When We Pray and Care, God Opens the Doors to Share

By Paul and Jeannie Cedar

It all started in Minnesota. After serving pastorates in southern California for more than 20 years, Paul was called to serve as president of a denomination whose international offices were located in Minneapolis. We moved into a new townhouse in a growing neighborhood in the Twin Cities area.

While Paul was ministering throughout the world, Jeannie was beginning a prayer ministry in our neighborhood. It turned out to be a very significant ministry in the lives of a number of women.

A small group began meeting weekly in our kitchen. As they prayed and shared together, they reached out with love to a number of neighbors. Over the next few years, the group grew in size and influence. Several women came to faith in Christ while others grew in their faith.

A few years later, God called us back to southern California when Paul became chair of the Mission America Coalition/U.S. Lausanne Committee. As we moved into a new neighborhood, the Lord nudged Paul to become involved with Jeannie in reaching out with Christ’s love to our neighbors. Of course, our neighbors are not only the people who live close to where we live. Our neighbors include our associates at work, classmates, the checkout persons at the grocery store, our doctors—any person God brings into our lives.

Over the next few years, the Lord used various partners of the Mission America Coalition to teach us three basic principles for loving our neighbors. The Lord has used these principles in our lives and in the lives of so many others—leading to the formation of the Lighthouse Movement that has reached literally tens of thousands of people with the love and good news of Jesus Christ.

The principles are simple and practical—and spiritually potent. When we put them into practice, God uses them in powerful ways. They are prayer, care, and share.

Prayer for Open Doors

Shortly after we moved into our neighborhood, we began to take regular prayer walks, quietly praying for the residents in each house—even if we did not know their names. As we walked and prayed, the Lord gave us natural opportunities to get to know our neighbors. It was truly amazing how the Holy Spirit opened doors.

One late afternoon as we were prayer walking, a man suddenly walked out of the front door of his house. He greeted us, and we began a conversation. We visited for a few minutes and then he said, “Why don’t you come in and have a drink.” Within five minutes of meeting him, we were sitting in his living room, sipping iced tea and getting acquainted with him and his wife.

God did it that day and has done it over and over again. When we pray, God opens doors!

Prayer evangelism is exceedingly powerful. We have witnessed that not only in our geographical neighborhood, but in literally every sphere of our lives. We have also observed that rarely is just one person involved in praying for the salvation of a given person. As the Apostle Paul observed, one or more of us may plant the initial seeds of the gospel through prayer and other means, several of us may water that seed through acts of love and kindness, but only God can bring the increase (1 Cor. 3:6).

After we had lived in our neighborhood a few years, a new couple moved into the house across the street. They were initially friendly to us until the husband found out we were involved in ministry. Then he backed away. We continued to pray for them and to seek uncontrived opportunities to love them.

One Saturday morning as we were working in our front yard, he suddenly came out of his house and began a very friendly conversation with Paul. He said that his brother had recently invited him to attend a men’s retreat with a group of men from his church. He added that he had never done anything like that before but enjoyed it a great deal.

Then he asked a totally unexpected question. He asked if Paul would help him find a Bible study. Obviously the Holy Spirit had been moving in his life and had led him to ask the question. We began a neighborhood Bible study, and soon he committed his life to Christ and his wife made a recommitment.

This is a wonderful example of a team effort. His Christian brother had been praying for him. We had been praying for him. Only the Lord knows how many others may have been praying for him. The Lord graciously used those prayers and now this man is serving Christ.

All of us can be used of God in praying for our neighbors!

Care with Loving Hearts

Praying for lost people is only the first step in this wonderful lifestyle. As we begin to seriously pray, the Lord opens opportunities to reach out to them with unconditional love. We are not talking about a mere human endeavor. We are talking about an authentic and loving lifestyle of praying, caring, and sharing with others.

Jesus has taught us that we should love the Lord our God with all our hearts and souls and minds and strength—and that we should love our neighbors as ourselves (Mark 12:30–31). This is not merely an option for true followers of Jesus. Nor is it a suggestion. It is the Great Commandment of our Lord Jesus Christ.

A powerful, effective way for us to love our neighbors is to pray for their salvation and then look for the Holy Spirit to provide natural ways for us to love them. It is truly remarkable to see how creative the Lord can be in providing wonderful opportunities for us to lovingly care for our neighbors.

As we pray, the Holy Spirit lays certain individuals on our hearts and gives us the opportunity to love them and to care for them. In fact, that is what caring is. It is love in action!

Jeannie met an older woman who lived not far from our home who was going through a difficult time. The woman, feeling hurt and anger, needed someone to love her and listen to her. It took time but soon she accepted a few cookies, a warm meal, an extra pie that Jeannie had baked, and then a Scripture passage on a 3×5 card to encourage her. Later she received a large-print Bible, eager to learn more of Jesus. What a joy it was to see God’s love move in her heart and give her the assurance of her salvation shortly before He called her home.

