|
How God Mobilized Our Congregation to Pray |
|
|
|
By Susan Jones
In 2003, Victory Christian Fellowship of Trooper, Pennsylvania, planned a 40 Days of Purpose campaign to kick off our fall programs. Based on the book The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren, this spiritual journey was designed to equip believers to embrace God’s plan for them as individuals and as a congregation.
Our church had a regular Tuesday Night Intercessory Group of about
eight faithful participants, but prayer was something we wanted to grow
in. Our pastors, Ed and Lisa Crenshaw, asked me to coordinate prayer
efforts for the upcoming event. I initially enlisted a team of three.
Our desire was to saturate each church member in prayer prior to the
initiative and then sustain the prayer throughout the 40 days.
We tried to come up with a way to pray for every one of our church
members by name on a weekly basis. We divided the church membership
directory into thirds, but after about a week it became clear that we
needed a better idea! That‘s when God blessed us with an amazing but
simple-to-implement plan. We call it Pray 10.
Ten seemed to be a manageable number, so we went through our church
directory and counted off groups of that size. Each family or
single-person was considered as a household unit. Dividing the
congregation in this way was easy, but then came the more difficult
task of finding intercessors for each newly formed group.
From within each group of 10 we chose an intercessor. We prayed about
who we should appoint before calling to ask if they would be willing.
Everyone we contacted responded positively. They seemed pleased to be
asked. We provided each intercessor with a list of the 10 along with
easy-to-follow instructions. God surprised us by impressing us to
select people who were not already involved in our Tuesday night prayer
group. God was raising up new intercessors!
During this preparation time, we added a Youth Pray 10 and a Children’s
Pray 5. Even though the children were being covered in prayer by the
adults, we wanted to have them pray for each other, too. We worked with
the youth and children’s pastors to identify the pray-ers.
We notified our pastor that everyone in the church was being prayed for
by name each week as groundwork for the 40 Days of Purpose. He was
thrilled and announced this new prayer effort from the pulpit, letting
everyone know that they had a personal intercessor. We made lists of
the groups and intercessors available in the church lobby so that
members could find out who was praying for them.
Even before the 40 Days of Purpose was underway, our church had learned
more about its purpose—prayer! What better way to connect with God and
each other as we display the attitude of Christ? Many who had never
thought of themselves as intercessors became an integral part of the
church prayer team. I personally discovered more about my own purpose
during that time and accepted the position of church prayer
coordinator. And the Pray 10 concept became a permanent ministry in our
congregation.
New friendships were formed. Our intercessors report that they have
more of a heart of love for the church in general and definitely for
the 10 people/families on their lists. People now call on their
intercessors during times of particular prayer needs.
This ministry has provided us with an effective way to reach out to
newcomers as well. Once a visitor completes an information card, his
name is given to an intercessor. When the newcomer returns, he is
greeted after the service with, “Do you know who your intercessor is?”
It is great to watch the expression on faces when we locate their names
in the Pray 10 directory and identify their personal intercessors.
We’ve made some changes to the Pray 10 program since that first summer,
but the basic format stayed the same. We update the Pray 10 lists every
four months. We’ve added more intercessors to accommodate changes in
the directory as our church has experienced a 30 percent increase in
attendance. New intercessors have been added to pray for visitors. One
of our computer-savvy pray-ers designed an interactive database that
allows all of the Sunday prayer requests to go directly to the
appropriate Pray 10 intercessor—what a blessing!
Our Tuesday night intercessors’ group asked God for more people to
become prayer warriors. We now have a total of 42 adults involved in
the Pray 10 ministry. Our goal in the beginning was to saturate our
congregation in prayer for a specific time-frame and purpose. But God
has blessed us beyond what we asked for or imagined. By His grace we
are truly on our way to becoming a house of prayer!
--Susan Jones is the prayer leader of Victory Christian Fellowship in Trooper, PA.
|
September 2005