About Pray the Word
Pray the Word is a movement that has two ministries (Evangelical Church of Bangkok, Harvest Prayer Ministries) and an individual (Tiece [Ty] L. King) behind it. Pray the Word actually has its early beginnings in 1992, during a time in the life of its developer, Ty, when life was hard. Ty and her husband, David, had just come back to the United States after 8 years of ministry in Thailand. They began pastoring a church.
Ty relates that their transition was difficult, and the work in the church tough. “But,” said Ty, “it pushed me deep into the embrace of God and His Word. It was a season of utter soul desperation.” During this time, they longed to see the power of God displayed in His Church, so a hunger for more of Jesus and a longing to see the Church revived began growing. During this time, Ty began learning more and more to pray God’s Word. Soon she began writing out some prayers that were on her heart for their church. The church began praying them. They became a regular feature of the church’s bulletin. And God began to move.
Jump forward to 2010, and David and Ty took a call to pastor an international church in Thailand, the Evangelical Church of Bangkok. It was in their current ministry that things really began to gel with Pray the Word. ECB fully embraced the concept of praying God’s Word and it began doing more and more with the prayers that had been coming from Ty’s heart. Besides the weekly guides, ECB developed and released a 31-prayer booklet. Because of the international dynamic of the church, with nationals from many nations coming and going because of business, ECB had people translate the prayers into their native tongues. Soon the guides were available in 6-7 languages.
In 2013, God began laying the foundation to broaden the reach of Pray the Word. First, an app for smartphones was suggested. Ty relates that when someone suggested it, she did not even know what an app was. When another person suggested it, Ty prayed a simple prayer: “Lord, if this is something that you want me to do, then You know I am not exaggerating when I say that I know nothing about this kind of technology. If you want me to do this, I literally need someone to walk up to me and say, ‘I hear you want to do an app for the prayer booklet, and I’d like to do that for you.’ Two weeks later that is exactly what happened. It was with the developing of the all that we began to call this discipleship tool, Pray the Word.” (To download the app simply search for Pray the Word at your phone’s app store. It is free.)
Soon after the app started to be developed, another medium came into play. Through a “chance” meeting between two old college friends (who had both been in college with Ty and were friends) at a denomination convention the publishing reach expanded. One friend (Sharon) told the other (Jon, the head of PrayerShop Publishing, the publishing arm of Harvest Prayer Ministries), “You need to talk to Ty. She has this prayer guide that she might want to publish.” Within two weeks of that meeting, an offer to publish was made by PrayerShop. “I have been in publishing and prayer ministry for more than 20 years,” said Jon, “and while I have seen some great prayer resources in that time, I believe Pray the Word has the best potential to disciple people into a deeper walk with Jesus through a deeper prayer life. We are committed to Pray the Word!”
Originally, the plan was to publish a 90-Prayer version with space after each prayer to journal. But as we (PrayerShop | Harvest Prayer Ministries) worked on the product, we were deeply impacted by it . . . and that moved us to increase our plans with Pray the Word. We have now released three books:
Pray the Word: 90 Prayers That Touch the Heart of God
Pray the Word: 31 Prayers That Touch the Heart of God
Above all, we all believe that discipling people to pray the Word of God is the most significant and helpful thing we can do to impact individuals’ walks with Jesus and to impact the life and growth of a church. That is what this site will be about. While we are just starting to grow it, our plans are to make it a strong site with discipleship resources that inspire deeper lives of prayer.
Pray the Word!