"Pray continually" 1 Thessalonians 5:17
Click the explanation you want now, of why and how Christ wants us to pray:
A. Pray Using Jesus’ Name
B. Seek the Holy Spirit’s Ongoing Renewal
C. Practice Personal and Family Prayers and Intercession
D. Pray Constantly for the Lost and for Spiritual Growth and Reproduction
E. Plan Prayerfully for Reproduction
08A. Pray Using Jesus’ Name
Cited from Church Multiplication Guide, Patterson and Scoggins, William Carey Library, Pasadena, chapter 8.
Jesus said, "I tell you the truth, my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete." John 16:23-24
The purpose of this chapter is to explain why--and how--our Lord Jesus Christ wants us to pray.
Mr. 'Traditionalist' asserts his view of prayer, "It has great psychological benefits. It lets you soar. It gives you a happy spiritual experience!"
Mr. 'Foresight' has a question about that. "Is that the only reason you pray? To feel good? You clip your spiritual wings and set yourself up for a fall if that’s the only reason you pray!"
Jesus tells us:
This, then, is how you should pray: ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.’ Matthew
"So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you."
Luke 11:9 (NIV).Find in Genesis 18:16-33 what Abraham did to move God to save his relatives. His prayer of intercession was like an argument. He started by asking God if he would spare the city of Sodom if there were 50 righteous people in it.
The LORD said, "If I find fifty righteous people in the city of Sodom, I will spare the whole place for their sake."
Then Abraham spoke up again: "Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord, though I am nothing but dust and ashes, what if the number of the righteous is five less than fifty? Will you destroy the whole city because of five people?" "
If I find forty-five there," he said, "I will not destroy it."
Once again he spoke to him, "What if only forty are found there?"
He said, "For the sake of forty, I will not do it."
Then he said, "May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak. What if only thirty can be found there?"
He answered, "I will not do it if I find thirty there."
Abraham said, "Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord, what if only twenty can be found there?"
He said, "For the sake of twenty, I will not destroy it."
Then he said, "May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak just once more. What if only ten can be found there?"
He answered, "For the sake of ten, I will not destroy it." (NIV)
Find in Matthew 26:36-46 our greatest example of submission to God:
Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, "Sit here while I go over there and pray."
He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, "My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me."
Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, "My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will."
Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. "Could you men not keep watch with me for one hour?" he asked Peter. "Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak."
He went away a second time and prayed, "My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done."
When he came back, he again found them sleeping, because their eyes were heavy. So he left them and went away once more and prayed the third time, saying the same thing.
Then he returned to the disciples and said to them, "Are you still sleeping and resting? Look, the hour is near, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us go! Here comes my betrayer!" (NIV)
A strengthening, life-giving discipline stems from Jesus’ command to pray, as in John 16:24; we develop regular prayer by the church as a body and daily personal and family prayer.
Cases abound in which through prayer Christian workers have overcome otherwise impossible hindrances to the work, when Satan has aimed his most powerful artillery at new churches, especially to keep them from multiplying. 2 Corinthians 10:3-5 assures us that the weapons for our spiritual our warfare are powerful to demolish evil strongholds. These evil strongholds include bad habits that cripple believers’ spiritual lives and keep them from loving one another. They also include doctrines of demons and even some church traditions that defy God’s Word. The newest and oldest believers all need to keep the weapon of intercessory prayer in their hands, heads and hearts by praying continually for others. Prayers of praise, repentance, healing, and petition also sustain our churches’ health. We pray both in public worship, in private, as a family and in the quietness of two or three ‘prayer warriors’ gathered together.
Take a moment to think about things in your church or your community that need urgent prayer.
08B. Seek the Holy Spirit’s Ongoing Renewal
Cited from Church Multiplication Guide, Patterson and Scoggins, William Carey Library, Pasadena, chapter 8.
God multiplies churches in what men call a people movement, revival, restorations, renewal or outpouring of the Holy Spirit; in all cases known to history God has moved this way only when His people prayed and let Him renew them day by day. This daily renewal that 2 Corinthians 4:16 promises is not a temporary experience but an ongoing, daily refreshing. When we let the Holy Spirit work actively in a church, He enables the members to do their different gift-based ministries. Humans often try to focus renewal on one or two spiritual gifts such as healing, evangelism, prophecy, tongues or Bible teaching. In true renewal, however, the Holy Spirit integrates many gifts in loving harmony in the body.
The Holy Spirit renews apostate, stagnant or sterile congregations that fail to reproduce when they pray and repent, and glorify Jesus by simply doing what He says. We limit this renewal, however, by applying it only to one area of the Christian life or ministry. True freedom in the Holy Spirit releases people to use all the gifts that He has given to a church body. These include the main gift for reproducing the church. He leads a church to separate its ‘sent ones’, in gifted as apostles to start daughter churches in distant fields, as in Acts 13:1-3. Those with other gift-based ministries cooperate to prepare and send them. We do this out of love for Jesus and each other, not out of guilt, ambition, or a desire to achieve goals as we chase our own vision.
Unfortunately, many with the apostolic gift must go outside of their church body to find appreciation for their calling, prepare, and learn church multiplication. This fractures the body of Christ. Teachers and leaders in these fractured bodies seldom use their gifts to mobilize those with the missionary gift. Their churches fail to reproduce consciously and purposefully as a body through their gifted apostles. We should pray for God’s power to keep reproducing as a church.
Church planting task groups in areas where Satan has held total control over the people’s minds for centuries, also need people with the gifts of faith and healing, who encourage others also to pray.
