Chapter 11
The Power of Prayer

That Satan trembles when he sees the weakest saint upon his knees, why not make him tremble? Why not storm the very gates of hell? Nothing could please God more. In the conflict that is upon us, certainly we can ill afford to neglect one weapon Satan does not have in his arsenal and the one he fears the most—prayer.1
—Ralph Herring

A young pastor of a rural congregation stood to preach. Unknown to him, his son had made a paper airplane during Sunday school (probably due to a deacon’s kid). The preacher had no sooner given his first point than the little boy swung the plane through the air with a loud “vrooom!” A few people chuckled, but his dad was embarrassed. “Son,” the pastor exclaimed, “don’t do that again.”
The young preacher returned to his message, while his son returned to his imagination. Sure enough, the boy let his thoughts get away from him and went “vroom!” even louder. A second time his father corrected him, obviously flustered. After regaining his composure, he began to preach again. Then the boy did the same thing again, this time letting the plane go. It made a perfect circle, landing in Sister Hazel’s hair! All the people laughed, except the pastor and Sister Hazel. The preacher snatched up his son and headed out the back door. The entire congregation saw the little boy’s face peering over his dad’s shoulders screaming, “Pray! Pray! It’s gonna be bad! It’s gonna be bad!” This little boy learned the urgency of prayer.
Mature believers should demonstrate an urgency in prayer for far more vital reasons, not the least of which is the lostness of people all around us. So many churches focus on praying for temporal matters, giving little focus to more weighty matters of eternity. As a young pastor I led our church on Wednesdays to focus as much or more time to praying for eternal needs as for temporal needs. In a matter of time God began blessing us with newborns in the Kingdom.

The Importance of Prayer
Consider what these famous Christians have said about prayer:

• Charles Spurgeon: “Of course the preacher is above all distinguished as a man of prayer. He prays as an ordinary Christian, else he were a hypocrite. He prays more than ordinary Christians, else he were disqualified for the office he has undertaken.”2
• William Carey: “Prayer—secret, fervent, believing prayer—lies at the root of all personal godliness.”3
• Martin Luther: “I have so much business I cannot get on without spending three hours daily in prayer.” “He that has prayed well has studied well.”4
• William Penn, describing George Fox: “Above all he excelled in prayer. . . . The most awful, living, reverent frame I ever felt or beheld, I must say was in his prayer.”5

What is prayer? The most common word for prayer in the Old Testament is palal, which means “to fall” or “to prostrate before” someone. It often signifies intercessory prayer. In the New Testament, the most common words are euchomai and deomai. Euchomai and its cognate proseuchomai are more general terms for prayer, while deomai has a more specific idea of seeking for a particular need.
Prayer is more than talking to God. It is intimacy with God. It is a reflection of our desire to know God. Prayer draws us closer to God, and it leads us away from the world, the flesh, and the devil. I like the definition of prayer used by my first doctoral student, Chris Schofield, who now serves in the area of prayer and evangelism at the North American Mission Board. Schofield defines prayer as “communion and dialogue with the triune God through a personal, love relationship with Jesus Christ.”6 This definition emphasizes both the love relationship and the doctrinal aspect of prayer by emphasizing the Trinity. I use this definition of prayer: “intimacy with God that leads to the fulfillment of His purposes.”
A few years ago, a survey showed that over 90 percent of Americans pray. If 90 percent of Americans really prayed, our country would be different morally! In the 1980s a survey of over 17,000 members of a major evangelical denomination who attended seminars on prayer for spiritual awakening gave frightening results. These believers, obviously interested in prayer, communicated that the laity spent less than five minutes a day in prayer; worse still, the pastors said they prayed no more than seven minutes a day on average!7
Let me take this one step further. While at Houston Baptist University, I had the privilege of meeting several members of the Houston Rockets, in the period when they won back-to-back NBA titles. One was a devout Muslim. After winning their second championship, this player delayed a victory parade because it was his time of prayer. He fasts during the daylight hours for the entire month of Ramadan, one of the pillars of Islam.

