The "M" Word

Central Asia needs Prayer

Would you please pray for the Korean Christian hostages.

http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2007/07/25/afghan-koreans.html?ref=rss

Prayer is Sweet

Today, I had a good language lesson.  My study time is paying off and I can understand a little bit more each day.  I even communicated with some of Annika's friends today using my note cards.  My language helper pushed me today to increase my vocabulary faster.  I appreciate his intentions, I am just trying to learn at a good pace where my head knowledge can match my conversation ability.  Each day I try to push harder.

This evening, we had our weekly prayer time.  Every other week we pray with the NGO team we are part of and then the other weeks we pray as a team.  Today, was a team time and was sweet.  I have always enjoyed prayer meetings where people pray.  This was one of those.  Many times people talk about praying, many times people want to pray, yet it seems only a few times when people really do pray.  I like our weekly time and look forward to next week when we can lift up our brothers and sisters who labor in a very difficult situation.  Right now with little language, prayer is the most important thing we can do.

New Prayer Blog

I have just created a new blog called The Living Prayer Log.  You can only access this blog with a username and password.  This allows me to give realtime prayer requests with much more information.  If you are interested in regularly praying for us, comment to this entry and I will send you the username and password along with the link.

How to Pray for a Missionary: Paul as a Model

Paul understood what it was to pray.  he also understood what it was to invite others to pray for him and with him.  Paul is called the "Great Missionary."  Roland Allen in his book Missionary Methods: St. Paul's or Ours? states,

Many missionaries in later days have received a larger number of converts than St Paul; many have preaced over a wider area than he; but none have so established churches.

I would like to purpose that one of the primary reasons that Paul could be considered the Great Missionary was the team of people praying for him and his ministry.

When you take a look at the instances in which Paul asked the churches to pray for him you are forced to ask some probing questions. 

What did he ask people to pray about?  Did Paul ask people to pray for the lost?  Do our requests for prayer today as missionaries coincide with Paul's requests?  Are Paul's requests for prayer valid to use a guideline for praying for missionaries today?

I believe they are.  Moreover, when Christians begin to pray this way, I believe we will see more fruit from the missionary enterprise.

This is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.  And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests which we have asked from Him.                          I John 5:14-15

You can check out the introduction to this post by clicking here!

How to Pray for a Missionary: Introduction

Prayer is central to what we do as missionaries.  Even writing this statement makes me want to say, duh!  A key part of the faith context for Short-Cycle Church Planting is the "primacy of prayer."  It is said that, "we bathe our strategies, projects and plans in prayer."  This is a lofty goal.  Yet, it is attainable. 

As a team of missionaries, we have sought to make prayer the core of our team culture.  This takes constant diligence because it is easy to talk about prayer, it is completely different to actually pray.

What I find ironic is that even though missionaries place a high value on prayer, we minimize it every chance we get.  We relocate it to an "easy choice."  We ask people to become part of our support team, either financially or in prayer.  Our response cards include a box where people can check to pray for us.  On the surface this seems noble, yet if missionaries were honest with themselves they would admit that the preference is to see the box for financial support checked.  Prayer is desired, but prayer alone won't send missionaries to the mission field and give them success. 

Or will it?