As we begin to sincerely and fervently pray for our neighbors, some will respond to us almost immediately. For others, it may take months or even years. But we need to keep praying and caring. The key is for us to be sensitive to the leading and moving of the Holy Spirit. We cannot open the spiritual doors into the lives of others. Only God can do that.

Jeannie has discovered that when God places on our hearts a new or fresh way to reach out to someone, we must obey quickly. It requires intentional effort to take a meal to someone, share a special book, or lovingly care for that person in an appropriate way. Do it now!

All of us are surrounded by people who are hurting in various ways. Like Jesus, we need to see people as He sees them—“harassed and helpless,” and spiritually lost “like sheep without a shepherd” (Matt. 9:36). What a joy and privilege to respond to them with the love and the compassion of Jesus!

People are not born again by our methods. They are born again of the Holy Spirit (John 3:7–8). When we begin to pray for lost people, the Holy Spirit somehow graciously responds to our prayers and begins His ministry of wooing, drawing, and even convicting (John 16:8).

This is a mysterious spiritual truth. Jesus explained, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him” (John 6:44). Reaching out to others with the good news of Jesus Christ is not something we do for God. It is something that the Holy Spirit will do through us when we invite Him to do so.

Share the Gospel

We find it interesting to see how the Lord works and how His Spirit draws people to Himself. Sharing flows naturally out of the life of praying and caring. And sharing Jesus’ love is so much a matter of praying, waiting, and listening for what His Spirit wants us to do next.

We can begin to share in many ways—often simply making ourselves available to people. As we pray and care, we can listen to their pain, respond with authentic love to their needs, answer their questions and, within that context, share the good news of Jesus Christ.

Sharing the gospel in deed and word can be as simple as inviting our neighbors to a church service, a Bible study, a movie, a concert, or another special event where the gospel message will be shared. Or we may guide them to an evangelistic website, a book, or a DVD. We can also share our personal testimony or engage them in a spiritual conversation.

When someone’s heart seems to be opening to the things of God, Jeannie loves to share something like the devotional booklet Our Daily Bread. That often leads to an opportunity to ask how we can pray—or simply let them know we are praying! Then we wait for new opportunities to express our love in Jesus’ name.

Sometimes it seems to take forever. We once waited 16 years before we saw evidence of God’s Spirit doing remarkable work on a heart. But now that new Christian is seeking to grow in Jesus.

As we pray and care, the Lord wonderfully opens opportunities for us to share in very loving, natural ways. Jeannie became friends with a sweet neighbor who grew very close to Jeannie’s heart. They shared tea, took some trips to the store, and enjoyed other activities together. One day the neighbor saw a verse on our kitchen table and asked, “Do you understand that?”

The verse was Philippians 4:6. Jeannie found her Living Bible and read the verse to the neighbor, who was so pleased and said, “I understand.”

Jeannie asked the neighbor if she would read the Living Bible if Jeannie bought her one. The neighbor agreed, and she loved how clear God’s Word was to her. The two women learned some verses together and talked about them. They even memorized Romans 10:13: “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” She did—and He did! And this precious neighbor is now with Jesus.

Of course, our neighborhood is not static. Several of our neighbors moved away before we had the opportunity to become well acquainted or see them seek after Jesus. We attempted to love them, listen, and pray for them—and now we are trusting that the Holy Spirit has planted them within boundaries of others who will continue the ministry of sharing Jesus with them while we continue to pray for them.

Without a doubt, one of the greatest privileges of our life and ministry is to love our neighbors. We don’t always do it perfectly. Yet it is a wonderful, joyous, and fulfilling journey.

PAUL AND JEANNIE CEDAR make it their high priority to minister together to their neighbors. In addition, they partner in the ministries of the Mission America Coalition, where Paul serves as chairman (missionamerica.org).

The First and Last Answer

A young man studying to be a priest returned home after a long absence to visit his family. He was shocked at the changes he witnessed. He knew his mother and sister had been living promiscuous lives, drinking excessively, and bringing disgrace and shame on the entire family. But what he found when he returned was almost a complete reversal.

He asked what caused the dramatic changes in their lives. Their response astounded him. They said a woman who visited them explained that they were destroying their lives. They did not want to listen, so she simply said, “I will pray for you every day.” Then she left.

After a few days the mother and daughter began to feel convicted about their lifestyles. The pleasure they used to feel in their sinful living began to disappear. They grew tired of waking up sick in the morning, bringing upon themselves the ridicule of neighbors and shame of the family. At first they did not understand what was happening. Then one day the same woman came by to see them. When they asked her what she had been doing that might have been influencing them, she said, “Just praying.”