Prayer: intimacy with God that leads to the fulfillment of His purposes.


A devout Muslim will wash his hands and face three times, kneel toward Mecca, and say his prayers five times each day. Imagine such devotion—talking to a god who does not exist! Part of the reason for the devotion is the salvation-by-works system in Islam. Still, should we as believers not be ashamed when we fail to spend time talking to the God of the universe?
Prayerlessness is one of the greatest sins of American Christians. One of the greatest hindrances to evangelism in our day is a lack of biblical prayer for evangelistic purposes. Consider the average church, and notice how much time is spent praying for physical needs. This is biblical and right (see James 5). But too many prayer meetings are like organ recitals: we pray for hearts, livers, and other organs. Very little praying is done for spiritual needs. How much times does your church spend praying specifically for lost people, for laborers, and for God to honor your evangelistic efforts?
Prayer is vital because it is at the heart of Christianity. Prayer is intimate communication with God and is possible only because Jesus’ death on the cross provided the means for our relationship with God. R. A. Torrey summarized the significance of prayer:

Our whole life should be a life of prayer. We should walk in constant communion with God. There should be a constant looking upward to God. We should walk so habitually in His presence that even when we awake in the night it would be the most rational thing for us to speak to Him in thanksgiving or petition.8

There are other reasons to pray. Jesus set the example (Mark 1:35). God commands that we pray (Luke 18:1). Through prayer we receive from God: “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you” (Matt 7:7 ESV). This verse carries the idea of a child looking for a parent.
Our house was one of many in our area to be affected by Hurricane Fran in September 1996. We had a hole in our roof from a huge limb, my car was crushed, Michelle’s car was dented, we lost many trees, and the storm frightened our kids. When the hurricane came, we spent an entire night in the hall listening to our house being bombarded by missiles created from falling tree limbs.
One night some time later a thunderstorm came. Our daughter Hannah began to cry out to us. We didn’t immediately answer, since we were asleep. Then she got up and began to look for us. We didn’t tell her to go back to her bed. We didn’t tell her she was being disobedient. We saw a frightened child in need of a dad and a mom. We let her crawl up in the bed with us, and we gave her comfort.
In the same way, God expects us to serve Him out of obedience and to fulfill daily acts of obedience. But there are times when we need Him in a desperate way, and we cry out to Him, and we don’t give up until we find Him. During those times, God is more than willing to meet our needs like a good parent.

It is one thing to say we believe in prayer; it is another to pray in faith. S. D. Gordon said, “You can do more than pray after you have prayed, but you cannot do more than pray until you have prayed.” Prayer is foundational to the Christian life.


Prayer also brings relief from anxiety. Paul exhorted believers to replace worry with prayer (see Phil 4:6–7). Prayer provides deep joy to the Christian as well: “Until now you have asked nothing in My name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full” (John 16:24 NKJV). Through prayer, we have power in overcoming Satan (see Eph 6).
Prayer unlocks the door into a growing relationship with God. Intimacy in prayer builds this relationship. Read the prayers of Abraham, Moses, David, and Paul, and see the intimacy they experienced. Finally, prayer is effective in the work of evangelism. We should pray for harvesters for evangelism work (see Matt 9:36–38).

Jesus, Our Example in Prayer
The best way to learn to pray is by studying how Jesus prayed. The Gospel writers recorded a request from the Lord to teach them. They did not ask, “Lord, teach us how to pray,” but “Lord, teach us to pray” (Luke 11:1). We learn best from His example. How did Jesus pray?

• He modeled prayer (John 17).
• He spent time in personal prayer (Mark 1:35).
• He prayed at important events (Matt 26:36–44; Luke 6:12).
• He taught the importance of prayer (Matt 6).

