IBSA Prayer Ministries: March 2008

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Partner in Prayer with Baptist Initiative in San Diego

n Diego

FOCUS... connecting intercessors in prayer for city transformation.

"In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the Gospel from the first day until now." Philippians 1:4-5

We know that partnership, like vision, is essential to any city transformation effort. The simple truth is that we can accomplish more together than by ourselves. This month's prayer requests are perfect examples of what God can do when His people unify behind what He is already doing. See specific prayer requests here.

§ Churches are planted when a common purpose brings people together.

§ County-wide initiatives like Faith in Action increase in effectiveness when churches share ideas and resources.

§ Partners and volunteers from around the country are called to come alongside those already ministering in San Diego.

As you pray through this month's requests, consider how God might be leading you to partner with others in your church or community so that more might come to know Christ. Thank you for your prayers for San Diego!

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Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Prayer Experts?

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There are No Experts on Prayer. Here's Why.
from Joe McKeever

I don't know why this offended me. I was standing in the section of
the local Lifeway Christian Store that features books on prayer--I
must have a hundred and am always looking for the next great
one--and picked up one by a Southern Baptist pastor from a nearby
state. I scanned the table of contents to see what his book covered,
then read the comments on the back.

At the bottom of the back cover was the author's thumb-sized photo
and a small bio. "Pastor So-and-So is an expert on prayer," it
announced. That stopped me in my tracks. Until that moment, I don't
think I had ever actually heard anyone referred to as an expert on
prayer. On expository preaching, perhaps, and evangelism,
leadership, sermon-building, stewardship, and a dozen other aspects
of the ministry. But prayer?

How does one get to be an expert on prayer?===>Click headline tfor complete article . .

Saturday, March 15, 2008

Draw Your Students into Centered-on-Jesus Praying

Here's an excellent resource for a Sunday class, weeknight Bible study, or weekend retreat. Based on the first 13 chapters of the Book of Acts, this flexible five-session text is designed to help youth learn to pray. Through it interactive approach which includes several group learning activities, teen participants explore the prayer life of early Christians as well as learn to pray by actually praying for others in their group. It helps students come to understand that Jesus is always with them, and the importance of creating a personal relationship with Him through regular prayer. Includes leader helps and group learning activities===>Click headline for more information . .

Monday, March 03, 2008

SBC @ Prayer ~ Can Prayer Start New Churches?

It’s working! I suspected that it would. It always has. I’m talking about prayer. I’ve been working with the leadership of Vancouver (Canada) Focus in starting new churches in the metro Vancouver area. I agreed to take on the responsibility for the Frasier River Delta, an area between the city of Vancouver and the U.S. border. The population of the three cities in this area – White Rock, Ladner, and Tsawwassen - is approaching 100,000 and there are no Southern Baptist churches. Jesus told His disciples to “pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest” (Matt. 9:38; Luke 10:2). We produced a virtual prayer walk video of the area, recruited a global prayer team, and began to pray to the Lord of the harvest that He would start a church or churches in the Frasier River Delta. Almost immediately, one of the church starters in Vancouver received a phone call from a lady in White Rock inquiring about a potential new church start there. Last week, two Seminary students walked into my office, completely unannounced and un-recruited. One grew up in Ladner and wants to return to that area upon graduation to start a church. The other is from the state of Washington, just a few miles from the Canadian border, and was asking about going with me in May during an Urban Practicum in Vancouver to explore the area for a possible church start. Was Jesus correct? Can we really pray the Lord of the harvest and get results? Absolutely! It’s working! If you’d like to be a part of the global prayer team and receive updates, click on www.discipleallnations.org and then click on the skyline of Vancouver on the right side of the page to view the 13 minute virtual prayerwalk. Then e-mail me at dcrawford@swbts.edu and tell me you want to join the prayer team and receive updates.

By the way, we need your assistance in recruiting new subscribers to “Dr. Dan’s Monday Morning Memo.” When we get sixteen more subscribers we can switch to a much more sophisticated delivery system. Don’t you know someone you could contact today and encourage to subscribe?

(Post a comment to this Memo by clicking HERE)

Enjoy and may reflecting on these thoughts help get your week off to a great start!

I'd love for you to leave a comment at the bottom of the blog entry and visit the Disciple All Nations website:

Click HERE to go to the Disciple All Nations Home Page.
Click HERE to read the latest prayer requests from missionaries in Europe.
Click HERE to read previously posted Monday Morning Memos.

