National  Pastors'  Prayer  Network
   
STRATEGIC PRAYER IDEAS & INITIATIVES  - 02/04/2003

    ...Finding New Ways To Connect In Prayer

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*    PASTOR PHIL'S PRAYER LETTER

February already?!

Carol and I are at O’Hare’s Gate C-24 waiting for our flight to Southern California.  I have two meetings this week; Monday through Wednesday in Palm Desert with the Mission America National Facilitators, then Thursday through Saturday in Orange with fellow Directors of Mega-City Southern Baptist Church Associations.

You may remember that January began with an 11 day trip to Nigeria, which afforded me the opportunity to speak on networking to several thousands of Pastors and Church Leaders.

My part-time roles with the Chicago and the Illinois Baptist Associations continue - Several good opportunities this past month with downstate Illinois congregations.

The Celebration of Prayer at Willow Creek was blessed - Thanks for your prayer support!

Contribution records and a letter of appreciation were sent to those who provided financial support this past year - If you should have received a letter and it has not arrived, please contact us immediately so we can provide you with necessary documentation for tax filing.

 

Phil & Carol

“In everything by prayer...”

€ Give thanks with us for God’s financial supply. Every month we need to raise several thousand dollars to supplement the regular income I receive from part-time positions. Those dollars are needed to meet our personal expenses but also allow us to cover ministry expenses and provide resources / scholarships for Pastors.

€ As we look forward, let’s not forget to pray “backward” - Ask the Lord to bring fruit from the seeds He has planted through our combined ministry of Prayer INC ... May Pastors, Leaders, and Congregations get serious and strategic in their praying!

* Wednesday the 12th  - Office catch-up day
    Pray we’ll be able to keep our commitments

* Thursday the 13th & Friday the 14th - Chicago: Prayer Seminar for International House of Prayer Internship Program
    Pray for impartation to the students

* Saturday the 15th & Wednesday the 19th - Carol and I meet with several of our ministry partners
    Pray our partners know how much they are appreciated

* Monday the 17th - One Great City Convening Team
    Pray for a common vision regarding our next steps

* Monday the 17th - CMBA Administrative Council
    Pray for financial wisdom and release

* Tuesday the 18th - CMBA Staff retreat
    Pray for a new sense of teamship and common vision

* Thursday the 20th - Meeting to discuss web site development
    Pray for funding that will enable us to take the next step in building the One Great City website

* Saturday the 22nd - Elgin, IL - Intercessors Roundtable
    Pray for the Holy Spirit’s leadership as I facilitate

* Sunday the 23rd - Calvary Memorial Church, Oak Park, IL
    Pray for spiritual power and physical strength as I preach at four morning services

* Tuesday & Wednesday the 25th & 26th - City Impact Roundtable, Fontana, CA
    Pray for diverse representation ... And for me, as I co-facilitate this regional gathering of Christian leaders with a vision to see “The Whole Church take the Whole Gospel to the Whole City.”
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>From: " - - - " <\\\\\\@hotmail.com>

   --->NPPNote: Let's listen more carefully to who gets the spotlight in our prayers. Focus on the promise keeper, not the problem breaker; the problem solver, not the problem maker...

Kindly pray for the following urgent requests:
1.Please pray for the outthrow of all human plans and human and Satanic obstacles and delays on my job and financial matters and also in my marriage matter and the establishment of God's plans in these matters and a quick and prompt answer from God himself in these matters. 2. Deliverance from all Satanic bondages inflicted on us by repeated mantras on mangalsutras, Hindu prayer beads, Muslim and Christian prayer beads and allsorts of witchcraft coming from our neighbourhood and elsewhere. Destruction of all Satanic protection and Satanic messengers which my enemies have raised around them and that God may drive them away before our face 7 ways. 3. Deliverance from all Satanic bondages inflicted on us by some evil powers by my brother who is a backslider and a devilish person.Pray that he  may connect to some prayer group or church and get deliverance. 3.. Deliverance from all Satanic bondages  hindering a breathrough in my job application, marriage,spiritual ministry and career. 4... Deliverance from all Satanic bondages  hinderinga breathrough in my sister's future,education, marriage, spiritual ministry and career. 5... Deliverance from all Satanic bondages   and completebodily healing for my mother. 6... Deliverance from all Satanic bondageshindering a breathrough  in selling our house and miving to a house which God has promised us. 7.Pray for all Satanic bondages from our neighbourhood and elsewhere preventing me and my fiance to meet each other and to plan our future. 8. Pray for the destruction of all Satanic hindrance in getting the money help which I have requested from Mr. Bill Gates.
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7.     STRATEGIC PRAYER FOR HOLLYWOOD
>From: MISSION HOLLYWOOD  http://www.MissionHollywood.org

