Keep Your Promise to Pray

"I'm praying for you." Have you ever said this to someone, only to realize the next time you saw them that you didn’t pray for them? If so, you're not alone.

Prayer is central to our personal discipleship and it’s crucial to the effectiveness of our Life Group ministry. If we’re not dependent upon God and relying on his Holy Spirit to guide and direct us, we are powerless—like a grand prix engine without any gas in the tank.

So, if we are going to be effective prayer warriors, we are going to have to be very intentional about prayer. Here are some things that I do to try and keep me on track.

CHOOSE A TIME

Time is my most valuable commodity, but if I’m not aware of it, I will spend it flippantly. I have found that if I don’t designate a time for prayer, it will be squeezed out of a busy schedule. So, set aside a time for prayer each day. For me, the early morning works best. The house is typically quiet before my kids wake up and I can focus. I’m not much of a morning person so I’m usually tired, but I’m not nearly as tired as I am at the end of the day. That makes the trade-off worth it for me.

I also find that starting my day with prayer helps me see my day through a different perspective. If I’ve started my day praying for patience or peace, as I interact with people or begin to get overwhelmed, I’m able to reflect back on my early morning prayer. If I choose the evening for my daily prayer, I’m usually regretful about how I behaved throughout the course of my day. Morning prayer helps me to be proactive, not reactive.

Mark 1:35-37 tells us that Jesus used the early morning to pray. And though the bible doesn’t always say when he prayed, it mentions morning prayer in many different places (Ps. 5:3; Ps. 30:5; Ps. 88:13; Ps. 90:14; Ps. 143:8; Isa. 26:9; Isa. 50:4; Job 1:1-22) was probably not a one-time occurrence.

CHOOSE A SPACE

I don’t have a home office yet, but I plan to have one setup in the future. Until then, the kitchen table is my space for prayer. The fact that it’s near the coffee maker helps. I like that it’s by the window so I can see the sun peaking up over the horizon as I pray. It’s comfortable, and it’s clean (usually). It’s also try to keep it free of other distractions that might send me down a rabbit hole like my phone, or any unfinished work from the day before. These things are constantly begging my attention, so I need to be far from them to focus.

Jesus didn’t have a place to lay his head (Matt. 8:20), but that didn’t stop him from choosing a space. He often withdrew to find a quiet place away from his disciples where he could focus his attention on the Lord (Matt. 14:23; Mat. 26:39; Luke 6:12; Luke 5:15-16; Luke 9:28)

CHOOSE A METHOD

I try my best to keep my prayer need list in one place and for me, my notebook works best. It’s tempting to use my phone for my prayer list, but if I open my phone, I’m tempted to check my email or Facebook and then I’m doomed to distraction. I can also easily make notes and updates in my notebook to document any updates on prayer. However, a device may work for you, just try to centralize it so your list is not scattered all over. Make a prayer list and keep it in one place.

I also like to use an acronym to help focus my prayer. I use the ACTS method to organize my thoughts:

A - Adoration (praising God for all of his attributes)
C - Confession (confessing my sin and need for the Savior)
T - Thanksgiving (thanking God for all my blessings)
S - Supplication (asking God to meet my/our needs)

This method keeps it short and sweet for me. When I get to the supplication portion of my prayer, I simply refer to my list and pray through the things I’ve written down. Some of those prayers may have been answered so I can give thanks during the thanksgiving portion.

There are many different methods of prayer, you don’t have to just use this one. It’s not about being legalistic. In fact, you don’t have to use a method at all. It’s not about being legalistic, for even Jesus gave us an example of how to pray in Matthew 6:5-14. So, I find this acronym helps me stay on task. Choose one that works for you and try to stick with it.

BE SPECIFIC

I realized a while back that my prayers were very generic. So much so, it was hard for me to recognize when/if God was answering them. The bible tells us to approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need (Heb. 4:16). Make no mistake, God answers generic prayers, but the answers are harder for us to see. Specific prayers demand an extra level of trust, but when we see answers, we can be assured he answered them.

One of our members requested that we pray for a translator to help interpret for a family coming to the US for a pediatric heart surgery. This particular language was very hard to find a translator for—in fact there were only a few in the country. We prayed specifically for that language and within the day, a translator had been located here in Houston. Praise God! We knew he was the only one who could’ve made that happen.

