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You're hearing Pastor Jim
Cymbala of the Brooklyn Tabernacle.
Practical Models That Pastors Can Use To Facilitate
a Spirit of Prayer
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"Before God calls pastors to
be preachers, he calls them to be prayer leaders. Prayer leaders do not just tell their congregants to pray, or assume they
will pray, the pastor sees to it that they do and leads by example." "Corporate prayer also demonstrates who
is really praying and who is not. You can't fake it here for long. This is the setting our church leaders ought to be
chosen from and no other. How many a pastor has placed a leader in a position, to discover he or she building a
personal kingdom at friendship's expense? Prayerless Christian is an oxymoron. If a person doesn't
submit to God, how will his or her heart submit to anyone else? The corporate prayer meeting can serve as a helpful
filter to determine who is really on the team. Without corporate prayer at the center setting precedent, the pastor condemns
himself to forever evangelizing the same ole religious, prayerless, proud crowd while telling himself 'This
is ministry'" Or worse, he coddles them and tells them what they want to hear, so he can make a living. "Corporate prayer produces effective preaching,
not preaching produces corporate prayer" "My House shall be called a house of prayer" Prayer Walking For instance at North Charleston High School,
there are a few students who represent a number of different congregations, who are praying throughout their school day. They
have agreed, starting this November, 2008 to "speak the mountain and command it to go into the sea" in this manner:
Under their breaths, unknown to their peers and falculty, as they are inspired and persuaded by the Spirit, these students
are declaring (not mindlessly parrotting or chanting) the following: 1) The Humble King is Alive. 2) The Humble King is Worthy. 3) These souls are His. As they sense His presence, they are also praying for fellow
students and teachers to know Christ. This
is not being done with arrogance or flamboyance, but with authority, before invisible powers who blind minds to the Gospel.
And they are doing it with this motive: For God's pleasure. Banner Prayer This is a great way to encourage corporate prayer among your church members. It is no
coincidence that the specific petitions made in the Tabernacle/Temple, were made after the worship, not before. This
modeled for New Testamament believers the heart condition that comes from being in God's manifest presence, which enables
us to pray more sincerely and effectively. Suggestion: Make posters
or banners touching upon different areas of life and spread them throughout a large room or sanctuary. One model does it this
way: 1.
Souls in the city 2.
Family 3. Neighbors/Co-workers 4. Leadership within congregation 5. Leadership of city, state and nation 6. The peace of Jerusalem (Which is the
return of the Lord) 7.
Souls in Schools/Young People 8.
Revival 9. The Local
Body of Christ/Unity/The Pastors Invite
church members to divide and gather around the various banners/posters and to pray together in small groups. Begin
playing a good praise and worship (or Hymns) cd over the cd player/sound system. Every 7 minutes,
turn up the volume for 5 seconds to signal participants to move to the next banner/poster. You will see the Holy Spirit move
within hearts, especially on those praying for family and revival. These will hit close to home. Do
this weekly for several months and see what happens in your parishoner's hearts as well as in the lives of those they
for whom they are praying.
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Lighthouses of Prayer This
model can be used to challenge believers to pray daily for people in their spheres of influence. One
model has families, couples and individuals praying for their 21 (or any number) most immediate neighbors
BY NAME atleast 5 minutes a day. They pray
for God's manifest presence to continually come upon others' lives and homes. They
pray for His blessings in various areas of these others' lives. They
pray that their hearts and minds would be opened to the love of Jesus and experience rebirth. What usually results are opportunities for people to build solid relationships with their neighbors,
many who are unchurched at first. But that changes with the windows opened for God's Holy Spirit.
All Night Prayer Meeting Methodists, Baptists and
Pentecostals used to "pray through". We used to take the time to navigate through the pride and selfishness of our
own hearts to find the heart of God. These prayer-spawned movements grew to become influential organizations in times
of harvest, but now in this season of darkness the time has come to reclaim the "lost of art" of "praying through".
Coming Soon: A weekly, one hour radio broadcast that will allow
families all across the Lowcountry to gather together, to both worship in their homes and pray for various people and needs.
"But
many in our family and congregation will find it hard to pray for others?" Thats part
of being a leader. Yes, leading people to pray sincerely means causing them to face the hardness of their own hearts.
At first, we fall in love with the idea of parroting prayers for people because it makes us feel good about ourselves,
but after a while it becomes a robotocol drudgerey, unless we face the fact we hardly know His love for people enough to pray
with passion. Bringing pressure on congregants to pray can cause them to face themselves, which is a difficult thing in the
short-term, but great thing in the longrun with Love Himself in the mix. These models can be reinforced from the pulpit by
messages that help people to see that we need to see His love much better than we do - starting at the Cross. We American
Christians need to be re-aquainted with the phrases "Seek the Lord" and "Wait on the Lord". This
is discipling! The difference between manipulation and leadership is motive. Motive is purified in the manifest presence of
God: Prayer.The time has come to lead.
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Parkcircleprayer.com is a part of a parachurch and laypeople's
effort, not a congregation, with the sole purpose of glorifying the Lord by supporting the divine institutions
of the family and local congregation through the facilitation of community-wide prayer events which are led by Christian leaders
who are concerned for the eternal destiny of people and who desire to please the Lord by seeking Him together.
The representives of this effort do not speak for a central organization in this effort. There is none. Parkcircleprayer.com
is just a website. They speak for themselves and their desire to see a move of God's Spirit in our hearts. They and many
other church leaders are bound by a growing friendship based on the person of Christ and prayer. Costs have been minimal because
of cooperation between many leaders of various organizations who have a heart for prayer themselves. The goal of this
effort is build a dialogue that raises one question: What if we came together to seek God seriously? It is believed that the
impact of this dialogue will be far-reaching, because at some point God's people will move from beyond dialogue to action.
When that happens, the faithfulness of the Lord will be known by many. Revival will come and many will know His great love.
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