Prayer to Movement
Without prayer, there simply is no movement of God among any person or any place. Prayer is the greater catalytic work in movements just as blood is the fluid of life in the human body. It flows through every part of the miracle of reproducing disciples and churches. Prayer is communion with our Creator with the recognition that He moves human hearts and events for His purpose and glory.
We see prayer to movement taught and modeled by Jesus Himself, from the vision and abiding prayers of “Our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy…” (Matt 6:9-13, Luke 11:2-4) to the entry and Gospel prayers of, “Ask the Lord of the harvest to send out workers…” (Matt 10:1-15, Luke 10:1-12). Jesus's pattern was received and reproduced by His early followers; there were prayers for the advance of the Gospel across cultures, for deliverances from demons and prisons, for the growth of the saints, the selection of leaders, the holiness of the church, and so on (see Acts 1:24, 6:6, 10, 12:12, 13:3, 22:17, 28:8). In the same way that blood produces oxygen for energy, prayer gives power to the apostolic work of advancing God’s Kingdom on earth.
Yet we think about prayer so little, plan for it even less, and mostly practice it before we eat. Many years ago I attended my first Strategy Coordinator training and was asked to write out 100 ways to incorporate prayer into my master plan to reach a large Unreached Unengaged People Group. My wife and I could only come up with about 35 ideas, but when we combined our ideas with the others in the training we had over 100 ways to use prayer in church multiplication movements. Over the next several years, these ideas translated into practices and became the foundation for the fruit we’ve seen today. Here are a few ways we strategically infused prayer into the six parts of disciple and church multiplication movements:
Prayer in Vision and Abiding
I’ve heard stories of amazing South Asian church planters with calloused knees from hours of personal prayer time … I’m not that guy. I needed a team – an apostolic band – to help keep prayer consistent. We committed to team prayer every morning and fasting once a month and kept each other accountable to personal abiding and holiness.
We mobilized hundreds – if not thousands – of people both locally (in Southeast Asia) and around the world to pray with us. In addition to personal updates, we launched quality and thoughtful blogs, email lists, websites, prayer guides, cards, bookmarks, videos, etc. with the goal of developing deeper connections with prayer supporters – not just creating content for likes or views. Some of these prayer supporters became prayer warriors and even joined us in the field on short-term trips.
Prayer in Entry
Over a period of four years, we hosted nearly 50 short-term teams from multiple countries on what we call “prayer journeys.” Every visiting team and church will often have their own expectations and agendas for mission trips focused on who, where, and what; relational connections, exotic places, social justice, etc. We designed our orientation to discover the “why” and “how” of the “missio dei,” Latin for the mission of God. Using short and simple group-participatory activities, we took people through the meta-narrative of Scripture (the Father’s heart from Genesis to Revelation) and Jesus’s parables to see the “motus dei.”
Teams were required to start prayer walking in their home culture before doing it cross-culturally among unreached villages and cities. Over the years, we eventually prayed through hundreds of towns and villages and traveled thousands of miles on motorbikes, trucks, and boats. Local teams continue prayer walking to this day. In our area, nearly every house church that exists today once had a team that prayed on-site with insight before there was ever a church in the village. Focusing on the “why” and “how” of the mission has allowed teams to apply prayer entry strategies in any culture among any people and place.
Prayer in Evangelism
Catalytic and reproducible evangelism is almost always done in the local language by local people. Sharing the Gospel in the heart language of the people is an almost guaranteed way to gather the wider “oikos” or community. I also believe that prayer in the heart language is one of the greatest displays of God’s power, dispelling any dark powers in the heavenly realms.
We once prayed and worshiped for two days and two nights for a demonized woman in a rural village; she had been oppressed for over 10 years. The demon spoke through the woman in the local tribal language, which we did not understand, “If I leave this woman, then God will come into this valley.” We responded in the trade language, casting the demon out in the name of Jesus. The woman was set free, led dozens in the valley to faith, and has now become a prophetic voice of prayer in her community. We continue to equip both local and global teams to use prayer in their evangelism. Whether you are in Bangkok, Islamabad, or Los Angeles, people often respond well to, “How can I pray for you?”
Prayer in Discipleship
We always take new disciples back to how Jesus taught us to pray (Matt 6:9-13, Luke 11:2-4). The Lord's prayer can be organized using ACTS (Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication), which is a simple and powerful pattern to help guide new believers in talking with God freely and listening to Him. A pattern of prayer is also modeled into every single thing disciples do, from the ministry to the menial … from the worship, trainings, and travel, to the rice fields, health, and homes. Every fruitful leader is moved to obedience through their prayerful abiding.
Prayer in Church Formation
In this stage, many of the churches are already practicing the prayer patterns and tools listed above. As churches grow and expand, so does opposition and persecution. We create a culture and ethos of prayer and dependency by using, memorizing, and studying Bible stories on suffering. In this way, new churches instinctively “pray earnestly” (Acts 12:5) for discernment and boldness when facing persecution and are reminded that they “must go through many hardships before entering the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22).
Prayer in Leadership Development
From the beginning, emerging leaders have been praying for their own families and disciples. We train them to ask, “Lord, who are the faithful, sacrificial, and teachable leaders I should invest in?” They walk alongside their disciples in casting vision, entering new places, sharing the Gospel, training new groups, forming healthy churches, and coaching leaders.
As leaders steward generations of disciples/churches, prayer walking, mapping, mobilization, and fasting events are strategically included in a leader’s plans. I’ve trained several urban and rural Strategy Coordinators who have mapped out entire cities and/or villages for consistent prayer walking as part of their discipleship training. At this stage in a leader's development, they are becoming problem-solving coaches and relying less on prescriptive solutions but leaning heavily on prayer, the Word of God, and the power of the Holy Spirit.
CONCLUSION
Tongsin is an apostolically gifted disciple-maker who owns one buffalo, two pairs of sandals, and a house built from wood and bamboo. He doesn’t have the fame of historical pioneers such as the Apostle Paul or Hudson Taylor, but he is known by the many tribes living in the remote hills of a small Southeast Asian country as “the man with powerful prayers.”
I remember how Tongsin’s face lit up when he discovered that he could pray in his heart language (and not just the trade language) and that God desires it that way. Through Tongsin and his team, many have been delivered and have heard the Gospel in their own language for the first time in history. Tongsin has since multiplied churches generations deep in one of the most hard-to-reach and persecuted places on the planet.
Movements are catalyzed by fruitful leaders who incorporate prayer into every stage of the planting process because they know that the largely unseen work of prayer is the greater work. Extraordinary, intentional, and abiding prayer is a universal characteristic of every movement of God. Apostolic bands of pioneers who apply these principles of prayer will see spiritual movement among unreached places and peoples.