Is Prayer Really Important in the Life & Ministry of Our Church?

By Ben Dickerson (2/1/03)

The title above may sound familiar—I’ve used it before, and I may keep on using it, because it is not a rhetorical question.  It’s a question that we need to answer not in words, but in our corporate lifestyle.  One of our church’s “Key Result Areas” is “Immersing everything (we do) in prayer.”  So we need to keep asking that question, until our walk and our talk come together, And I think they are beginning to!  That’s exciting, but we have a long way to go yet!

We have just begun a new round for our Prayer Guards, who pray daily for people of our church on a daily basis.  At this point, we have 35 Prayer Guards committed to praying daily for over 140 people in our church.  We very much need more people willing to pray for 3 to 4 others in our church!  If you are willing to consider this, please give me a call.  It is helpful if you have e-mail.  

If the Prayer Guard doesn’t fit in your situation, but you want to become more involved in our church’s prayer ministry, pick up one of the  blue flyers on the bulletin board outside my office across from the nursery or go to the first page of this Prayer section for the same information.

Prayer Corner

(God) is really waiting for us to say, “Daddy, we’re tired of playing the man- made games of church.  Will You take us to the big house for real communion?”  I’m tired of coming home from church with nothing changed.  I’d rather come back from an encounter with God limping (see Jacob in Genesis 32:24-32) instead of leaping—just so my destiny is different.

(From God’s Favorite House, Tommy Tenney)

Pastor Bill recently raised the question in his sermon:  Am I so afraid of a deeper relationship with God that I prefer to stay spiritually shallow?  There’s good reason to be afraid of a real encounter with God:  we are always changed by the experience.  In fact, Hebrews 10:31 says: “It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”

However, “in the hands of the living God” is the only place that our lives are really secure.  In fact, it is the only place that we find real life.  Apart from Him, life becomes like a squirrel cage: we run as fast as we can while it spins around us, but we end up nowhere.  That can happen in our church life as well as in our personal lives.

The answer is found in God’s words to us through the prophet Jeremiah:

“For I know the plans that I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope.  Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you.  And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.”  (Jer. 29:11-13, NASB)

A real encounter with God, however, doesn’t just happen.  And as much as God longs for such an encounter with each of us, He only gives Himself to those whose hearts really seek Him for Himself, not just for what He can do for them.

That will happen, though, because God wants it to happen, and we want it to happen!  Scary? Sure!  Exciting?  Absolutely!