GREAT THINGS BEGIN WITH PRAYER!

Therefore I say to you, whatever you pray and ask for, believe that you will receive it, and it will be so for you.

— Mark 11:24

Just as prayer is a foundation for a follower of Jesus Christ — prayer must be a foundation to the course of creating a discipleship process for your church. Please do not take this for granted or skip over this critical element to get to the more logistical parts of the process. We strongly encourage you to make an intentional decision now to strengthen the prayer life of yourself, your ministry team, and your whole church throughout this process.

How many times have you heard someone say, "Start with prayer," when they were sharing some new ministry initiative? Well, you are hearing it one more time. Start with prayer! We believe making disciples is the most important ministry in any church, and every other ministry in the church flows out of this effort. As such, prayer and discernment are critical to leading us throughout this entire process. In this chapter, we will look at three separate but interconnected types of prayer in your church as they pertain to this overall initiative of creating a discipleship process for your church. First, we will share some thoughts and suggestions concerning your church's prayer team. Next, we will discuss prayer walking and how it adds a vital element to the program. Finally, we will look at the spiritual discipline of prayer and discernment for those individuals charged with creating a discipleship process for your church.

Prayer Team

Most churches have some type of prayer team in place. If your church does not currently have a prayer team, now would be a great time to initiate that ministry. Ask God's Holy Spirit to help you identify a few prayer-warriors who would be willing to meet at least weekly for an hour or so and pray. You might consider having everyone in the church do a spiritual gifts survey of some type to help you identify those who have the gift of prayer. Do not rush the process of identifying these individuals. Get to know them and ensure you have a good understanding of their current maturity as a disciple, and especially their prayer life, before you ask them to pray about being on this team. Even if the only person on the team at first is you, go ahead and start there. Pray for God to help you see others in your congregation who are gifted in prayer to join you on this journey.

Once you are satisfied with who is on your prayer team, focus on what they are praying about. Many churches have a prayer team that meets to pray for things such as members who are sick or in the hospital, concerns and praises of the congregation, or maybe events and activities of the church. Those are all great things. However, those examples are all inward focused prayers. If your church currently has a prayer team and you have a list of what they are praying about this week, take a look for yourself. What percentage of those prayer concerns and praises would you say are inward (connected in some way to the congregation), and what percentage are outward? Our challenge for you is to move the prayer needle for your church a little more outward than inward.

Depending on your situation, it might be best to start small and intentionally grow the outward percentage over time. Here are a few suggestions of outwardly focused prayers for your prayer team: local schools, teachers, students, principles, first responders, businesses, other churches, community leaders, and those who do not have a church home. Want to take this to another level? Have someone find out the names of a few of these individuals so you can pray for them by name. Imagine the power of praying by name for the local fire chief, police captain, mayor, school principal, business owner, and pastor of the church nearby! Each week, the prayer team should pray for those God is sending your church as first-time guests.

How does this connect to creating a discipleship process for your church? We believe a strong prayer team is the foundation upon which a church's discipleship process must be built. The prayers of this team will foster the transformation of the whole congregation, and prepare the way for all the work that will follow. To state the obvious, the prayer team should pray for the pastor, staff and leaders, along with the team in charge of creating and launching your discipleship process.

Prayer Walking

Prayer walking has been defined as "praying on-site with insight." To prayer walk is to take prayer outside the church walls as we walk through an area. Our prayers are "low profile and unobtrusive in appearance." We pray in the very places we expect to see God bring forth answers. Once your church has a prayer team in place and you are seeing fruit from that ministry, it is now time to take your congregation outside the walls to pray and listen for God's Spirit. Many people only know one posture of prayer: eyes closed, hands clasped, head bowed. While this is certainly a wonderful posture to speak with and listen to our creator, there are many other equally acceptable postures of prayer. One of them is for us to pray as we are walking.

We are going to share some best practices with you concerning prayer walking based on our experiences with other churches. Please do not see them as a how-to list, but as a starting point for you to adjust as needed, based on your individual church ministry. Read through the following items and then put together a plan for prayer walking with your congregation.

• Invite a group of people to join you at the church for a prayer walking event. Try to get as many people from the congregation as possible. Prioritize getting ministry leaders, staff, prayer team, discipleship pathway team, and other influential members of your church.

