Prayer and Change

I love to pray, whether being in prayer alone, in groups, in meetings, loud or quiet. Sometimes I feel like pray is my real home, what I’ve been called to do. I’ve read books on prayer, studied prayers in the Bible, read prayers quietly and out loud. Prayer is connecting with God, and the only way to truly turn a church around is in prayer. Prayer is the key, over formulas, ideas, hard work, theories or anything else. In fact, turning a church around has driven me to prayer more than almost anything else (the only thing that’s caused me to pray with more fervency has been the health situations of my family).

Jack Hayford once said the Lord told him, “Pray as though no one else is praying.” Great advice, and very appropriate given the circumstances of trying to change a somewhat traditional church that was very set in its ways. What created a climate of change was prayer, lots of it, fervent, desperate prayers; sometimes with others, sometimes alone, but always constant. My prayer was around the scripture in Isaiah 43:18-19, “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?” As we prayed, we called out that the Lord would help our congregation to perceive (to realize) what He wanted to do. Everything else I say about what happened here and how to turn a church around has and was undergirded by huge amounts of prayer. That is the single greatest weapon a Christian has in changing anything. I love what Joy Dawson said, “Prayer is the act of bringing God into every situation and asking Him to change it from something natural into something supernatural so that He can get all the glory” (Intercession: Thrilling and Fulfilling, page 192). Turning a church around is absolutely for His glory, is supernatural, and a joy to see happen.