ASSESSING THE PRAYER LIFE OF A CONGREGATION

It is the responsibility of the pastor to routinely assess the prayer life of a congregation.



We are all praying for the church and for God's blessings upon all the people who regularly attend worship and take part in the church activities. Only the Lord knows the truth about the sincerity and substance of our prayers. Still, any appraisal on our part needs to be multi-dimensional. It is important to evaluate the height, width, breadth and depth of the prayer culture of a congregation. Here’s how it might work.


Evaluating the Height – The Example of the Praying Leadership


The best place to begin an authentic assessment of the prayer life of the church is with the church leadership. You will find that the prayer life of a church seldom rises any higher than the personal commitment and example of the senior pastor.


Key evaluation questions for pastoral leadership


Am I leading by example? If we want a praying church, we cannot point the way; we must lead the way. We cannot just preach sermons but must lead God’s people in balanced, biblical and transformational prayer experiences. This does not mean that pastors have to manage and organize the prayer ministry. There are others with administrative gifts to do this. It does mean that pastors must lead by example. It is not necessary that they attend every prayer time each week, but they must be visible, passionate and consistent in their participation.


Am I cultivating a consistent private prayer life? At the core of every praying pastor is a hunger for God and a delight in His presence. This will be evidenced, not just in public venues, but in the place of private communion on a consistent basis.


Am I incorporating prayer into the leadership culture? A praying pastor must also lead and nurture a praying leadership team. This is best accomplished as the leadership team collectively studies the priority and possibilities of prayer. This must lead to engaging times of prayer together as a major component of leadership gatherings. Special evenings of prayer, prayer retreats and prayer summits can ignite a fresh love for prayer as part of the leadership culture


It is good to embrace Acts 6:4 as a primary definition of biblical leadership as we give our primary attention to “prayer and the ministry of the word.” This allows us to focus our efforts and delegate trustee and administrative duties to other people. As part of our growth in the priority of prayer our leaders have enjoyed multiple three-day prayer summits and embraced prayer and the word as the best use of our collective leadership time.


Are we teaching on prayer in various venues? A church leadership team should evaluate its members proactive commitment to instruct in prayer. Leadership should consider a regular plan to provide comprehensive, practical and motivational instruction on prayer--starting with the pulpit and implemented in classes, small groups and discipleship relationships.


Do we share personal stories about the power of prayer? The congregational prayer life is encouraged by personal stories about prayer. The pastoral team should be looking for these “satisfied customers” who can become missionaries of prayer as they share their motivational stories of God’s work in their lives.


Am I training other prayer leaders to help mobilize prayer? If a pastor did not train other motivated church members to lead in balanced biblical prayer, the prayer level might not grow beyond my ability to show up at all the prayer gatherings. It is also seen that the quality of the prayer times would suffer.


So we have to take time to clarify everything we have learned (and are still learning) about leading effective prayer times and keeping prayer meetings out of the ditch. I thought about the personal characteristics of an effective and enduring prayer leader. Then I began to gather current and potential prayer leaders for 6-8 weeks of training, coupled with opportunities to practice the principles we were learning.




Evaluating the Width – The Variety of Prayer Activities


When pastors lead by example and train others to facilitate biblical, balanced prayer times the prayer activities of the church can grow. This provides a variety of options from which participants can choose.


Width of Quantity – People connect with one another and the Lord in different ways and times. It is important that a church offer options for prayer-motivated members. Some are “roosters” and enjoy early morning opportunities while others are “owls” and like evening gatherings. Some need to connect around areas of common interests like parenting, youth ministry, men’s interests or women’s concerns. Some prefer prayer partners, others like small groups and many enjoy a large gathering for prayer. A highly directed prayer format will work for some while a more spontaneous and participatory mode suits others.


In evaluating the prayer life of a church it is important to consider the variety of practical options offered to allow people from a variety of backgrounds, interests and schedules to participate.


Width of Quality – Of course, the quality of the prayer activities must remain solid if the quantity is going to be effective. This requires trained leaders who provide capable, committed coordination for each prayer gathering. A church should have an ongoing training strategy to raise up competent and committed prayer leaders.


