Earlier this year, Andrew Nixon wrote an article on the 12 hard truths about ministry in Sydney that he learned from overseeing Connect09. As a result of the feedback he is completing a series of blogs on each of these ‘hard truths’. A list of the past blogs can be found here.
12. We must pray more for those who need to know Jesus.
A statement of the bleeding obvious? Perhaps. But warrants inclusion because it is just so important and I fear there is actually precious little of it going on.
We are engaged in a spiritual battle, building a kingdom not of this world. If we fail to pray our problems are (at least) two-fold: (1) if the Holy Spirit is not at work nothing of eternal consequence is going to be achieved, and (2) if we don't realise that this is the case we are self-deluded.
Or failure to pray could be an indicator that we are not actually engaged in the battle, and not seeking God's kingdom, but rather are waylaid entirely with the things of this world.
All prayer is hard. It does not come naturally. The apostle struggled with it, and so do we. I fail regularly. I ought to pray about so many things and so often I don't. But it is a conscious shortcoming: I am trying to address it.
Hard truth # 12 is more specific than our general failure to pray. And unlike that general failure, I do wonder if it is a shortcoming we are often unconscious of, so not even trying to fix.
As I started with Connect09, I was forced to recognise my personal inaction re praying for the lost. As a consequence, the absence of such prayer began to stand out almost everywhere I went. Others involved in the campaign also made the same observation - namely - how rare it was to hear prayer for unbelievers when Christians gather to pray.
Maybe I/we have got this wrong. Please do an experiment in your own circles and see what you find. If your experience is anything like mine, you will hear prayer for the minister, the elders, the Bible Study leaders, the church members, the Sunday School teachers, the missionaries, the door-knockers… but not for those who need to know Jesus.
I have even scanned church prayer diaries ready to highlight every prompt to pray for unbelievers, and re-lidded my marker in disappointment. Not possible? Include printed material in your own experiment and see how you get on.
Perhaps the most important thing to come out of Connect09 is a small increase in prayer for the lost. That is brilliant. Surely we still have a long way to go.
This all sounds a bit negative and I am sorry about that. I fear I have saved the most serious matter till last. But it really is this simple: without mission prayer, we are wasting our time doing any of the things I have raised in these 12 truths.
If we could turn our prayers outward, it would change us. But that is not the reason to do it. The reason to do it is because we are commanded to. The reason to do it is that saving people is what our Father cares about and it pleases him when we care too. The reason to do it is that God is building his kingdom, and we are completely dependent upon him.
