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Tools & Tips: Building a Better Working Relationship between the Prayer Team and Church Leadership |
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By Jonathan Graf
Pray the Vision of Your Church
Prayer teams can appear to have their own agendas. One of the best ways to correct that is to plan prayer strategies around the vision or mission statement of your church. This shows leadership your clear support.
How does this work?
First, dissect the mission statement to find its main elements. Often church mission statements have “Win” (evangelism), “Grow” (discipleship), and “Send” (missions) elements. Determine what church ministries fall into each element.
Next, analyze how existing prayer ministries are supporting those elements. Does your prayer focus revolve around the elements you just identified? Are you focusing prayer for the lost, education ministries, and missions? Identify where prayer is strongest and weakest.
Finally, increase prayer support in the weakest areas. Look for ways to give prayer cover to each element of the statement. For example: if women’s ministry has scheduled a major outreach event, work with them to develop a prayer cover for this event.
Planning a prayer strategy around your mission statement will bring a synergy between prayer and other ministries of the church. People will take notice. As your leaders see prayer as a direct asset to the vision of your church, they will get more excited about prayer. That excitement will mean greater involvement from them.
Pray and Plan
As prayer leaders, we try to live out the importance of seeking God and following His lead rather than relying on our own wisdom (Prov. 3:4-6). But, because of this, prayer people can seem to be “anti-plan” or appear to “fly by the seat of their pants.” When we leave that impression, it is difficult to lead. We lose respect of those in authority—pastors, elders and church boards.
Here are two tips to help us fit into the planning culture of a church.
- Seek God, but Map Out. Great biblical leaders sought God for direction, but mapped out what they were to do. Joshua spent a lot of time in the Tent of Meeting communing with God, but he was also a strategist and competent leader. Let others know where you are taking them. When you lead a prayer time, have a plan. When you lead a meeting, set the agenda (with God’s direction) ahead of time. That doesn’t mean you can’t deviate as the Holy Spirit leads, but people are more comfortable with leaders who clearly know where they are going.
- Report to Leadership. Many organizations do not give oversight to individual ministry leaders. This can lead to a breakdown in communication. Regularly report to your pastor (supervisor) and church board (leadership team)—even if it’s not requested. Give them a clear account of what the prayer team has been doing and your goals for the next three, six and 12 months (such a plan can still be found through prayer!). As leadership observes that you have vision and direction, they get more comfortable.
An excellent resource to help you is chapter 7 “Developing a House of Prayer Strategy” from Cheryl Sack’s book, The Prayer Saturated Church (NavPress 2004).
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November 2005