These leaders should meet, at least periodically, to share information about the effectiveness of the prayer times offered. Some will need to be discontinued, some should be strengthened.


Evaluating the Breadth – The Substance of a Prayer Culture


There is a difference between prayer-active people. Yet, the church is not largely affected by the prayer efforts. The goal is not to develop a prayer program that functions like a silo and is isolated from the rest of the church. The goal is a praying church where prayer permeates all the activities and gatherings in every department.


At first, the congregation will seem eager to start a weekly church-wide prayer time. We called it by different names like Power Meetings, Encounters, Deliverance Meeting etc. However, after a number of months it became apparent that we had the program of prayer ahead of the leadership in prayer. Most of the elders and staff will not attend regularly and then we realize we needed to slow the program until the leadership culture had developed more fully around the priority of prayer.


So, we have to augment the prayer programming but still work to grow the prayer culture. We have to cut down the Power Encounter service to a once-a-month event. At the same time, we can recruit more people to become active in the prayer room during the morning worship services. In this way we are able to adjust the prayer program but still grow a prayer culture with different and more helpful entry points.


A church is growing in a prayer culture when prayer is the default response of the leaders and people throughout the church. As it is often said, “prayer is not the only thing we do it is just the first thing we do.” This is the mark of a breadth in prayer. The commitment to prayer far exceeds the organized activities in prayer.


Genuine worship-based prayer is incorporated into every department of the church and most gatherings of the people. You see people engaging in spontaneous prayer in the midst of conversations, while talking on the phone or during fellowship times in the lobby on Sunday.


Evaluating the Depth – The Habits of Praying People


Ultimately the prayer life of a church is evidenced in the lifestyles of the people attending the church. Of course, this dimension is hard to quantify but the goal is that prayer becomes as comfortable as breathing and eating in the daily activities of congregational participants. Prayer is integrated into marriage, home, work and virtually every activity. It has broken beyond the walls of the church building and become fully integrated into the life patterns of the saints.


Again, a great way to fuel this commitment to depth in prayer is to teach about it, feature testimonies of those who are enjoying it and emphasizing it as the exciting “norm” for all Christians.


Key Questions and the Vital Outcome
If we could boil all of this down to some basic evaluation questions, it might look like this:


• HEIGHT: To what degree is the senior pastor and leadership team modeling prayer, cultivating prayer among their ranks, teaching on prayer, highlighting stories about prayer and training others to lead in prayer?


• WIDTH: How are we raising up other leaders to provide a broad variety of prayer opportunities that appeal to various interests and that are sustained my consistent and competent leadership?


• BREADTH: Are we helping out people understand the need for a prayer culture beyond prayer “activities” as we encourage and highlight prayer as a pervasive reality in all we do as a church?


• DEPTH: Are we encouraging and equipping our people to develop a depth in private prayer that will also be evidenced in marriage, family, work and community relationships?


Ultimately, this kind of evaluation should lead us back to the Throne of Grace where we appeal to the Savior again, “Teach us to pray.”


The evaluation should not cause guilt or pride, depending on the outcome. The goal is a resolve to grow higher, wider, broader and deeper in our dependence on Christ and our supernatural impact on the culture around us through the power of His life within us.

Adapted from "Fresh Encounters"

HEARING GOD'S VOICE

There is a story that I once heard; I do not know whether it is an actual story, but it touched me and so I am recalling it here...


Before the time of internet and e mail, people used telegraph for urgent communication. The system used a language called Morse Code, by which messages could be relayed from one end of the globe to the other in the shortest span of time.

The language comprised a series of 'dots and dashes' and only experienced personnel could handle it efficiently and effectively. Most countries had the telegraph under government sector and the employees were salaried government servants with all the associated perks.

Once an advertisement came in the prominent daily newspapers that there is ONE vacancy for the post of telegraph operator in a particular town. Interested applicants could just present themselves with their certificates and diplomas and appear for an open interview at 10.00 in the morning at the local headquarters of the Post and Telegraph department the next day.

Since the salary and other earnings were good, there were quite a lot of eligible applicants who presented themselves at the department the next day, well before 10.00 hrs. They were all directed to a waiting hall with the interview room at one side.

