35 On-ramps to Engage New People In Prayer

Onramp

I say all the time that prayer is first of all a “get to” before it is a “have to”. Having written a book, Enjoying Prayer, to help people find the joy of prayer I believe that eventually people will want to spend time with God. People who are taught and try a prayer life will want to pray. It is kind of like a freeway; once they get on they will move faster into the presence of God. As a leader it is your opportunity to provide as many on ramps to the prayer freeway as possible. Let me just give you some ideas to get you started

1. Build prayer teams for every church outreach event.

2. Have times of special prayer for missionaries you support or assign out missionaries throughout the year.

3. Schedule a prayer walk/drive around your city.

4. Schedule a prayer missions trip (locally or internationally).

5. Present the idea of praying for your 5 closest neighbors.

6. Have people create a list of 5 unreached friends to pray.

7. Have everyone in the church put a prayer request on a 3 x 5 card and trade them for a week.

8. Start a prayer small group.

9. Make signs of church goals for prayer.

10. Model different postures of prayer in your services.

11. Invite fire fighters, police officers, socials workers, government officials to a time to pray for them.

12. Have a special weekend of 24/7 prayer.

13. Have a week of fasting and prayer (spice it up with doing different types of fasts: TV, Social Media etc).

14. Put a weekly prayer request for the church through your social media channels.

15. Have people sign up for a weekly email with prayer needs of the church.

16. Introduce the church to prayer apps: 7:14, PrayerMate, Voice of the Martyrs.

17. Have open times of prayers in your service when each person prays for their own needs.

18. If you don’t have regular prayer services, start one for once a quarter.

19. Start or expand a prayer team for needs after the service.

20. Hand out world prayer maps (Every Home For Christ -Free).

21. Have a training to teach people how to pray for others.

22. Introduce people to classics of prayer like The Practice of the Presence of God and The Hour that Changes the World.

23. Introduce people to classic prayer people: Praying Hyde, George Mueller, Charles Finney.

24. Recruit people to be prayer mentors.

25. Have special prayer events for ministries, Men’s Prayer Night, 20 something prayer day etc.

26. In small group based churches do prayer training for your leaders.

27. Share selected testimonies of answered prayer.

28. Encourage people to pray for lost people at Christmas.

29. Teach the prayer of thanksgiving at Thanksgiving.

30. Encourage people to pray for new things at the New Year for themselves and church.

31. Encourage people to pray for hurting people and marriages on Valentine’s Day.

32. Encourage people to pray for new life on Easter.

33. Pray for hurting mother’s/fathers on Mother’s/Father’s Day

34. Give opportunities to pray for their country on Independence Day.

35. Use back to school as a time to pray for kids/teachers and administrators.

Pick one that you like on this list and start somewhere. Before you know it a whole new culture of prayer might develop in your church. 

One of the Biggest Temptations for People of Prayer

temptation

It might be not be what you think, but slip ups in this area can mess up your effectiveness very quickly. It falls in the area of not being trusted. As people of prayer we are often entrusted with information that is confidential in nature. In my work of ministering to pastors it happens all the time. This is for a couple of reasons:

1.  People will trust you with things if they know you will pray for it.

People who know that you are a person of prayer will give you information about their needs. They are looking for someone they know will not just say they will pray about it, but who will actually pray about the need. But if word gets out that you can’t be trusted with that information, because you are going to blab it to everyone, you may miss some prayer assignments that God wanted you to pray.

2.  God will trust you with things He knows you will talk to Him about.

God will bring into His confidence people who He is confident that He can share His heart. He told Abraham, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do?” (Gen 18:17) A prayer that I pray often is, “God reveal your secrets to me.” But God is looking to see if I can handle the information that He shares in an appropriate manner. We need to practice in being trusted.

A pastor that had a great prayer team around him had one main qualification to be on the team. Anyone on his personal prayer team must not, “be given to sins of the tongue.” Is this an area that you need to strengthen to go to the next exciting level that God would have for you in your ministry of prayer?