Even though I grew up in the church and became a follower of Jesus at a young age, I did not really practice regular prayer until I was a young man of 30 or so. Oh, I could pray. I knew how. But it was only important when I or a close friend experienced a crisis. That’s where many believers are when it comes to prayer—we are crisis pray-ers!
For the past 28 years, God has placed a burden on my heart for the average believer who struggles to have a dynamic prayer life—believers like me. Believers who know they should pray more, but just can’t seem to get into the practice of regular, meaningful prayer. They represent a majority of people in virtually every church.
Can you imagine what the Kingdom could do if this majority learned to pray and became dedicated to praying for God’s purposes to be fulfilled in their lives, their church, their community, and their world? Revival!
Prayer Connect Refocus
Over the past few years, God has been moving us at the Church Prayer Leaders Network to increase our focus to encourage, equip, and disciple everyday believers in prayer—while still encouraging and resourcing prayer leaders, pastors, and churches.
It started a few years ago with a new training website, love2pray.com, which seeks to help believers in their personal prayer lives. In May of last year, we released a very practical prayer discipleship book, The 21 Most Effective Prayers of the Bible, by Dr. Dave Earley, designed to help people understand biblical prayer and its purposes
We also released a new, expanded version of one of our bestselling products, Solid Foundation: The Power of Praying Scripture, a little book that has inspired and taught tens of thousands how to pray God’s Word back to Him.
Now, with this issue of Prayer Connect, we are refocusing a bit to include more content designed to inspire and equip “everyday believers” in a congregation to pray. Besides the theme section, there are four sections I think you will find helpful:
• Pray the Word: Power of Praying Scripture
• Pray for Our Nation: Focused Prayer for America
• One Cry: United Prayer for Revival and Awakening
• Tips & Tools: Ideas to Stimulate Prayer
We also added a new subscription type “Church Digital Bulk,” which allows churches that sign up to email a PDF of each issue of Prayer Connect to their entire congregation. Perhaps you’re enjoying this issue because your church has subscribed!
Since this is the first issue of our refocused Prayer Connect, we encourage you to help us send it far and wide by emailing the PDF of this issue to your friends. Make sure your pastor and elders see it, too.
Help us encourage and equip everyday believers to grow in prayer!
– Jonathan Graf
To subscribe to Prayer Connect, click here.
