Limited prayer limits evangelism

Prayer is a bit like apple pie, motherhood, and long weekends: everyone is for them! I mean, is there anyone who doesn’t enthusiastically embrace these fine institutions?

And when it comes to prayer, Christians are particular fans. At most churches, prayer takes place in Sunday services, Sunday schools, youth groups and Bible study groups. If you say “Prayer is important”, you will get little disagreement from believers. Sure, you may get a few questions like “Why should we pray when God already knows what we need?” or admissions like “I guess I should pray more”, but mention prayer to Christians and everyone is on-board... sort of!

Why ‘sort of’? Well, in reality, prayer can be a bit more like the traditional western church than apple pie... more like Mandela’s book than motherhood. Many people have an attitude towards the church which is: “I don’t go very much, but it’s nice to know it’s there”. Many people own Nelson Mandela’s book Long Walk to Freedom but have not actually read it. Many Christians love the idea of prayer, but struggle to actually implement it.

The worrying aspect of this with respect to evangelism (the theme of my pieces on GoThereFor.com) is that prayer needs to be heavily associated with evangelism! Jesus highlights its importance in Matthew 9:36–38:

When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”

Paul speaks of his concern for outreach and prayer in Romans 10:1: “Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved”. In Colossians 4:3-4 he also seeks the prayer support of others for his evangelistic ministry. Furthermore, church history tells us that at those times in the past when people have turned to Christ in large numbers (e.g. the Billy Graham 1959 crusades in Australia) there were wide-ranging movements of prayer. My personal experience has been that Christians in sub-Saharan African spend more time in prayer than the Anglo-Saxon Christians I know—and the church is growing over there!

I mention this not to induce spiritual self-flagellation, but rather to remind us of a truth that is crucial to our outreach. Proclamation (and programs) must combine with prayer. Given that this can often be a bit of a struggle, I mention here three things that are currently being attempted at our church:

1. Prayer in church: In two of our church’s congregations we ask those praying in Sunday services to include prayers each week that relate to outreach with the gospel in our community. Not only is this prayer crucial in itself, it also highlights to our members that outreach is something we consider to be a priority.
2. Church prayer meetings: We encourage Bible study groups across the parish to attend our once-a-term parish prayer meetings rather than to meet in their normal locations for that week. Last term, a couple of groups encouragingly decided to eat a meal together beforehand, and then attend the prayer meeting.
3. Individual prayer: About half a year ago I asked members in two of our church’s congregations to contact me if they wanted to undertake to pray for two minutes a day for five days a week for:
   • people to come to faith in our local area, and
   • new people to come to our church’s congregations.

About sixty people responded. I send out a short email each week with prayer points on this topic, a passage of Scripture and a story or two.

One recipient emailed me this past week and wrote:

Thank you for your emails. I appreciate you sending them weekly as they prompt me to stop and pray each time I receive them. Now that the habit is set I’m finding it easier to also pray more often throughout the week on a regular basis.

She then outlined how, in answer to her regular prayers, a non-Christian friend she has been praying for was happy to send her children to our church’s holiday kids’ club, and that one child would now be heading along to our church’s Friday afternoon primary school group to try it out. “It’s such a wonderful thing to see God working in this way!” she concluded.

Let’s authentically apple pie our evangelistic prayers!