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Contents
To Obtain This booklet is
produced by Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod World
Mission. Excerpts Step 1. Prayer Calls for Discipline. God Provides It. Judy didn't want to go. Driving through foggy evening twilight, she complained to herself, "You're exhausted from work. You're drained from taking care of Tom and the kids. The last thing you need is ninety minutes of mayhem. Why don't you just go home, lie down, and veg out?" She pulled into the community center parking lot. Lugging an athletic bag, she shuffled to the door and walked into the locker room.Wearily she put on an apricot fleece outfit, knee pads, and cushy shoes. Her clothes looked perky, but she wasn't. Out in the gym Judy joined eleven other women. She responded lamely to their greetings. Maxine, the athletic director, came out on the floor. "Hello, ladies," she barked. "You're all here. No absences. That's discipline! Let's begin with ten minutes of stretching exercises." As Judy stretched her tense muscles, a luxurious calm oozed into her limbs. Then Maxine turned on some lively music to inspire them for five minutes of jazzercize. Blood pumped. Adrenaline flowed. The music over, Maxine called, "I've got a new exercise for you to practice digging out slams." That had always been the hardest part of volleyball for Judy, but the exercise proved quite helpful. "Good job, ladies! Congratulate yourselves. You're learning the skills. Now let's play a game." Judy exchanged high fives with a couple of her friends and then took her position on the court. She loved this game. She was so glad she had come.
What changed Judy's attitude? She had placed himself under the training of a good coach. She was disciplining herself to become skilled. She was sharing the experience with friends. Like volleyball, prayer is a skill requiring discipline to do it faithfully and well. We don't like the word "discipline." It calls to mind sweat and toil and self-denial. Discipline, however, is not a curse but a blessing. Stop a moment and think. What is one thing you do well and love to do? Perhaps it is softball or sewing, typing or fishing. Even if you were born with some propensity for this activity, you had to learn how to do it correctly. And probably at some point you decided to become better at it. You signed up for a dance class or you went out for the soccer team. But perhaps you were having so much fun you didn't realize discipline was occurring. What if you could do the same with prayer about God's mission? You can! Mission prayer is a skill, a skill calling for discipline, but a skill you can learn. Let the Lord be your coach. This booklet will guide you through ten lessons to develop discipline in mission prayer. As the Lord leads you to apply the lessons, you will find yourself learning the skills of prayer. At times you will feel like Judy did, unwilling to begin. Both your natural laziness and Satan's deceitfulness tell us mission prayer is too hard. But the Holy Spirit will provide you the discipline you lack (Phil. 2:13). Once you get started, you won't regret it. No one ever says, "I wish I had spent less time praying."
Step 4. Take Grace Trips, Not Guilt Trips. Marge and Belinda attended a mission fair at a neighboring church. At a table displaying resources for mission prayer Marge leafed through a book entitled Operation World: A Day-by-Day Guide to Praying for the World. "Look at this," Marge urged. This book has an article on every country in the world. For example, here's Iraq, with a thumbnail sketch of the geography, people groups, languages, economy, politics, and religion." "What's that long list of paragraphs that follows?" asked Belinda. "Specific prayer items about the church and mission work in Iraq. Why, this book is sort of a part-World Almanac, part-prayer list for the globe. Isn't this thrilling!?" Belinda heaved a deep sigh. "What's wrong?" "How many pages are in that book?" Belinda asked. "Umm, six-hundred sixty-two." "How many prayer items are in it?" "Thousands and thousands! Don't you want a copy?" "No thank you! I've got dozens of things on my mission prayer list already, and I can hardly keep up with them. This book would send me on a guilt trip with no return ticket."
Belinda has a point. The world has hundreds of nations and cities. In thousands of cultures the people have never heard of Christ. To attempt to pray for mission work everywhere could drive someone crazy. What can you do to avoid the mother of all guilt trips? Answer this question: Where is the Bible verse which says you are responsible for praying for every lost soul on the face of the earth? Thank God, that verse doesn't exist. Yes, the Lord calls you to intercede for unbelievers, but He also knows you are just one person. Therefore, He only expects you to do a one-person-sized job. This means you are free to focus your mission prayer efforts. Without guilt you can choose one missionary or one people group in the world and zero in on them. The Lord will gladly answer your focused prayers. Meanwhile, the Holy Spirit will see to it that other Christians will pray for the mission needs that you do not select. Accepting your human limitations and focusing on one mission target has many benefits.