Prayer and Spiritual Warfare
The New Testament teaches the reality of spiritual warfare. Chuck Lawless is an authority on spiritual warfare and its relationship to evangelism. Here are his thoughts.

The Spiritual Warfare of Evangelism: Reaching People through Taking on the Enemy
Chuck Lawless1

It seemed to me that Greg was completely closed to the good news of Jesus. No matter how much I shared the gospel, he had no interest in following Christ. The Bible meant little to him. The arguments about Christ carried no weight for him. He was, as one church member put it, “just living in the dark.”
Have you ever found personal evangelism to be difficult like that? Maybe you are facing the reality of spiritual warfare in your attempts to be an effective personal evangelist. Our goal in this article is to examine what the Bible says about the warfare we face as we try to reach unbelievers.

Lost People Are Blinded to the Gospel
The apostle Paul told the Corinthians that unbelievers are blinded by the god of this age (2 Cor 4:3–4). The “god of this age” is Satan, who is also called the “prince of this world” (John 16:11 NIV) and the “ruler of the kingdom of the air” (Eph 2:2 NIV).
He operates in the “domain of darkness” (Col 1:13; see also Acts 26:18).
The persons we seek to reach—like Greg in the opening illustration—are in spiritual bondage, and our task is to proclaim a message of liberation and freedom. The enemy counters, striving to hold his captives in chains. Though God has already defeated Satan and secured salvation for His own through the cross (Col 2:15), the battle is nevertheless a real one.
Satan’s strategies for keeping unbelievers blinded are several. The enemy provides the lies to which unbelievers cling, such as “I’m good enough,” and “I can always wait until tomorrow to follow God.” He makes sin attractive and alluring, convincing the unbeliever that following God will mean a loss of pleasure. He snatches away the Word of God before it takes root in an unbeliever’s heart (see Matt 13:3–9,18–23). More specifically, Satan blinds unbelievers to the gospel by promoting distorted views of the gospel itself.
For this reason, evangelism must be accompanied with prayer. Evangelism is the task, but prayer is the power behind the task. If only God can open blinded minds, does it not make sense to seek His guidance and intervention as we evangelize lost people?

Undiscipled Believers Are Targets for the Enemy
Scripture affirms that Satan continues to attack persons who become believers. Jesus warned Peter that Satan demanded permission to “sift you like wheat” (Luke 22:31). Peter himself later warned believers, “Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (1 Pet 5:8). The apostle Paul likewise admonished believers to “put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil” (Eph 6:11). James, too, called believers to resist the devil, presupposing that the enemy would attack (Jas 4:7). If Satan does not attack believers, such recurrent warnings would seem irrelevant and unnecessary.
The enemy especially aims his arrows at young believers who have not been discipled. He strikes them with doubt and discouragement. Sometimes he hits them with loneliness, as they move away from their non-Christian friends and try to fit into a church that is unfamiliar to them. At other times, he lures them with the same temptations they faced as non-believers. Whatever his strategy may be, he wants to strike at new believers before they get solidly planted in the church.
Our response to Satan’s strategy is simple: intentionally teach new believers to put on the armor of God. That is, the church’s task is not complete when non-believers come to Christ. The essence of “putting on the armor” (Eph 6:10–17) is not about magical prayer that applies the weaponry to believers’ lives; rather, it is about discipleship and spiritual growth that affect all of one’s life. Wearing the armor is about daily living in truth, righteousness, faith, and hope, while always being ready to proclaim the gospel of peace found in the Word.
But, will a new believer understand how to live as a Christian if we do not teach him? An effective evangelism strategy simply must include an uncompromising commitment to discipleship for both the evangelist and the new convert. In the spiritual battles we face, discipleship means the difference between victory and defeat.