• Open with a prayer and a reading from scripture. You might consider Joshua 1:3: "I am giving you every place where you set foot."

• Explain the objective of prayer walking. "We are going to cover the areas around our church with prayer. We should pray for what we see and for what we hear from God. What is God saying to and showing us today?"

• Ensure everyone that all postures of prayer are welcomed by God. In fact, there are examples in the Bible of people praying to God standing, with arms raised high, or kneeling as well as lying down prostrate on the ground.

• You do not need to say anything specific to start our prayers or say "Amen" or anything at the end. The whole time walking is one continuous prayer.

• You may want to show a short video of some type concerning prayer walking. There are many to choose from on the Internet. We usually show one called "What prayer walking is NOT" from YouTube.

• Encourage the group to be open to the Holy Spirit as you go out together. "Expect to hear from God. See what God is showing you. Listen for what God is saying. Think about a person you love talking with, maybe your best friend. Imagine what those conversations would be like if only one of you did all the talking. If prayer is a conversation with God, then we should spend time listening for what God wants to say to you."

• When you come to a house, pray for the family who lives there. If you pass a business, pray for the owner, those who work there, the customers you see shopping. Lift up people's hurts, their needs, the things in their lives that might be keeping them from knowing Christ's love and forgiveness. You do not need to know the details, God knows.

• Most people in all communities do not attend a church each week. The fastest growing religious affiliation today is "none"— so pray for the lost!

• Typically it is best for people to go out in pairs. Don't do anything to draw attention to yourself. No one should be able to tell what is going on if they see you. Personal safety should also be a focus.

• Explain the power of prayer. People will feel your prayers, even if they are not able to identify what it is that they are feeling. You can trust that the Holy Spirit will move people's hearts. Some of the people you pray for might even go to church next weekend — but it may not be your church. You need to be okay with that.

• Be open to the leading of the Holy Spirit. You may feel called to pray a special word or phrase over a home or business. For example, as you pass a certain home you may feel called to pray a blessing of healing or to pray for reconciliation or to pray for them to experience God's grace and forgiveness. While this may not happen at each home or business, be open and trust God to hear and honor your prayers.

• You may have some people who are unable to physically participate in the church's prayer walk. Be sure to include these people. There are many other ways these individuals might participate without actually walking the community. They might spend the time praying over the church's prayer list, praying by name for those who are walking, or maybe praying for the homes or other buildings visible from your church.

• No matter what time of year you hold a prayer walk, the local weather can be a challenge. There is an old joke that says the two types of weather that affect church attendance the most are good weather and bad weather. Finding the perfect day for prayer walking can also be a challenge. Use your best judgment, but do not wait for the perfect day. It may never come.

• In some cases churches have asked to do a prayer-drive instead of a prayer walk. Our advice would be to avoid a prayer-drive if at all possible. It is just not the same experience driving as it is walking. The usual drive is too fast and contains too many distractions to really hear from God.

• The best place to start is always in the immediate area surrounding your church and then to expand the circle outward from there. Some members may want to prayer walk where they live, and that could be miles away from your church. That is of course a great idea, just not in place of prayer walking around the church. The fact that none of the congregation lives near the church might be just the point God wants to make today.

• Some churches obtain a map of the area around their church showing each home and business and then they color in sections as they cover those sections with prayer. What a powerful visual for everyone to see! We would encourage you to do something similar so that everyone in your church can be aware of this ministry.

• Holding a prayer walk once is great. We would encourage you not to stop there. Look for ways to involve as many groups and ministries as possible. Maybe each Sunday school class or small group could take an area to prayer walk several times a year. Imagine taking your leadership team out to do a prayer walk before the next major decision or vote.

• While there is no perfect amount of time to send people out to prayer walk, we have found twenty minutes works in most cases. That would be ten minutes out from the church and ten minutes back. Most people can cover a large amount of ground in that time.

• The Rev. Sue Nilson Kibbey in the West Ohio Conference of The United Methodist Church has done some wonderful work in the area of breakthrough prayer. We encourage you to read her book Flood Gates as another resource for your prayer walking initiative.

