Building a Culture of Prayer Part 3

These book titles sound familiar, right?

"A Purpose Driven Life." "Your Best Life Now." "Become A Better You." "Eat, Pray, Love," which isn't much abour prayer as one might think.

"The Shack."

We are quick in our culture to run to gimmicks, to jump on the band wagon of, "Quick solution. Easy answer. Short cuts galore."

Remember the "Prayer of Jabez" book? How about "Servant Evangelism" or "Seeker Friendly" which boiled down to "shh, don't talk about Jesus and sin on Sunday morning. It makes people uncomfortable."

Good. If we love them, we preach Jesus, the Cross and the corruption of sin.

Jesus, the leader and authority on social justice said this, "Preach the Gospel to the poor."

If we don't tell them the truth, who will? What good does it do to feed the poor while they dying and going to judgment without a Redeemer.

I've not read any of the books I listed. Why? Because I'm living my best life now. I have to admit, that title cracks me up. It sounds like all the "cool" titles were taken so they pulled a Tony Robbins.

I have Someone greater living in me (Col 1:27) who teaches me about my best life. Who gives me a purpose driven life. The Holy Spirit. He knows me better than I know myself. He teaches me how to live the BEST life.

I can read all the how to books and still end up in the same place. What I want and need is to be transformed into the image of Christ.

There is no short cut. No secret prayer. No quick solution. Heart and soul change comes from time, diligence and spending time with Jesus.

You want to have a purpose driven life? Start a weekly prayer meeting at your home or church. Invite people to come. Spend an hour or two worshipping -- play a CD -- and asking God for His Kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven. Ask Him to use you, to give you purpose.

We want change. We want God. But we don't want to put our shoulder to the wheel and do what it takes to encounter Him.

Most churches don't have weekly corporate prayer meetings. If they do, they are poorly attended. We've lost the vision of prayer. We don't know how to pray.

Back in 2000, Hubby and I visited the International House of Prayer in Kansas City. We'd both been passionate about prayer for years, but when we saw what God was doing in the arena of prayer and the Word intertwined with Worship, our hearts were engaged.

We came home and tried to institute the model in our youth meeting and worship times. Ooo, there was resistance. We discovered people don't like to be told how to worship. Or how to pray.

But we persisted. We developed guidelines. We taught on how to pray using the Word and interacting with a worship team.

Now, it's easy for our church members to participate. The prayer meetings are organized and focused. There are not long minutes of silence while no one knows what or how to pray. Big corporate prayer meetings are well attended.

The last Friday of the month, fifteen to twenty people squeeze into our living room for an evening of soaking in worship and prayer.

We are building a culture of prayer.

What if we started running to prayer meetings the way we run to the book store for the latest "How to be a great Christian book?" What if we learned how to encounter God in prayer instead of enduring an hour of unfocused, weak prayer. What if we used His Word as a guide for our prayers instead of reading a daily devotional.

Look, I'm not against those type of books! I know they've changed lives. But we need to mature in the arena of prayer. We are still drinking milk. Time for some meat.

We need change that endures. We need to get God's heart on what He's doing in the earth today. This is our watch. We need to stand on the wall.

That is the purpose of prayer. To bring God's will from heaven to earth. We are not pawns in His game. We are working with Him for His purpose. How can He execute it if we are not waiting, listening, praying, asking for Him to use us.

We are bored with prayer because we don't know how to pray, why to pray or if it really changes the world around us.

If it really changes "me."

Well, it does. In Luke 18 Jesus tells us to "pray at all times and not lose heart."

Paul reminds us in 1 Thessalonians to "pray without ceasing."

Jesus Himself, the God-Man, was devoted to prayer. The disciples watched and saw something in Him they did not possess and said to Him, "teach us to pray."

Peter and John, on their way to prayer, healed a crippled beggar. On their way to prayer!

It is on our way to prayer, out of a contemplative, prayerful heart, God will do miracles through us. He will changes us. Set us on our purpose driven path and give us our best life now. And in the age to come.

We must become a praying church. We must.

Building A Culture of Prayer Part 1

In the summer of 2002, several youth pastors in our county gathered to begin what we hoped would be a House of Prayer in our central Florida region.

For six and a half years, we labored in worship and prayer two hours, one night a week. Fire Dweller, as we called our group, grew in numbers. We shrunk in numbers. We changed venues. And eventually, we laid the ministry down.

Not prayer. But the venue of prayer.

It's hard to get people to pray. We have such an individualistic attitude toward prayer. We've taken the "spiritual gifts" test and scored low on intercession and decided "prayer is not my gift."

So we offer shout-outs to God as we drive to work or taking the kids to sports and lessons, as we fall asleep at night. When there's a church wide prayer meeting, we don't go. Too tired. Not my "thing." Leave the prayer to the intercessors.

No wonder the Church is weak and straying from the truth.

Prayer is the cornerstone to every believer, to the life of a church and a church community. Prayer is the force that will save a nation. The prayers of the Elect effect more than the actions of the elected.

Does a quiet bride say, "Talking is not my thing. I'll let the other women talk to my husband?" Ha! Never. Why then are we not talking to our Beloved?

We must engage God in prayer. Jesus said in Matthew 21:13 "My house, will be called a house of prayer." We've become a house of shows and events, a social gospel without power.

Paul writes in Romans 12:12 that we are to be "devoted to prayer." In 1 Thessalonians 5:17 we are admonished to "pray without ceasing."

Prayer is not a specialty on a personality test. It is not option. It's not something others do while you serve in hospitality or pass out bulletins. Prayer is not a "quiet time" with an Oswald Chambers book for fifteen minutes in the morning. Certainly those things are good, but prayer is heart-to-heart, engaging and encountering God for His Kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven.

Prayer is work. And we are all called to labor in prayer -- individually and corporately.

After laying down Fire Dweller, my husband and I began to talk to a local pastor about what we could do to build a culture of prayer in our city. How can we encourage all Believers to pray? Revelations 5 and 8 is clear that the bowls in heaven are filled with the prayers of the Saints. And to those prayers, God adds incense from His own altar and hurls it back to earth.

God's purposes are fueled by our prayer. You want change in your life, your family, community and nation, you must pray. There is no way around it.

Think of how much more powerful evangelism, hospitality, serving, loving the poor is if it's bathed in prayer. Our "spiritual gifts" are emboldened by prayer not to be used in place of prayer. How often do we start church programs out of a desire for growth, or out of a need, but without real, face toward heaven prayer?

We need prayer. As we meet with Pastor Tim Franklin and his wife, Kelly, and our senior Pastor Gary Stebbins and his wife, Bonnie, we developed MyHop, a house of prayer in our county that is built on a "culture of prayer."

What is a culture of prayer? Churches and believers praying for the Body of Christ, for our region and country, asking for God's heart and revival.

Our vision is: We desire Brevard County to be a House of Prayer consisting of networked churches and believers committed to night and day corporate prayer.

We network with any church or home meeting with a regularly scheduled prayer meeting. We are have a corporate gathering with all networked churches and prayer meetings the first Friday of every month.

We want praying believers. We want to see the church empowered from on High.

Next: Two keys to fueling prayer. Bridal love and the End Times