The Role of Prayer in Church Planting Movements
by David Garrison

Prayer permeates Church Planting Movements. Whether it's Koreans rising at four in the morning for a two-hour prayer vigil, or Spanish Gypsies "going to the mountain," as they call their all-night prayer vigils. Church Planting Movements are steeped in prayer.

Consequently, prayer has become the first priority of every Church Planting Movement practitioner that I've ever interviewed. As soon as a Strategy Coordinator senses the gravity of his calling, he immediately falls on his knees and prays, "Oh God, only You can make this happen."

In Church Planting Movements prayer unfolds in multiple dimensions. We typically see seven roles that prayer plays in the life of a Church Planting Movement.

#1 Prayer for the missionaries. Missionaries to the world's unreached people groups are invading hostile territory. Many of these unreached peoples have spent centuries, even millennia, under the dominion of "the god of this world,"1 and he does not surrender them lightly. Missionaries engaged in Church Planting Movements have come under severe attack on a spiritual level. Their health, their family members, their vocation are all subject to attack by Satan. Praying for them is the best defense they can have.
   
#2 Prayer by the missionaries. Missionaries in Church Planting Movements have been driven to the limits of their abilities, and this drives them to their knees. As prayer comes to characterize their life, it becomes contagious to their team members and to those they are trying to reach with the gospel. If prayer doesn't characterize their life, then they are powerless to pass it on to those they are trying to reach. Instead, they begin to see the missionary as either a gifted person whom they could never imitate, or an unexceptional person whom they would not wish to imitate.
   
#3 Prayer for the lost people group. One of our missionary leaders serving in Africa recently commented on a major goal he'd achieved that was yielding great results. "For years," he said, "our missionaries have had churches praying for them. Now, they are shifting the focus of prayer onto the lost people they are trying to reach." This shift has been pronounced across the Evangelical world. For years, it has been commonplace for Christians to tag onto their prayers "and God bless the missionaries." While Christians continue to pray for missionaries, they are increasingly pouring out their hearts for the Kurds, Mongols, Uighurs or Uzbeks. People groups who have never been prayed for in all of history are now being lifted up before the throne of God.
   

As I speak in churches I'm sometimes asked by faithful prayer warriors, "Do my prayers make a difference?" I love to tell them of people like Ibrahim. Ibrahim was a young Muslim convert that I met deep in Inner Asia in 1990. He was the first of his people group to come to faith in Christ. I remember how his face glowed with the radiance of the Holy Spirit in his life. I asked one of the clandestine missionaries working in the area how they had led Ibrahim to Christ.

"We didn't," they said. "He came to faith through prayers."

"I don't understand," I said.

The missionary explained, "Ibrahim is a student at the university; he's also the son of a Muslim mullah. We normally stay away from people like him. But one day Ibrahim came to me and told me of a dream he'd had. In his dream an old man handed him a book and said, 'Read this.' Ibrahim asked me if I knew what the book was. Apparently he'd been asking his friends the same question because the dream had occurred more than once. His friends had always pointed him to the Qur'an, but Ibrahim said, 'No. It's not the Qur'an.'"

The missionary hesitated and then spoke softly, "In my drawer I had a tattered copy of the New Testament. It was written in the old script that most of Ibrahim's people could no longer understand. So I had never used it in witnessing to them. I hesitated, but then sensed God wanted me to take a risk with this mullah's son. I showed it to Ibrahim. 'Could this be the book?'"

The missionary continued. "Ibrahim opened the book and said, 'Ah, I see it is in the old script. My father taught me how to read this. Do you mind if I borrow it?' Over the next few weeks Ibrahim read all of it and led himself to faith in Christ."

I realized that the true source of Ibrahim's conversion could only be found in the many saints who had prayed for Ibrahim's people group to come to faith in Christ.
   
#4 Prayer for the new believers. In the course of Church Planting Movements no one suffers as much as the first converts in the movement. Missionary newsletters are filled with pleas for churches to pray for Amal, who has been imprisoned, or Mohammed, whose family threatened to kill him. New Church Planting Movements often pass through a crucible of testing in which the first believers are harassed and even killed. If the church survives this initial testing then a Church Planting Movement is not far behind. If Satan can crush the first fruits, then the Church Planting Movement doesn't survive.
   
#5 Prayer by the new believers. In every Church Planting Movement powerful prayer flows through the lives of the believers and their churches. I say powerful because the prayer was invariably accompanied by God's mighty activity in their lives. Vices were broken, diseases were healed, opposition was crushed, lives were changed. Often the prayer was accompanied by a strong sense that God has His hand on this people. It was their time--their appointed day of salvation. This creates a powerful force within a people. They witness with boldness, sensing that God is on their side. They don't flinch under persecution, confident that God is with them.
   
There are some collateral benefits that emerge from prayer in a Church Planting Movement. I don't know that we anticipated these benefits before we began marshalling prayer, but they have emerged as key factors in the success of many Strategy Coordinators' ministries.
   
#6 Prayer between partners. Strategy Coordinators in Church Planting Movements invariably have wide networks of partners who come from all over the world. How do they develop such close bonds so quickly that overcome enormous barriers of language, culture and even theology? The secret is prayer. Strategy Coordinators pray for partners and pray with partners. The call to prayer for an unreached people group is usually the first step in drawing these diverse partners together.
   
#7 Prayer for more workers. Jesus commanded us to "Pray to the Lord of the harvest to call out workers."2 Prayer mobilizes harvesters to come to join the work. One of the first Strategy Coordinators I worked with in 1989 was assigned to a people group who were notorious for their hostility toward Christians. "How can I ask new missionaries to come and serve in this place," he asked me, "knowing as I do, that this is not a safe assignment?" What I told him then is what I've come to believe more and more over the years. "You can't," I said, "but you can ask them to pray for this people group. And then if God calls them, you can trust that He will take care of them."
   
We pray because our burden exceeds our abilities. Prayer is the soul's deepest cry of rebellion against the way things are. Prayer sees the lost of this world and cries out, "This does not glorify God. So, by God's grace, it must change!" Prayer comes from God and goes to God on behalf of those who do not know God. Extraordinary prayer lays the foundation for a Church Planting Movement.
   
12 Corinthians 4:4
2Matthew 9:38

A Publication of
 Global Strategy

Articles submitted to The Strategist are posted with minimal editing.
© Copyright 2003 International Mission Board. All rights reserved.

Additional questions, Comments, Concerns... Can't Find It?
TO RECEIVE PERSONAL ATTENTION
contact your Strategist Webservant