics and ideas for teaching sessions and practical aide in putting prayer guides together. We recommend it for you or for anyone special you want to give a meaningful gift to.

We regret that we cannot offer it at a discount to our members. You can purchase The Prayer Bible at www.prayershop.org or through your local bookstore. It comes in both hardcover ($34.99) and softcover ($24.99) editions.