Proclaiming the Word Is Spiritual Warfare
In my work as dean of the Billy Graham School of Missions, Evangelism and Church Growth, our research teams have studied thousands of evangelistically growing churches. Each of our studies has shown that proclaiming the Word has been a primary factor in the churches’ effectiveness in evangelism and assimilation.
That finding should not surprise us, though. The Word is alive and powerful (Heb 4:12), converting the soul (Ps 19:7), and protecting us from sin (Ps 119:11). The Word is the “sword of the Spirit” (Eph 6:17). It is the weapon to which Jesus Himself turned when He faced temptation (Matt 4:1–11).
Three times, the devil tempted Jesus in the wilderness, and three times the Son of God responded by quoting God’s Word (Matt 4:1–11). The simple phrase, “It is written” was enough to cause Satan ultimately to back down from the battle. The enemy is no match for the Word.
To illustrate this truth with regard to evangelism, it is clear that the enemy seeks to undermine the biblical truth that personal faith in Jesus Christ is the only way to God. Exclusivity of salvation in Christ alone is largely rejected, with a growing number of American adults believing that “all good persons” will go to heaven whether or not they know Jesus Christ as Savior. While the church buys the lies of pluralism and inclusivism, Satan “disguises himself as an angel of light” (2 Cor 11:14) and lulls unbelievers into a false sense of spiritual security. We must prepare for, and counter, this strategy by passionately proclaiming the biblical truth that personal, explicit faith in Jesus is necessary for salvation (John 14:6; Rom 10:9–10).

NOTES
1. Used by permission of C. Lawless. Lawless serves as the Dean of the Billy Graham School of Missions, Evangelism and Church at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. A PhD graduate of Southern, he also served as a senior pastor for 14 years prior to joining the Graham School. He is the author of seven books, including Discipled Warriors: Growing Healthy Churches That Are Equipped for Spiritual Warfare (Kregel). He is also president of the Lawless Group, a church consultation firm (www.thelawlessgroup.com).


Personal Prayer
Where you are as a Christian five years from now will depend on your praying more than any other factor. There is no time more valuable than time spent with God. I learned this in a course during my first semester in seminary, through a valuable resource called the 2959 Plan developed by Peter Lord.9 This approach emphasized certain practical considerations related to personal prayer.
Let your gaze be on God, your glance on your requests. Calvin Miller reminds the believer to “never start praying before you’ve stopped to look at God.”10
Let prayer be your first choice, not your last. One of the worst statements uttered in the church is, “There is nothing we can do but pray.” Can we do any better than pray? We can do more but not better. Yes, there are occasional times when the followers of God are told to stop praying and get moving (as in the crossing of the Red Sea; Exodus 14), but in most cases too little praying is the greater problem.
Pray retail, not wholesale. In other words, pray for specific needs. We don’t live in generalities; we live in a specific place with specific needs. A prayer list helps in this regard.
Pray more from conviction than from crisis. Daniel is a great example in prayer. When Daniel received the news that he would be thrown into the den of lions, notice how he responded. He faced Jerusalem and prayed morning, noon, and night just as he had done previously (Dan 6:10). What consistency! Daniel could respond like this because he was accustomed to talking to God out of conviction—not just when he faced a crisis. Crises are not times to get acquainted with God! We should walk with God before the crises.
The reason for personal devotional time is to develop intimacy with God. Billy Graham said the minister who does not have a daily quiet time will fall away in 10 years.
A warning: Devotion time is not a spiritual rabbit’s foot. Calvin Miller issues a threefold warning of an unrealistic focus on God:

1. Loving the time to meet God more than loving God Himself. This breeds a sort of inner addiction: “I’ve always wondered if many of these who go off with the rhetoric of holiness but never took the time to minister.”
2. Developing an otherworldly aloofness: “When someone translates as hyper-godly, most of us become hyper-nervous around them.”
3. Succumbing to the “sweet-little-Jesus” syndrome with “the saccharine Christ of gooey pietism.”11

In your devotional time, certain tools help in keeping a fresh, intimate walk with God:

• Daily Bible reading keeps our focus on God.
• Keeping a journal has been practiced for centuries by saints from John Wesley and George Whitefield to countless believers today.
• Include names, specific concerns, and answers in a prayer list.
• A devotional book can be helpful as well.