At 10.00 hrs sharp, the interview board filed in to the room, and the candidates were eagerly waiting for the applicants to be called in on first -cum-first-served basis. Nothing happened! Nobody came out of the interview room and the door remained closed.

After 30 minutes, a young man suddenly rushed into the interview hall, breathless from running form the nearest bus stop. He sat down on a vacant seat; he remained there for about 2 minutes, and then he suddenly jumped up and ran to the closed door, opened it and went inside.

All those who were waiting were astonished! No one had called his name out! Nobody had come out of the office room! In fact, that door was never ever opened after 10.00 hrs!!!

After a few minutes, the office room door opened and the officer-in-charge came into the waiting hall and announced that the vacancy is filled and the interview is over. He thanked the candidates for coming and wished them a good day.

There was a great uproar!!! The assembled people cried out "this is injustice, this is corruption" !!! The mood of the crowd suddenly became very ugly.

The officer held up his hands for silence and said: "Since 10.00 hrs, we have been sitting behind that closed door and sending a Morse Code message out to all of you sitting here in this hall that we are ready to interview and appoint a qualified candidate. But none of you responded! Some of you were reading the newspapers; some of you were talking to each other; some of you were watching the television; some were sitting idly, thinking about something. This man came in and he heard and understood our message that if you come in now, you will be selected for the job and he ran inside. There is no question of corruption and there is no way we are going to accept any complaints about this interview. You may all go home now."

The crowd quietly filed out ....


From the time of creation, God has never stopped speaking to man.He speaks through His Word, which is the Holy Bible, He speaks through the creations, [Psalms 19:1 Heavens declare the glory of God...]

He speaks during our life crisis as well as blessings, He speaks in times of trials and tribulations....He speaks in times of joy and happiness....

But mankind has gone so far away from Him, that we are no longer listening to Him, we are no longer tuned in to His voice and thus we miss out on many blessings, corrections and warnings.

2 Chronicles 7:13, 14 says, "if I shut up heaven that there be no rain, or if I command the locusts to devour the land, or if I sent pestilence among My people, if My people which are called by My Name shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land".

When we study these two verses together, something becomes very apparent:

1. If there is no rain on our fields [- meaning, if there be no blessings in our efforts, job, business ],
2. If there be locusts destroying our crops [- meaning, if our efforts bear fruit, we feel that business is good & everything is going well, yet at the time of reaping the harvest, or when we take stock of the income, there is nothing to show for all our efforts ]
3. If there be pestilence amongst us [- meaning sickness]

- the reasons for the above three conditions maybe God's intervention. He wants you and me to understand there is something He wants more from us by way of surrender and dependence, humility and prayer.


He gives us three promises for our response if they be in accordance to His will:


1. I will hear from heaven
2. I will forgive their sin
3. I will heal their land


My dear friend, if the call of the internet social sites and chat rooms and the sound of the television or FM or the radio is blocking Gods' Voice, turn them off and open the Bible.

If your business and your social life is blocking out Gods' Word, shut them out of your day for sometime in the peace of your home and open the Holy Bible.

Let God's Word speak to you today ....you will see and experience the blessings which are the response of God Almighty to your faith.

God bless you

Motty

Prayer for victorious walk in Faith

One can see a simple yet powerful prayer for a successful walk in faith in Colossians 1: 10 to 12, which says, “ And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please Him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to His glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light.” 

Paul writes this epistle to the believers in the Church at Colosse, a city in Asia Minor, from the prison at Rome, around 60 AD. [Colossians 1:2 says “To the holy and faithful brothers in Christ at Colosse”] 

Paul had never ever visited Colosse during his missionary journeys, but the church was established there by Epaphras [1:7 and 4:12] who was from that city, who heard the gospel of salvation from him, who went back to his hometown and shared the message to others there.

The church was established and grew in faith, but soon, by the time Paul wrote this epistle, there was the problem of false teachings which had crept into the church, the body of believers, by the prevailing social and cultural conditions in Asia Minor. The problem was “syncretism”, which means combining ideas from other religions and philosophies, such as paganism, strains of Judaism and Greek thought with Christian truth.