At that point the women began listening as she taught them the simple truths of faith and trust in Jesus. Eventually they made a commitment to Christ, asked to be baptized, and then found a good church to attend.

After seeing this change in the mother and daughter’s lives, both the son and his father were deeply touched. The father gave his permission for the women to be baptized because he had never witnessed this kind of transformation. The son also began searching for spiritual answers and chose to follow his mother and sister in a declaration of faith in Christ through baptism.

Prayer is an integral part of the daily lives of Christians here in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Most begin to pray before they get out of bed in the morning and pray for every event as it takes place during the course of the day. No issue is too big or too small that prayer is not the first and last answer. God has responded in amazing ways to many of the prayers of His children. They may have things to learn, but they also have things to teach us as we grow together in our relationship with our heavenly Father.

–Ed and Brenda Buell

Indonesia Ministry Adopts Streets

Indonesia has the largest Muslim population of any country in the world. The believers of Indonesia recently hosted the World Prayer Assembly (May 2012), with 9,000 prayer leaders from around the world coming to pray, worship, and cry out to God for spiritual awakening. More than 100,000 Indonesians filled the stadium in Jakarta for a closing prayer rally that was broadcasted to 375 cities in various stadium venues throughout Indonesia.

The Church in Indonesia was already united in an extraordinary way, but this new wave of prayer became the catalyst for greater unity. Reports came back that in city after city the whole Church came together—evangelicals, mainline churches, Pentecostals, and Catholics all joined in prayer.

Game Changer

Because of the greater unity in the prayer movement, the My Home Indonesia project was launched. It calls all believers in the nation to adopt their streets, neighborhoods, workplaces, and classrooms—to pray, reach out in compassion, and share God’s love.

During the stadium prayer meeting, hundreds of thousands of Christians across the nation used their cell phones to text commitments to My Home Indonesia. The momentum continues to build as entire denominations are signing on to adopt streets in all the cities.

The goal for the next two years is to see 15 million Christians adopt their streets through daily prayer and acts of kindness to their neighbors. Indonesia is a country that faces many challenges: drugs, prostitution, anarchist demonstrations, gangs, and gambling. But the believers in this land are rising up together to see transformation—and not just through prayer, but also by loving and reaching out to their neighbors and their community. For more information, go to myhomeindonesia.org.

Preparing the Soil through Prayer

God’s work involves both the land (soil) and the people (heart). In Jesus’ parable of the seed and the sower, the seed refers to the Word of God, and the soil refers to one’s inner being, the heart. And Jesus speaks of four types of heart soil: hard soil, rocky soil, thorny soil, and good soil (Mark 4:8–20).

I have learned that praying on site—whether prayer walking, prayer journeys, or prayer missions at targeted locations—not only prepares the soil of hearts but can remove spiritual obstacles. In Ephesians, Paul indicates that praying for God’s will and work helps open hearts to hear, see, and understand the mysteries of His will, of Christ, and of the Church and the gospel (Eph. 1:18–21; 3:8–21).

Effective evangelism is more than an activity or program, more than sharing our faith. It involves planting the gospel in receptive hearts (our harvest field). We go beforehand in prayer, helping prepare the way of the Lord—on the land and in the hearts.

I believe the Lord sends out harvest workers to receptive people in response to our sending pray-ers who pray both beforehand and as we are evangelizing and discipling in the locations. We must not only care about going into every nation to share the gospel but also be praying on site in every nation for His Kingdom to come.

In the 1970s, a multi-dimensional evangelism outreach called “I Found It,” swept across major cities in the United States. As the director in Denver, I chose to prepare the soil by conducting prayer training in more than 60 churches, with three-hour prayer workshops. As a result, the ratio of the number of people who heard the message and those who indicated they invited Christ into their lives was greater than in other cities that conducted only the outreach campaign (without incorporating the prayer workshops). I believe God used the emphasis on prayer in Denver to prepare the hearts of the 6,500 people who received Christ.

During the shakeup and dismantling of the USSR in 1991, I was part of a ministry team in one of the Baltic republics. We were there to help prepare, through prayer, the way for the church to arise during this nation-building transition. My prayer partner and I ended up in a city that had been off-limits to foreigners for 51 years. At one point we were invited to speak in a high school assembly to more than 400 students.

I led out with prayer. Then the principal stopped me and asked if I had just prayed. I was surprised, but I responded with a firm yes.

The principal exclaimed that they had never before experienced prayer in the school. She excitedly asked me to pray again!

We could sense the openness among the students after those prayers. The Spirit of God moved us to sing a couple of heartfelt worship choruses and give a salvation message. At the end of the high-school assembly, most of the students responded to receive Christ. Glory!

–Earl Pickard