Monday morning blessings,
Dr. Dan Crawford
President, Disciple All Nations, Inc.
http://DiscipleAllNations.org

P.S. Feel free to read our Blog,"Dr. Dan's Monday Morning Memo" anytime at: http://discipleallnations.org/blog

Disciple All Nations, Inc.
4388 Rota Circle
Fort Worth, Texas 76133

SBC @ Prayer ~ More than a Prayer Guru

JENA, La. (BP)--On a recent Wednesday evening, as my colleague placed his 15th baptismal candidate under the water, I received an e-mail from a national convention executive asking how the experience of the Jena revival could be replicated in his part of the country. I replied with my Blackberry, "Much prayer." My personal thoughts were centered on Jesus' response to the disciples' inquiry as to why they couldn't cast the demon out of the young man in Mark 9. "This kind cannot come out by anything but prayer" (Mark 9:29).

John L. Yeats

Humble, fervent prayer lies at the base of every great move of God. If we are to experience the hand of God moving in our Southern Baptist churches, we must be compelled to go to our knees in prayer.

This doesn't mean we hold a prayer meeting on Wednesday night or schedule the latest prayer guru to lead an organized study on prayer. Nor does it mean we meet and articulate our wish list as if God was some sort omnipotent pizza delivery guy (You call in what you want and He will deliver). How presumptuous our American thinking can be.

The kind of praying that released the power of God in a broken community like Jena, La., is the kind that begins in the heart of a desperate individual. With no place to turn but to the Lord Himself, one falls to his/her knees and bows in surrender to the Lord, our King. Desperate, not manipulative prayer, moves the heart of God.

Pride resists such a display of humility. But obviously, at the point of individual and community brokenness, God desires to orchestrate something extraordinary. In Jena, I observed how at invitation time the men broke from their seats, briskly walked down the aisles and fell on their faces before God. These were the leaders of the church and the leaders of the families. Men from different races. Young men, median adult men, seniors. They humbled themselves and sovereignly, God moved toward His humbled people.

Two rows in front of me, a woman turned to a friend. You could read her lips, "Watch my baby, I'm going to the altar." And she went to the altar and knelt. You could see her shoulders heaving with repentance.

The church's interim pastor continues to say that the key to this movement is humbling ourselves before our Holy God, obedience to God's Word and faith to trust God. Simple, yet profound. When these concepts are translated out of the worship center and into the community the next day, there seems to be a holy boldness that abounds. The homes, the community, the workplaces, the educational institutions and even the Wal-mart buzzes with the news about God working in response to humility, submission and faith.

A trucker stood before the congregation and testified that his wife who attended the meetings came home and looked him in the eyes and asked, "If you died tonight ...?" He had heard the question before but this time it kept him up all night long and on Wednesday evening, he surrendered his life to Christ and became a candidate for baptism.

While lining up the candidates for baptism, a mom grabbed the sleeve of the interim pastor and said, "I'm lost and I want Jesus." As the congregation waited a little longer for the Wednesday night baptismal service, she surrendered her life to Christ.

No pastor, no committee, no convention initiative can orchestrate this kind of response. There is no slick program or personality who can make this happen. No one can package a movement of God and put it in a box to be sold at LifeWay stores. Genuine revival is God's people responding to the Spirit of God, the Spirit at work in the lives of people.

When He is moving, people humbly and fervently pray. This kind of praying is not what is experienced in most churches today. It's not the kind of praying that some people in our churches have ever experienced. Some fear that honest, humble prayer will lead them to do something weird or to cause the body to utter something unintelligible. That is just the spirit of fear talking in someone's head. When God moves, He moves in concert with His Word. Besides, how weird is confession of sin, restored relationships, or reconciled marriages and families? How weird is justice and racial equity? How weird is it for someone to surrender to the call of God?

When the heart is humbled the only opinion that matters is God's. The expression of God moving in response to a broken and contrite heart delivers people from their cultural demons and restores His supremacy in the life of his child and his church.

The greatest challenge of the church today is our desperate need for a move of God. To discover what a move looks like, we must humbly pray and desperately seek Him.

John L. Yeats is the recording secretary of the Southern Baptist Convention, director of communications for the Louisiana Baptist Convention and editor of LBCLive, the state convention's missions magazine.

IBSA Prayer Ministries