If there is one thing all church leaders can agree on, it is that prayer must be the foundation upon which every church ministry and activity rests.
“Prayer for the Christian is like air to the human. Without it we don’t survive very well,” said Mike Jackson, director of the office of leadership and church health at the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions. “Prayer is our communication channel with God. It’s the way we connect to His power and strength and discern His will to know what to do.”
Recent national and international events that have challenged not only foundational Christian values but also the lives of Christians around the world have driven many believers to intensify their prayer lives. Many churches are establishing dedicated prayer services to set aside time to intercede as well.
In August members of Spring Hill Baptist Church, Cullman, in West Cullman Baptist Association began meeting weekly on Saturday mornings for prayer. Twenty or so members come each Saturday, which is almost half of the church’s normal Sunday attendance.
Leader Kathern Gray said the vision for the prayer ministry started with the Holy Spirit.
“We felt we needed to start praying together as a church and set a time to do so. We left it in God’s hands to move people,” Gray said.
NorthPark Baptist Church, Trussville, in Birmingham Baptist Association began a monthly prayer service in August too. The church designated the first Wednesday of each month at 6 a.m. as a time of prayer. Many people stop by on their way to work, said Pastor Bill Wilks. Several students have participated as well. Each month there is a different and specific prayer focus, which helps participants stay on track. There also is a brief time of worship and testimony, but Wilks said the emphasis has and will remain on prayer.
“This started out of a sense of urgency for spiritual awakening and revival in our nation and world and the need to draw together and really intentionally, as the body of Christ, pray for God to move,” Wilks said.
Jackson said he has seen an increasing emphasis on prayer in the local church.
“There is a great movement among churches to join together for prayer for a great awakening and revival in our land. People are realizing the desperateness of the times and the only hope is that God through prayer will do something miraculous to turn us back to Him,” Jackson said.
‘Seek Him’
“Scripture emphasizes that if we seek Him we will find Him. We’ve got to do what we need to do with prayer while the time is still right,” he said.
Gray said Spring Hill Baptist bases its prayer effort on 2 Chronicles 7:14: “If My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”
“This verse is certainly applicable to all who call upon the Lord in repentance and faith,” Gray said, which is why Spring Hill has made a commitment to open the church to members and community members for an hour devoted to prayer.
“We are seeking His face for our country and for our leaders that our land will be healed,” Gray said.
Missions is another important prayer focus at the local church level, said Tom Glander, a lay minister and prayer ministry leader at Beulah Baptist Church, Muscadine, in Cleburne Baptist Association. In addition to praying for missions work in the United States, prayer warriors at Beulah Baptist are praying for international missions requests and the International Mission Board staffers who are returning to the United States. Europe is a focus region as well because of a missions support partnership between the church and missionaries in Scotland.
The group also prays for people in their community to come to Christ, and Glander said the church is seeing the fruit of those prayers.
“We have been praying for revival at Beulah,” Glander said. “We have seen God work by sending people in our congregation out to lead others in the ‘Multiply’ discipleship plan. We also have seen people coming from outside our immediate vicinity to visit or become members.”
Discipleship enters prominently into the prayer strategy at NorthPark Baptist as well, Wilks said. The church’s discipleship program has grown tremendously in the past two years, and every discipleship group has been trained to pray for revival and spiritual awakening.
Including intentional prayer throughout the life of the church can be transformative, both in the effectiveness of ministries and the attitude of those who serve, Glander said.
“We complain about the direction of our country. We complain about the direction of our lives. But what are we doing about these things besides complaining? God wants our prayers to be personal. Prayer is the most important thing we do,” Glander said.
Prayer also unites believers, both in the local church and globally, he said.
“When I pray for a person doing ministry in China or Russia, I not only participate in their ministry, but I touch their lives even though I’m half a globe away,” Glander said. “Our country, our world can change through the prayers of His people.”
Gray wholeheartedly agrees.
“There is nothing that can’t be accomplished by prayer if it is God’s will,” she said.
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