Features of Prayer
As we pray, certain features can guide our time to enhance our intimacy with God.

Praise
This is our response to the person of God. We praise Him for who He is. A little girl attended a prayer service with her mother. She sat on the back pew while her mom and a few others knelt at the altar to pray. She listened closely while the adults cried out to God, some weeping. Finally she could sit still no longer. She stood on the pew, looked up into heaven, and cried, “Dear God! A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. Amen!” Then she sat down.
The mother, a bit embarrassed, asked her, “Honey, why did you say that?”
“Because you were all praying such beautiful prayers, and I wanted to talk to God. I didn’t know the words, so I thought if I gave God the letters, he could make the words come out right.”
This might not work for a forty-year-old believer, but I believe there is something about a sincere child’s prayer, just with the letters, that brings praise to God. When we do not know the words to pray, God still hears the cries of our heart. Let us never become so sophisticated in our spirituality that we are afraid to offer God praise.
Praise is not noise, just as reverence is not silence. It is the acknowledgment of God’s greatness. It is recognizing He is “hallowed,” or “holy,” as the Model Prayer tells us (see Matt 6:9).

Thanksgiving
This is our response to the goodness of God. Thank Him for what He has done. “Enter His gates with thanksgiving” (Ps 100:4). “Give thanks in everything” (1 Thess 5:18). An attitude of gratitude should permeate our lives.

Confession
Confession is our response to the holiness of God. Our sins will hinder our praying (see Ps 66:18). As we pray, we can ask the Holy Spirit to reveal each sin in our lives. Then we can confess the sin (see 1 John 1:9). When broken relationships are involved, we should seek to make them right as well.

Intercession
This is our response to the love of God. When we ask of God, Foster reminds us, we are not “trying to manipulate God and tell Him what to do. Quite the opposite. We are asking God to tell us what to do. God is the ground of our beseeching. . . . Our prayer is to be like a reflex action to God’s prior initiative on the heart.”12

Petition
Petition is our response to the love of God for us. It is appropriate and necessary for us to ask God to meet our needs. However, in our consumer-driven culture, we can learn from this prayer of petition from an anonymous soldier:

I asked God for strength that I might achieve;
I was made weak that I might learn humbly to obey.
I asked God for health that I might do greater things;
I was given infirmity that I might do better things.
I asked for riches that I might be happy;
I was given poverty that I might be wise.
I asked for power that I might have the praise of men;
I was given weakness that I might feel the need of God.
I asked for all things that I might enjoy life;
I was given life that I might enjoy all things.
I got nothing that I asked for—
but everything I had hoped for.
Almost despite myself, my unspoken prayers were answered.
I am among all men most richly blessed.13

Listening
There is another aspect about prayer that must not be missed: listening to God. You may not be aware of it, but wherever you are as you read this book, noises are all around you. Rock-and-roll music is all around you. Rap tunes are playing. People are discussing various topics from sports to finance. The only thing you need to hear these voices is the proper receiver. A radio will suddenly usher into your presence a bevy of sounds.
Prayer operates the same way. God is constantly speaking to us, teaching us, leading us. The question is not whether God is speaking but if we are listening. God consistently speaks to us through His Word, but do we hear Him? He occasionally speaks to us through circumstances and other people. He also speaks at times through the still, small voice of His Spirit. Are we listening? If you walk with God, you will be prompted by Him to witness. This cannot be taught as much as it is learned through the school of prayer taught by the Holy Spirit.

Consecration
Consecration is a prayer of commitment to God. Often in Scripture believers made specific, fresh acts of consecration: Jonah in the whale’s stomach (Jonah 2:1–10), David following his sin with Bathsheba (Ps 51), Paul, our Lord, and others. In our times of prayer, we are often confronted with the need to make a fresh, new commitment to God.