FOLLOW UP

Since you have a list, and you have set aside the time, follow up with the people you are praying for. This reassure them that you are indeed praying for them. It will also help give you more specific ways to pray for them if the situation has changed. If the prayer has already been answered, it will give you something new to thank God for. So follow up with the people on your list!

WHAT METHOD WORKS FOR YOU?

Let’s be a people committed to prayer, so that when we say we are going to pray for someone we mean it. These methods can help make certain that we will. I’d be interested to hear what methods work best for you? What are the things you do to help you stay consistent? Do you use an acronym? Let me know in the comments below.

Invest: Pouring Into Emerging Leaders (Part 3)

Now that you’ve identified and invited potential candidates to engage and develop their leadership, your next step is to intentionally invest in them. It’s time to make the dream a reality.

Here are some ideas:

First, invest individually as a mentor and/or discipler. 

Research indicates that fewer than 50% of group members are being actively discipled. Imagine the potential for spiritual growth and development that could occur if you poured your life into a few people! If you are leading a group, take the extra time to personally disciple potential leaders. And if you’re leading a ministry, spend consistent time, perhaps even weekly, with those you’ve identified with greater leadership potential, helping them develop spiritual habits and provide a safe place for them to practice disciple-making behaviors.

Second, invite potential leaders with you to a Life Group Leader’s meeting.

Doing so will help these future leaders learn what group leadership entails and give them a head start on cultivating the necessary skills they’ll need to lead an effective group.

Here are a few places to start:

1. Encourage your potential leaders to sign up for these blog posts!

2. Invite them to watch 3 Patters of a Healthy Small Group on Right Now Media.

3. Invite them to our next Life Group Leader meeting on May 2nd, 2021.

Third, draw potential leaders into leadership functions in your existing groups. 

Consider what new leaders can take on, then give it to them, and coach along the way. The five steps laid out by Dave Ferguson and Warren Bird in Hero Maker offer a fantastic guide to help what they call an “apprentice leader” progress from shadowing you to helping to owning more and more leadership in the group:

1. I do. You watch. We talk. Apprentice leaders pay attention to how the leader leads, then they get together to debrief. What worked? What didn’t? How can group meetings get better?

2. I do. You help. We talk. The apprentice leads particular tasks, such as prayer time or an icebreaker, then debriefs with the leader. The leader can ask the same kinds of questions as before, but also ask how the apprentice felt taking that step of leadership.

3. You do. I help. We talk. At this point, the apprentice’s portion of leadership crosses the 50% threshold, and he or she takes on more than the initial leader. Since the apprentice has seen it done many times before, he’s ready for the additional leadership. Once again, the apprentice and leader debrief and talk about where the apprentice excelled and how he or she can continually improve.

4. You do. I watch. We talk. The temptation here for the original leader is to take off and leave the group in the hands of the new leader. Resist that urge. The apprentice leads, the mentor observes and coaches. Then, they talk about whether the apprentice wants to take over the current group or start a new one, and what the original leader will now do.

5. You do. Someone else watches. The process of leadership development comes full circle.

The apprentice now seeks an apprentice for themselves, and the process repeats itself. The mentor continues to coach and support and raises up additional apprentices. This process begins to unleash the exponential nature of leadership investment.

Finally, laser focus your biggest commodity, TIME.

Your biggest leadership impact is choosing a few individuals from within your group and spending more time with them outside your group gatherings with the sole intent of helping them recognize their leadership. Don’t overthink this but think about how to best utilize your time. Here are three quick suggestions

1. Invest in a weekly gathering. Focus this time on helping your leaders develop their spiritual habits of word intake, prayer intake, being on mission with neighbors, and strategic conversations about genuine evangelism

2. Invest in a daily interaction. Figure out the best ways to daily connect with your leaders. If you miss a day, no worries. Just keep texting, calling, emailing, and finding ways to interact with your leaders.

3. Invest in moment-by-moment prayer. Whenever and however you do this, praying consistently for your leaders is more powerful than you think.

That’s it. IDENTIFY. INVITE. INVEST. These are the three “I’s” for raising up new leaders.

A few final tips. This is a process that can and should be replicated many times over. Often, placing tentative deadlines on your calendar for moving forward with each of these steps will provide the necessary accountability to get started. So, go ahead, identify, invite, and begin investing in potential leaders—and you will continue to expand and sustain the influence you have as a leader.