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 - - - -

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>From: "Bob Tolliver" <lifeunlimited@myexcel.com>

    --->NPPNote: Bob's article may be useful in two ways: 1) Distribute copies and ask members of your prayer group to read it before the next [prayer gathering and 2) Use it as the prayer format, stopping at each point to confess and repent over the identified problem...

One question that constantly haunts me about the prayerlessness of the Church in general, and my own personal neglect of prayer, is simple:  "If we recognize that prayer is so vital to not only our Christian walk but also the mission cause of Christ, then why do we pray so little, and with so little passion?"  When we were in Kiev and surrounding areas, we placed a great deal of focus on prayer.  In attending services in village churches and in listening to the students of St. James Bible College pray, it didn't take long to see the disparity in their prayer lives and ours.  Whether it was a small group of students gathering around a classmate praying for a relative, an entire church crying out to God to deliver a village, or our little band of Americans and Ukrainians gathering around the coffins in the Lavra, it was evident that prayer was far more important to those people than it is to most western believers.

To us it seemed to be a duty while, to them it seemed to be a privilege.  To us we tried to fit it in, but to them they pushed everything aside until they were done praying.  Frankly, I felt like again, as we often do on these trips, we got a small taste of the real thing.

Each week I receive prayer reports from dozens of different sources, all of which are filled with stories where individuals, families, churches, or even complete towns and cities have been radically affected by prayer.  Yet, most of those reports are from outside my own country.  The one exception to that is what I hear regarding city-wide prayer movements and pastors' prayer groups.  Space certainly will not allow me to even begin sharing some of those reports.  

My conclusion is that many of us have allowed "thieves" to slip in undetected and steal the presence and vitality of life changing prayer.  As I've tried to examine my own heart to discover those thieves that steal my prayer life, I readily admit that when it comes to the bottom line, it's really all my fault.  It's not as if I have no control over these things; I just don't exercise simple discipline to bring them captive to the obedience of Christ as Paul declared to the Corinthian believers.

As I compared prayer in the western (and especially American) culture to its place and use in eastern European settings, I came up with these conclusions.  Some of the thieves of prayer are . . . . .

1.  Too many blessings and not enough adversity:  When you have much, you tend to pray little.  When you have all these resources, you forget that your real strength continues to be in the Lord Jesus Christ alone.  This thief has successfully undermined the power and ministry of the Church from earliest times.  It is no different today.  We have far too many blessings to make us people of prayer.  We suffer far to little adversity and hardship to force us to become people of prayer.

Since that is the case, I think we should be prepared . . . . prepared for our bounty to be stolen and for adversity to increase.  In both Old and New Testament days, when it was necessary, God reduced everything to its lowest common denominator; we should not think He will treat this generation any differently.  You see, friend, when you are blessed with so many things, it's difficult to focus your attention on the thousands of suffering Christians in Sudan, Uganda, Indonesia, India, Philippines and other countries who are suffering so.  As a result, they often pray alone, abandoned by brothers and sisters around the world, simply because we'd rather concentrate on the good and ignore the evil; we'd rather count our blessings than cry out to God in intercession.

May God help us to get our priorities straightened out before it's too late.

2.  A Program mentality:  Many of us who have been under the influence of western thinking have been trained to think of even the most simple and basic Christian disciplines such as prayer, reading God's Word, ministering to the needy, fellowshipping with other believers, and the like as being no longer important.  We feel we have moved beyond the baby stage and now stand as mature spiritual adults.  When that happens you cease looking at the basics as necessary for life and you begin looking at them as just more program alternatives which we can take or leave.

I was shocked in class one day when, in discussing a section in my "city-taking" class called "Personal Preparation", one of the students asked, "Why do we need to waste class time with these teachings?  We already know them; we have grown beyond them.  What we need is to know 'how' . . . . what are the steps to reaching our cities?"  I suddenly realized we may not be so far apart as I had thought.