Daily Personal Worship: Practical Tips
Establish in your heart and mind the importance of the devotional time. One of the most liberating lessons I learned from the school of prayer is that we must disciple ourselves to pray in all circumstances. I once thought great men and women of prayer loved to pray so much that it was a constant joy to be in the presence of God. But then I read Foster’s comments: “We must never wait until we feel like praying before we pray.”14 Prayer is a discipline. Many times we pray out of a desire to be with God. Other times we pray out of a sense of holy desperation. But at other times we pray not because it is convenient or comfortable but because it is right. Sometimes I am not in the “mood” to pray in the morning. But I have discovered that if I don’t take time to pray, my mood gets worse as the day goes by!

1. Designate a time and place for your time with God. Guard the time.
2. Do whatever is necessary to be spiritually prepared.
3. Adjust your time occasionally to avoid monotony.

As you pray, make the Scriptures a part of your time. Praying Psalm 51, the prayer of David after his sin with Bathsheba, should help us understand the seriousness of our sin and the greatness of our God.

Other tips on prayer:

• Change your prayer time, mix it up; begin with Scripture sometimes, with prayer other times.
• Read a book on prayer annually.
• Talk to other Christian friends.
• Read the journals and biographies of great Christians.

Linking Prayer and Evangelism
The great man of prayer, E. M. Bounds, said, “Prayer does not stand alone. . . . It lives in fellowship with other Christian duties.”15 This is particularly true about evangelism. You cannot evangelize effectively on a consistent basis without prayer. In his research of growing churches, Thom Rainer discovered prayer ranked with biblical preaching and teaching as one of the major reasons churches in the survey reached lost people.16

Features to Remember

Pray for Boldness to Witness
Notice this prayer of the early church that links prayer and evangelism:

“And now, Lord, consider their threats, and grant that Your slaves may speak Your message with complete boldness, while You stretch out Your hand for healing, signs, and wonders to be performed through the name of Your holy Servant Jesus.” When they had prayed, the place where they were assembled was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak God’s message with boldness. (Acts 4:29–31)

Chris Schofield made a vital point about this passage. “The prayer for ‘boldness’ (from parresia), which has already been associated with the apostolic witness in 4:13, is significant in at least two ways. First, notice that the apostles are not seeking revenge or the end of the opposition but rather courage and freedom of speech. Second, they were seeking this boldness that they might proclaim the gospel. . . . Their motive was centered on God’s redemptive work.”17

Pray in the Spirit’s Power
Another key passage is Eph 6:18–20. Paul followed his discussion of the armor of God with a request for believers to pray for bold proclamation of the gospel. Prayer is seen as an indispensable part of the armor of God. Praying “in the Spirit” is not a reference to praying in tongues but to prayer “in the presence, control, help, influence, and power of God’s Spirit.”18 Paul exhorted the Ephesians to pray for “utterance,” or parresia, an openness to preach the gospel. This is the expression translated “boldness” in Acts 4:29,31. Paul was in prison as he wrote these words, asking for courage to share Christ. Certain truths emerge from these two chapters, Acts 4 and Ephesians 6: boldness to proclaim the gospel is a legitimate request to bring before God. Such boldness comes only from God. It cannot be “worked up.” Such boldness comes through the prayers of God’s people.

Pray for Harvesters
In Matt 9:38 Jesus, seeing the multitude wandering about like sheep with no shepherd, encouraged prayer for the Lord of the harvest to send laborers. We should pray that God would awaken believers to the need of the world for the gospel. We must pray for God to call out those who would go to the ends of the earth proclaiming Christ. We should pray for God to raise up more ministers of the gospel who would lead churches to have a gospel passion.