The most important part of any prayer walking activity is the debrief. Allow at least ten minutes after everyone returns for them to share their experience. What did God show them? What did they see for the first time? What did they hear from the Holy Spirit? What did God lay on their hearts? Use a flip chart or whiteboard to capture what is shared. Look and listen for connections and similarities.

Expect for this to affect people — God will move people to action. We have seen people return in tears for what they saw and heard from God. One church where we did prayer walking as part of the visioning process believed that all the families with young children had moved away. They had no children in the church and kept telling us there were no children living in the area around them. When they returned from prayer walking every single pair said they had seen children playing or evidence of children living in the homes! God spoke to this church and showed them what they might never have heard from anyone else.

How does prayer walking connect to creating a discipleship process for your church? A critical element of any discipleship process should be those who are not yet attending your church. One goal of prayer walking is for us to have our hearts and minds opened to better understand the needs of those unchurched families and individuals. Without this activity there is a real danger that any process we create will focus only on those who are already part of your congregation. An effective prayer walking ministry will help those who are charged with designing the church's discipleship pathway better understand the needs of the unchurched all around you.

"He said to them, 'The harvest is bigger than you can imagine, but there are few workers. Therefore, plead with the Lord of the harvest to send out workers for his harvest'" (Luke 10:2).

Discipleship Process Team

The final area of prayer concerns the team of people in your church who have come together to form the discipleship process team. While we will talk more about creating this team and their roles in another chapter, we thought it was important to include a few elements concerning prayer in this chapter. One of the common themes running through all the stages leading up to the launch of your new discipleship pathway is discernment. It's important to listen for God's Spirit to speak to, and guide, this team in all its work.

We have already written about meeting people where they are on their spiritual journey and helping them take their next steps. The same is true for this team. Spend time with the discipleship process team teaching about prayer and how our prayer is directly connected to discerning God's will. Each person on the team is at a different place in her or his prayer life, and during the time leading up to the launch of your new discipleship process, you should challenge each of them to take at least one step forward in her or his prayer life. There are many ways you might encourage them to do this: by fasting or meditation, by reading and reflecting on scripture, through a spiritual retreat, or by journaling. Many people spend all of their time in prayer speaking. This team needs to shift the emphasis to listening. This might be tough for those on the team who are type A personalities ready to get to work! However, the investment now will pay major dividends later by ensuring you are in God's footsteps and not running off on your own path. In the next chapter, we will build on this concept of prayer when we look closely at our mission as a church and as disciples.

Discussion Questions

1. What needs to be addressed by your church in the area of building or training a prayer team that will prepare you to move forward with creating a discipleship pathway?

2. When are you going to schedule a prayer walking event for your church? Who needs to be involved?

3. Once the discipleship process team (referenced in the last section of this chapter) is chosen, what are three things you would like to put into place to help them grow their prayer life as a team and individually?

RECOMMITTING TO OUR MISSION

I tell you that you are Peter. And I'll build my church on this rock. The gates of the underworld won't be able to stand against it.

— Matthew 16:18

First the good news: we do not have to worry about building the church. Jesus will take care of that. Remove that burden from your shoulders. Over the past twenty-plus years there has been a lot written and said about the state of the church in the United States (and many other nations). People point to various causes for the decline of the church, and some very smart and godly experts have given us numerous ways to turn things around. We believe it is time to turn building the church back over to Jesus. Church attendance, membership, and even baptisms (along with many other church metrics) are wonderful things for us to measure to see if we are heading in the right direction, but they all make terrible targets.

How would you define the term mission? In his book Advanced Strategic Planning, Aubrey Malphurs defines mission as "a broad, brief, biblical statement of what the ministry is supposed to be doing." The Merriam-Webster Dictionary includes the following definition for mission: "a pre-established and often self-imposed objective or purpose." When working with churches who are discerning God's vision for their ministry, we will often say that mission is "what you do" and vision is "where God is calling you to go." Whatever definition you use, it is important for your church to be clear on its mission. What does your church do? Imagine pulling all the church calendars and budgets for the past couple of years. Now add to that all the bulletins, newsletters, web pages, and any other form of communication you might be using. If you were to share all that with someone who has never been to a church and has no idea what a church is, what would they say you do?