Once you develop a programmatic attitude regarding prayer where you have to promote it as part of a plan or you have to put it on your calendar, then you are in very serious trouble.  There are certain hoops you have to jump through . . . . such as making sure you actually pray during midweek services, especially since you usually call it prayer meeting . . . . such as taking time for a long list of prayer requests made up usually of people who are moderately ill or feeling badly.  You have to pray a certain way with a certain sound.  You have to be in a certain position.

We have made the average corporate prayer time a mockery because we have allowed a program mentality to steal the urgency and life of prayer from our hearts.

3.  Bondage to schedules:  Similarly, because prayer is not a vital part of our lives on an intimate level, we find it easy to relegate praying to a certain place in a building or a certain time on the program.  First you have the Prelude, then maybe the call to worship, then a welcome or hymn,  . . . . and then finally the "Invocation"!, that great and lofty experience of trying to impress everyone in the building with your spiritual depth by praying in that well developed minister tone in King James English.

A little later we'll do it again when it's time for the offering, at which time, we may have one of the ushers or deacons pray a lifeless empty discourse of meaningless verbiage.  Then, of course, we must also do it at the end of our sermons, and then we'll finally call on some one to offer the benediction (or we may do it ourselves).  So, by the time our one hour experiment in religious activity has expired, we've spent perhaps as much as five minutes saying prayers, but probably not really praying.

Now, lest you think I'm being hard and cynical, I am.  Obviously there are exceptions to this scenario, but in far too many church gatherings, that's about all the praying that will be done corporately for the week, with the possible exception of a hand full who return for Sunday night or midweek services.  Makes me wonder why Jesus said His House was to be called a house of prayer for all nations.  Maybe it's because we've also turned it into a den of thieves by converting it into something never intended.

That picture is a far cry from what we saw in Ukraine.  During class time I had the students praying for their cities.  I couldn't have put a time clock on it if I had wanted to, and yet we always concluded right on time.  True, I didn't cover all the material I wanted, . . . . but we did meet with God in the process.  And, on final exam day, every student except one got an A on the final.  It didn't hurt a bit.

On our first Sunday in the Ukraine we returned to the village of Brussilov.  Upon our arrival, the people essentially threw any sense of time out the window.  In fact, there was no clock to be found in the meeting room.  So, we sang, we worshipped, we were exhorted, we were entertained by the children singing, we gave testimonies,  . . . . . and we prayed.  For just over three hours we sat on low wooden benches about eight inches wide with no back support of any kind.  

Even the smallest of children were not restless.  We were meeting with God, worshipping Him, crying out to Him in intercession.  An elderly gentleman from a distant village read some scripture, gave a brief discourse, and then led us into the Father's presence with brokenness, compassion, and humility.  Even though I didn't understand a single word except "Spaciba" (thank you) and "Gospod" (Lord), I fully identified with this brother as he sought the face of God.

If you're tied to some sort of schedule or agenda, you'll discover your true prayer life has been stolen by the thief.

4.  Spiritual anemia:  Not only have blessings made us soft, but lack of spiritual food and exercise has made us anemic.  

Right this moment I am suffering from an intense cold that has left me listless, weary, and struggling to focus as I write you.  It's as if my energy level has been cut off.  That's the way it can be with our prayer lives.  We can develop some type of spiritual anemia that saps us of our strength and vitality.  When we neglect prayer, when we neglect time in God's Word, when we avoid fasting, when we ignore time together with other believers, when we forget to have times of worship, and when we fail to have times of simple silence in the Lord's presence, we, too, can develop spiritual anemia.

When you don't feel energized and passionate in your spiritual life, . . . . when your heart fails to cry out to God like the deer longing for the water brook, your prayer life will suffer . . . . and maybe even disappear.  If you want a vital prayer life, you must have a revitalized spiritual condition.

5.  Hardened and encrusted hearts:  Scripture is clear that the "cares of this world" will choke out spiritual vitality.  

I remember as a teenager those special Summer days when I worked on my uncle's farm.  In just a matter of hours my hands would be red, cut, swollen, and blistered.  I had been away from the farm for several months and had returned with tender and sensitive hands.  However, after a few more days of hard work, and after the blisters had broken and pained me, I would begin to see callouses develop.  When that happened, I could pick up bales of hay and hardly feel the cutting of the wire.  I could pull "bull nettle" with my bare hands, oblivious to the sharp needles piercing my hands.