Praying Specifically for the Unsaved
Robert Speer, a Presbyterian missionary leader, said, “The evangelization of the world . . . depends first of all upon a revival of prayer. Deeper than the need for men; deeper, far, than the need for money; deep down at the bottom of our spiritless lives, is the need for the forgotten secret of prevailing, worldwide prayer.”19
Korea is a great example of the impact of prayer. In 1966 about 11 percent of the Korean population was Christian. By 1978, it was 19 percent; 1981, 22 percent; in the 1990s over one-third of the people in Korea were believers. Korea also has the largest Presbyterian, Methodist, and Assemblies of God churches in the world.
The secret to this Korean explosion is prayer. Many Koreans pray early every day. Some pray all night on Friday nights. I once heard a Korean pastor say that the average Korean Christian prays an hour a day. One reason the Korean church prays so much is the threat of North Korea. Our problem today is we don’t see the threats of worldliness, carnality, culture, ungodliness, and apathy that should motivate our prayers.
Charles Sullivan tells of a time when he gave the invitation and a man in his seventies came forward to give his life to Christ. His wife came down the aisle behind him with the glow of God on her face. After Sullivan counseled the man and prayed with him, he reached for a membership card to fill out, as we Baptists do, but the wife stopped him. She told Sullivan that he wouldn’t need a card. She reached in her Bible and pulled out an old, yellow, tattered card.
“Forty years ago, I made a commitment to pray for my husband’s salvation daily,” she explained. “As a sign of my commitment, I filled out a membership card with my husband’s name, and checked ‘profession of faith’ and ‘baptism.’ The only thing we need to complete is the date.” God had answered her prayer.
A bedridden woman in London, England, had been able to cultivate the life of prayer. She had read in the papers about evangelist D. L. Moody’s work in Chicago. She didn’t know Moody or anyone associated with him. Placing that paper under her pillow, she began to pray, “Lord, send this man to our church.” Moody did go to London in 1872 when his church building was in ashes back in Chicago.
While Moody was speaking to the YMCA, a pastor invited him to preach to his congregation. Nothing happened the Sunday morning Moody preached. After the service, the sister of that invalid woman had informed her that a Mr. Moody of Chicago had preached and that he was to speak again that evening. The invalid woman declared, “Oh, if I had known, I would have eaten no breakfast, I would have spent all the time in prayer. Send me no dinner, leave me alone, lock the door. I’m going to spend the whole afternoon and evening in prayer.”
That evening the building was packed to hear Moody. The atmosphere was different, and the power of God fell on that place. Five hundred people gave their lives to Christ. Great revival began, and Moody’s career as an evangelist multiplied because of that sick lady’s prayer.20
Here are specific items for which you can pray for those who need Christ:

• Ask God to open their spiritual eyes (2 Cor 4:4).
• Ask God to set them free from spiritual captivity (2 Tim 2:25–26).
• Ask God to give them ears to hear (Matt 13:15), faith to believe (Acts 20:21), and will to respond (Rom 10:9).
• Ask God to send people into their lives to witness to them (Matt 9:38).
• Ask God for ways to build caring relationships (1 Cor 9:22).
• Ask God for opportunities to witness (Col 4:3).
• Ask God for boldness to witness (Acts 4:29).
• Ask God for an opportunity to invite them to a harvest event (Luke 14:23).21

Prayer can give us a yearning to share the gospel with others. A seminary student was taking his son to preschool one morning when he noticed a man walking along the side of the road. The student, named Joel, was prompted to pray for that man. He promised that he would share Jesus with this man if he were still on this road on his return. However, after leaving the preschool complex, he thought nothing of the man.
After a stop at the grocery store, Joel headed home. As he neared home, he saw the young man again. As he pulled into his driveway, Joel realized all the seminary in the world didn’t matter if his faith was silent. “I returned to the young man,” Joel recalled, “and gave him a ride.”
As Joel drove the stranger home, he remarked that “the man upstairs” had looked out for him. Joel began to share with him the good news of Jesus. The conversation flowed freely as God opened the man’s heart to the gospel truth. They stopped along the road, and he repented of his sin and asked Jesus to save him. God will use us in witnessing for Him if we walk with Him in communion through prayer.