On the other hand, a word in defense of the book Operation World is in order. It wasn't written to produce guilt trips, but to send Christians on grace trips around the world to see how the Word of the Lord is growing in place after place despite many obstacles. A 662-page book may sound overwhelming, but you only need to read it (actually pray it) a day at a time. Operation World is arranged so that one can pray through the whole book in a year. For example, the Republic of Chad is assigned to March 26, and India is the prayer focus for May 29-June 17. Pray through this book in small bites, and you will enjoy the grace trips.
Step 5. Help Yourself Stay Focused. In 1981, while learning Spanish in Cuernavaca, Mexico, I visited a prayer chapel maintained by the Latin American branch of Campus Crusade for Christ. It was the most prayer-inspiring building I have ever entered. On the walls leading to the chapel entrance were 365 names of God in large, gold letters. At the entrance were maps of the world and a population clock, calculating the current population of the world and of Mexico, each number representing someone for whom Christ died. I passed through the glass doors into a room that was a perfect cube 30' x 30' x 30' (the same dimensions as the Most Holy Place in the Jewish temple). The ceiling was bordered by gold letters proclaiming Bible verses about the global rule of Christ. Plush, royal blue carpet covered the floor and walls. In each corner stood a kneeling rail for people to pray. In that atmosphere of utter silence, utter awe, utter solemnity, I knelt and prayed with an intensity I have rarely experienced. I prayed for my family and our preparation to go serve the Lord in Venezuela. I prayed for our families and churches back home that they would be bold to speak the message of life to others. Then I went on to pray about mission efforts around the world. Fervent and focused were my prayers in that holy place.
What is the lesson of this experience? Not that we must build cubic prayer chapels in our back yards, but that we tend to pray more concertedly in a setting and atmosphere which helps us concentrate on prayer. So, let's consider ways to stay focused. Place. It is true that you can pray any place, but there are benefits to setting aside a particular place for your mission prayer time. It may be a desk or chair that you don't normally use. Some Christians even convert a closet or corner of a room into a little prayer sanctuary. Visual aids. Pray for the world with the assistance of a globe, world map, or atlas. Just glancing at the maps reminds you God's saving Word is intended for those who live in distant places. You can also use pictures of people from other cultures to keep you thinking globally. Take a National Geographic and cut out pictures of folks from around the world. Mix them together to make your own collage of faces for whom Christ bled and died. Decorate the walls of your prayer space with photos of specific missionaries and people groups for whom you are praying. Musical aids. Set up a small sound system in your prayer area. On occasion use music, both instrumental and with mission lyrics, to assist your prayers. Verbal aids. Place on the wall in your prayer space printed lists of different categories of people and places about whom you are concerned. These could include:
Aromatic aids. Incense, perfumes, and scented candles can provide a prayerful atmosphere (pun intended). You can even seek out spice, fruit and floral scents from the region of the world for which you are praying. Print resources. You will want close at hand your Bible, hymnal, prayer list, and other prayer resources you find of value. You don't have to implement all these suggestions to assist your prayer discipline. Select only those which will help you stay focused. Some readers will do everything I have proposed and more. Some will select a few ideas and find them sufficient for their needs. Others may pack their favorite prayer tools into a notebook or briefcase, so that they can transform the bus to work, McDonald's, or any setting into a mission prayer chapel.
Step 7. Include National Believers. One of the most valuable prayer tools I have is a simple hand-drawn map of 'the southern corner of Guinea, a country in West Africa. It shows ten market areas and the national evangelists who are proclaiming Christ to animists and Muslims in each area. For example, one entry says, "Place: Kosolo. Evangelist: Henry Konoe (strong satanic area; long devil village is here.) Why is this map so valuable?
You are a partner in prayer with your missionary. Good partnership requires solid information. Some missionaries encourage your prayer partnership by providing specific details in their newsletters. But what if your missionary does not? Then take the initiative and ask for the information you need. Remember to ask for this information tactfully. Tell them you don't want to add an extra burden; you just want to help share their burdens. By letter, phone, or e-mail, ask your missionary to include in his/her newsletters names and details regarding:
You need this information because you are a partner in mission not only with the missionary but also with the national leaders and witnesses. Together you are all striving toward a shared goal: to establish churches which are indigenous. What does "indigenous" mean? Mission experts say truly indigenous churches exhibit four characteristics. They are:
A church which fails to develop any of these four characteristics does not mature. It remains stunted and dependent on missionaries and the mission agency. The traditional name for this unhealthy relationship is "paternalism." The current term is "codependency." Just as we do not desire a codependent relationship with our own children, so we desire maturity and independence for mission churches. Parents should provide children both roots and wings. Children should honor, obey, and love parents, even as they progressively grow able to fend for themselves. National Christians in mission fields must be granted similar opportunities to mature. One helpful way to attain this is to include nationals in your mission prayers.
Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. |