So it is in our prayer lives.  We can allow things of the world, cares of life, even the routines and rituals of life make our hearts hardened and encrusted.   As you and I labor in the harvest fields, we must not allow that to happen.  We must always return to receive the healing, cleansing, and comforting balm of Gilead so that we will always be sensitive to the voice of the Spirit.  Otherwise, we will discover too quickly but too late that our prayer life has been stolen by the thief.

6.  Foolish pride and self reliance:  Nothing will steal your prayer life as quickly as pride and self reliance.  When we decide we can handle a situation ourselves, or it's a sign of weakness to pray, or we don't want to break down weeping in front of someone, then we've got a huge case of pride and/or self reliance.  If we're depending on ourselves to resolve a problem or try to manipulate a situation, we've made a tragic error.

Once we ever lose sight of the fact that we are nothing without Him, and that we can do nothing without Him, we'll stop praying.  Why pray when you have control of something.  The late Ron Dunn said years ago that, "we never really pray until we have to".  I like Peter Lord's great statement . . . . "Make prayer your first choice, and not your last resort."

7.  Too analytically adult and not enough simple child-like:  How easy it is to try to analyze everything to see why something happened, or how it happened, or what we can do to fix it.  We claim we need to be able to pray as informed as possible, when in fact all we're doing is trying to gain the satisfaction that we can figure it out.

We need to spend less time with the Lord sitting across a conference table with Him, and spend more time crawling up in His lap so He can fix stuff.  Child-like faith is by far the greatest disposition to have in every situation where prayer is the order of the day.  Take a look at how Jesus treated the great teachers of His day, and then look at how He responded to children.

Which would you rather have . . . . a harsh rebuke and exposure of your ignorance, or a loving smile and chuckle that welcomed you onto His la for a big hug and a bearded nuzzle on your neck?  You're never too grown up for that kind of tender and loving attention, and when you can come back to child-like faith where you just throw it upon His mercy, your prayer life will blossom like Spring's meadows on a sunny morning.

Perhaps soon the Lord will sort out so many things in my heart that I want to share with you.  But, for today, this will have to do.  Oh, my dear friend . . . . . I urge you to seek after the Father in prayer.  Be like Martin Luther who said, "I have so very much to do today that I shall never get it done unless I spend the first four hours of the day in prayer."

There is a clear reason why Paul told Timothy, "I urge you, therefore, that first of all, prayer . . . . ." (I Tim 2:1).  There is a reason why Jesus said His house was not to be called a church, a meeting hall, a tabernacle, or anything . . . . except a house of prayer.  Interestingly, of the many churches we've been to in Ukraine these past few years, a very high percentage of them call their buildings houses of prayer for all nations.  And that's what they do there.

The great New York preacher, Phillips Brooks said, "Pray the largest prayers.  You cannot think a prayer so large that God in answering it, will not wish you had made it larger.  Pray not for crutches but wings."

My friend, you and I both know we ought to be men and women of prayer; there's no question.  More so, we should be people of faith-filled, obedient, prevailing prayer.  We know that as well.

So . . . . what keeps us from becoming that?

A simple decision . . . . . a decision that will snatch back from the thieves of prayer that most precious and powerful gift we have been given apart from our Salvation.  As I have studied the history of the church with all its patterns that have developed over the past 2,000 years, I believe God has brought us back to this one final ingredient now being returned to the Church . . . . . the weapon and life line of prayer.  It really is true, as Frank Laubach said, prayer is indeed "the mightiest force in the world".  Would that we pray as if we really believe that.

And, as you pray, please pray for Jo Ann and me!
In His Bond, Bob Tolliver -- Rom 1:11-12    /   Copyright January, 2002
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--->Unless clearly identified as "Personal To _____" or "Confidential" all information and comments sent to phil@nppn.org will be considered for use in a future NPPN Update.
--->Copyright 2003. However, permission is granted to freely redistribute to those who will partner in praying for and sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ with everyone in our nation and beyond.
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