Corporate Prayer
Martin and Ginter, in Power House, made a distinction between prayer ministries and the church as a house of prayer. “A prayer ministry involves a portion of the congregation in ministry, as with a youth ministry. . . . Such a ministry may take the form of missionary prayer circles; times of prayer open to the whole church such as a Wednesday night prayer meeting; or men’s/women’s/youth’s prayer meetings; a prayer room; an intercessory team; prayer ministry before/during/after the church service; or a prayer chain.”22
In contrast, a house of prayer “will have prayer saturating every aspect of its individual and corporate life. Having significant prayer will be seen as the first thing to do when planning, when meeting, etc. There will be teaching on prayer from the pulpit, in Sunday school classes, and in small-group settings. People will think of prayer as a major factor to be used at first to solve any problem.”23
In other words, the goal is to have a church where prayer permeates its fabric—and where lost people receive a high priority in its praying. Not every church is a house of prayer, but every church can have an effective prayer ministry.
I recently heard of a church who set aside 90 days to pray for 80 unchurched families. After the 90 days of prayer, teams from the church went to visit these homes. At least 69 families welcomed the visit. The church also visited another 80 homes for whom they had not prayed. Guess how many homes welcomed them? One. Can you see the difference?

Questions for Consideration
1. How important is prayer to you?
2. Do people who know you think of you as a person of prayer?
3. Would you try this simple experiment: for a period of time, perhaps the next month, would you pray this simple prayer daily to see what God does in your life? “God, give me (1) an opportunity to witness today, (2) the wisdom to see it, (3) and boldness to take it.”

NOTES
1. R. Herring, The Cycle of Prayer (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1966), 62–63.
2. W. Duewel, Ablaze for God (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1989), 212.
3. R. Foster, Celebration of Discipline (New York: HarperCollins, 1988), 33.
4. Ibid., 34.
5. Ibid.
6. C. Schofield, “Biblical Links Between Prayer and Evangelism” (ThM thesis, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, May 1995), 11.
7. D. S. Whitney, Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 1991), 62.
8. R. A. Torrey, How to Pray (Pittsburgh: Whitaker House, 1983), 81.
9. P. Lord, The 2959 Plan, rev. ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1989).
10. C. Miller, “Praying without Ceasing,” in Evangelism for a Changing World, ed. T. Beougher and A. Reid (Wheaton, IL: Harold Shaw, 1995), 40.
11. Ibid., 147.
12.Foster, Celebration of Discipline, 42.
13. C. R. Swindoll, Living Above the Level of Mediocrity (Waco: Word Books, 1987), 113.
14.Foster, Celebration of Discipline, 44.
15. E. M. Bounds, The Necessity of Prayer (Springdale: Whitaker House, 1984), 31.
16. T. S. Rainer, Effective Evangelistic Churches (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1997), 11–17.
17. C. Schofield, “Linking Prayer and Bold Proclamation: An Exegetical Study of Acts 4:23–31 and Ephesians 6:18–20 with Implications for Contemporary Church Growth,” Journal of the American Society of Church Growth 8 (Winter 1997): 67.
18. Ibid., 71.
19. W. S. Monneyham, “Getting More Hooks in the Water Is Not Enough,” Christianity Today, 25, no. 16 (September 18, 1981): 20.
20. J. G. Hallimond, The Miracle of Answered Prayer (New York: The Christian Herald, 1916), 69–71.
21.Praying Your Friends to Christ (Alpharetta, GA.: North American Mission Board, 1998).
22. D. Ginter and G. Martin, Power House (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1994), 16.
23. Ibid., 17. This book offers many resources on specific prayer ministries.