Greece was the cultural capital of Europe and Asia Minor and had the most copious collection of mythology and philosophy in the west. It was only natural that the new believer tries to assimilate what he had heard in the church with the social and cultural knowledge that he had acquired over the years and try to practice a ‘combined’ version of Christianity, leading into heresy.

This heresy became known later as “Gnosticism”, emphasizing special knowledge [gnosis in Greek] and denying Christ as God and Savior.

The Gnostics emphasized rituals, festivals, and important religious gatherings over and above the power of Christ to grant salvation. They cloaked themselves as pious and humble, yet gave extra emphasis on their special knowledge of spiritual realm through worship of angels and other religious paraphernalia that they had carried forward from their Greek culture into the Church of God. [ Colossians 2:16 to 19]

Paul denies the spirituality of the Gnostics and stresses the deity of Jesus and the redemption from sin that Jesus achieved for the sinner by merit of His sacrificial death on the cross.

Even now, in the society around us, we find the strains of Gnosticism at loggerhead with the pure faith in Christ Jesus. When a person is weak from sickness or in need of special prayer in face of a terrible situation that is threatening his very existence, whatever be the reason – educational, spiritual, workplace, home, or with regard to their children-  then they come and swear by the power of the prayer of the church and the power released by a Christians’ prayer which can wrought  a miracle. But once the answer comes, then they start arguments about whether it is this prayer of the poor Christian which  was effective or whether it was the offering that was made in the local temple or to a special saint that has given them the much-awaited deliverance.

So here, Paul is praying for the church and for the faithful believers; as the spiritual head of the church, we would expect him to pray for abundant blessings which are material such as prosperity, peace, social standing, riches,  and wealth and honor… but on the contrary, Paul prays for the believers faith, his faith life, the source of a believers’ spiritual power and the vital importance of his knowledge of God and the inestimable inheritance that a believer obtains in eternity by faith.

The power of a Christian is the power of Resurrection, the power of the Holy Spirit who raised up Jesus from the tomb. The power of a Christain is the power of creation that created the universe and the earth and everything in it by God’s Word. The power of a Christain is the power released into the spiritual realm that changes the circumstances and the surroundings of the believer upon the use of the name of JESUS.

JESUS: “ He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth.” [Colossians 1: 15 and 16]

This is one of the most powerful statements about the divine nature of Jesus Christ found anywhere in the Bible. He is not only equal to God , but He is God; as the image of the invisible God, He is the exact representation of  God; as the firstborn over all creation, He has the absolute power and authority just like the firstborn prince in a kings’ palace.

A believer who is rooted in faith in Him just has to ask and receive the answer, if the request is in accordance with the plan of God and as per God’s will.

I added here the italics because many times, our prayer requests may not be exactly according to God’s plan or God’s will. For example, if we take the life of Joseph given in the book of Genesis 37 to 50, Joseph would have prayed earnestly for deliverance from the bottom of the pit into which his brothers, who hated him, had thrown him; if God had delivered him then and there, Joseph would have gone back to his fathers’ house and back into his mothers’ kitchen and lead a life at ease and free from pain – but God’s plan and purpose for him would have been unfulfilled.

My dear friend, do you know God’s plan for you? Do you know Gods’ purpose when He created you?

The Bible says, “before you were created in your mother’s womb, I knew you” [ Jeremiah 1:4]. God knew us ! He knew what we are going to do….knew where we would be born, what we will become; He knew our life and future, He knew our children and children’s children….He knows our failures and our weaknesses and our life lies open before Him like a book.

John 1: 12 says about a believer’s new status in the eyes of God vis-à-vis Jesus,  “Yet to all who received Him, to those who believe in His name, He gave the right to become children of God”.

Can we take a rational look at lives today, and take a second look at what we are in God’s eyes and what He wants us to be and take a decision: “God, I want to be one of Your children”.

When you become a child of God, do not forget that the blessing that you get naturally extends to your family, to your husband, to your wife and your children.

Can we deny such a privilege and blessing that comes without any material cost to our dear ones?  All it takes is faith in JESUS as Son of God.

I pray that the Holy Spirit may help you in your faith walk in the days to come.

God bless you.

Motty