Patterson found the importance of prayer in his early Honduran ministry:
I wanted church growth to be seen as the result of my ministry. God, however, had different plans. It would be the result of His work. So He let me fail. And fail. I wanted control and recognition. God gave me failures. I finally prayed—and meant it—"Lord, I’m tired of failing. I don’t care any more about my own ministry. Just let me help my pastoral students have a good ministry."
He answered that prayer. When my pastoral students saw that I was no longer using them to build my own empire but trying to help them have an effective ministry, they took my training seriously. I discovered a power and influence that I had lacked before; I found it when I did not seek it.
Paul associated the pains of starting churches with those of childbirth. Many times I prayed to escape the worries caused by new churches. I had to keep giving the churches back to God. I had to see how church growth came not from my strategies and teaching. God simply waited for us to ask Him for it! Paul planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. He does not bless methods as such, only loving obedience supported by prayer.
Ask God now, to help you and your coworkers to unleash the power of the Holy Spirit for ongoing, daily renewal that spreads to the new churches also.
08C. Practice Personal and Family Prayers and Intercession
Cited from Church Multiplication Guide, Patterson and Scoggins, William Carey Library, Pasadena, chapter 8.
The prayers of Jesus and His apostles always had purpose. We are to pray without ceasing; we teach our people to do the same, as in 1 Thessalonians 5:17. New believers should see family devotions modeled. We may need to ask people in a church or small group to show new believers and families how to have personal and family devotions.
Stop and think now, if your people are having family prayers and if they need help.
08D. Pray Constantly for the Lost and for Spiritual Growth and Reproduction
Cited from Church Multiplication Guide, Patterson and Scoggins, William Carey Library, Pasadena, chapter 8.
The all-powerful God limits what He does on earth to our weak faith. If we want sinners to be converted, we ask Him to transform them. We should pray with our coworkers that the church would use its God-given power to reach the lost and reproduce. Jesus illustrated this potential for spontaneous growth and reproduction in his parables about sowing, the mysterious spontaneous growth, and the mustard seed in Mark 4. To make disciples of a large population or people group, we sow and cultivate the gospel seed so that churches, like plants, reproduce spontaneously in daughter and granddaughter churches.
Look at a grain of corn or rice; consider its miracle. We cannot make it grow; we can only cultivate it, water it, and protect it so that it germinates and reaches its God-given potential. Calculate what will happen if we sow a single grain of rice, corn or wheat in "good soil" and it reproduces to its potential as Christ said, up to a hundred times. Then we sow these 100 seeds for the next harvest, multiplying the amount by 100 and so forth for several harvests. In a very few years we could feed the entire human race with the grain reproduced from that one first seed! Jesus assured us that this is the way His church would grow and reproduce. Like all living things that God has created, an obedient church has within itself its seed to reproduce after its own kind. Rice reproduces rice; birds reproduce birds; churches reproduce churches. A healthy church is a vigorous, reproducing organism. It is Christ’s living body on earth. By faith we tap a church’s God-given power to reproduce in daughter and granddaughter churches.
We must teach our people to ask for God’s power, which He has promised, to reproduce as a mother church and send out workers to sow our church’s seed to raise up daughter churches. Abraham, our model for saving faith, believed God’s promise that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars, in Genesis 15:6 and Galatians 3:6. We join our faith to his, believing in the miraculous reproduction of God’s people.
You may need to plan with your coworkers how to make sure that your people continue to pray and intercede for the lost.
08E. Plan Prayerfully for Reproduction
Cited from Church Multiplication Guide, Patterson and Scoggins, William Carey Library, Pasadena, chapter 8.
Prayer is a vital part of our life and ministry. By faith we plan with our coworkers to let our churches and cell groups multiply. Church reproduction is supernatural, so prayer is part of our planning. A pastor who trains newer pastors or elders within his congregation taps God’s power to reproduce by releasing them to pastor new churches. In a new field the first tiny congregation will grow and reproduce if the people learn from the missionaries to ask God for a widespread harvest. Plan for it! Pray for it! Practice it!
Some forces beyond our control can limit church growth and reproduction. Factors that determine a church’s potential to multiply include:
Most of these factors lie outside of our control. That is why we must pray. Then God deals with those forces that we cannot control. Without prayer we struggle futilely against them. God sometimes answers our prayer when we are willing to change our approach. If a new congregation prays for help because it has outgrown the home it meets in and cannot afford to rent or construct a building, they should be willing to let God answer in His way. He may, for example, simply help them multiply tiny house churches or cells.
Growth is easier when seekers can join very small groups. Effective church planters in new fields pray for God to multiply these small nuclei; they are churches in embryo.
"Good soil" for starting and multiplying churches is bad people. Romans 5:20 reveals, "Where sin abounds, grace does much more abound". Missionaries often justify a poor response by claiming that the people are hard, saying that the soil is poor. In reality they usually need simply to be more flexible. So we pray for wisdom to see how to multiply the kind of small nuclei around which normal growth can easily take place.
Does this multiplication seem like an impossible leap for you? Good! Then you know you must pray and ask your people to pray, so that God will bring to your side those whose help you need. Many churches need to cooperate with other churches in order to multiply and this kind of cooperation also needs prayer.
Once believers are praying and witnessing for Christ, multiplying churches is almost synonymous with multiplying leaders. This means praying for workers and preparing those that God sends in response to our prayers. Jesus said in Matthew 9:37-38 "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field." This is our prayer.
Please take a moment now to plan how you and your coworkers will help your people to practice effective prayer for each other and for God's work to grow and spread.
To Top