—John Wesley
Some have found in the prayer of Jabez a foundation upon which to build their lives. For me and for our church family, it is one of John Wesley’s prayers that has shaped us—heart and soul. This prayer, taught by the founder of Methodism to his preaching students, is often called the “Wesleyan Covenant.”
I believe God’s amazing work in our church, the blessings he has provided and our unity and passion, is in large part a result of this prayer.
Wesley’s prayer has informed my own personal prayer life. For me it is the essence of what it means to be a Christian—to be surrendered to Christ. It is my morning prayer every day. It has also shaped my understanding of what it means to pursue Christ’s will as a church.
Eleven years ago I was assigned to start a new United Methodist Church in the southern suburbs of Kansas City. The night before our first worship service, we gathered our small core group together at the site of our borrowed chapel and prayed, “Lord, this church belongs to you. It is not ours. Our desire is to do what you want us to do and to be what you want us to be. You know the people you long to reach through this church. We place ourselves in your hands and long to be used by you.”
Our work has been guided by the fundamental biblical assertion that the church is the body of Christ—his continuing incarnation in the world. Thus, the church’s mission, and our driving passion as its leaders, must be to follow Christ to accomplish his will for us in the world.
Developing a church whose leaders and members are wholly committed to pursuing this is one of the reasons prayer has always been at the center of what we do at the Church of the Resurrection.
This conviction about our mission allowed this fledgling church to be “purpose-driven” even before Rick Warren wrote his helpful guide to developing healthy churches. And our passion to know and to do God’s will keeps our church on its knees—”prayer-driven,” if you will.
Let’s take a look at how this plays itself out in actual practice.
Prayer needs frequency
Frequent prayer has great value. On its surface, this sounds simplistic. But if we’re to keep prayer at the forefront of our ministry, we and our people have to pray again and again.
Harry Emerson Fosdick, in his book, The Meaning of Prayer, writes, “Prayer opens our lives to God so his will can be done in and through us, because in true prayer we habitually put ourselves into the attitude of willingness to do whatever God wills.”
Believing this, we have made prayer a part of every ministry and every decision-making process in the church. It may sound ordinary, even mundane for those who regularly handle the holy. But praying with regularity has a deeper purpose.
Every committee or team meeting begins and ends with prayer seeking God’s direction. Our staff meetings begin by inviting the Lord to do with us what he will. When our worship planning team meets, we pray that God will take our time, talents, and our meeting and guide us to design and develop worship as God intends for it to be.
Before I begin writing my sermons each week, I walk through the sanctuary and touch each section of chairs, then sit and pray, “Lord, I yield my mind, my thoughts, my heart, my lips, my hands, my time in research to you. Help me to know what you want to say to the people who will be sitting in these chairs this weekend. Use me and minister through me.”
And before worship begins each weekend, we are on our knees praying for God to take over—to help those of us who are worship leaders to disappear, that people might see God through our work.
This attitude is shared throughout our ministry. Though routine, it is not perfunctory. This frequency in prayer keeps us aware of our subjection to God and our need for his direction. We pray, trusting that he will guide our everyday actions. And we act, trusting that he will keep us sensitive to the times he wants to lead us outside our usual paths.
God’s sometimes circuitous leading
I believe God honors our prayers to be led. I have seen it happen in so many ways that I now utterly trust him to lead us when we pray in sincerity.
Sometimes, however, he must guide us from what we think he wants to do to what he really wants to do.
Three years after our church’s founding, we began searching for land. We located a 13-acre site that was beautiful—trees, a creek, good access—our leaders loved it. Considering our worship attendance at the time, none of us could conceive that we would ever need more than 13 acres.
Our hearts were set on that ground. We walked among the trees and fantasized about the beautiful glass chapel we would build there. We prayed and prayed about this as we entered negotiations with the owners.
Then what started as a straightforward purchase became more complicated at every turn. Our hearts sank with each discouraging detail. We believed God’s will was for the church to have this piece of property, but we continued to pray for his will to be done.
After several weeks of watching doors close on this site we had come to love, we concluded that God was at work even in this process. As we began praying for God to guide us to the site he knew we would need in the future, a tremendous sense of relief swept over us. God kept us from a big mistake.
Soon we found a different (and larger) site. Purchasing adjacent land on two occasions since, we now have a tract many times larger than that wooded glen, acreage we eventually needed to accommodate our attendance. He turned us from the desires of our hearts, and instead gave us what we needed for the ministry he had planned.
We watched this process repeat itself in our building program. Recently the building task forces radically altered our plans, postponing construction of a permanent sanctuary in favor of a different facility. Again, it was not our desire, but God began to reveal an alternative plan.
A unanimous vote in support of the change confirmed what God was doing. All along our leaders had prayed. Everyone at that meeting had felt it a great success that we had listened for God’s voice instead of our own.
Spiritual discernment is a public process
What a joy when a group of people who have been praying for God’s direction begin to discern his leadership.
I often begin to have a strong sense of excitement or a deep peace about a particular decision. This can be the leading of the Holy Spirit. Nevertheless, since feelings can be misleading, I also look for confirmation from others.
For example, when it came to the building decisions, I had been sensing that we needed to make a change in direction. But before I had said anything, one of our key leaders came and offered the same insight. I took this as a step of confirmation that the Holy Spirit was leading us in another direction. From there I shared these ideas with our lead staff, then our lead building team, then with several others. With each group there was an overwhelming sense that we were turning in the right direction, followed by relief, excitement, and support.
This public process of discernment is key in the direction of the church. The inclinations of one or two leaders are shared with the whole team. When we have confirmation, we move ahead. When God speaks to the church, he usually speaks to the whole church. Certainly he speaks to more than one.
Consider another example: staffing. When we have staff openings, a number of lay people in the church apply for the positions. This used to be awkward for both those who applied and those who interviewed them. Not so any more.
When we interview members for a staff position, we let them know that our only goal is to discern who God has called to this position. Throughout this process, we pray that God will use the search team to help reveal his will to the individual candidates. It is a spiritual discernment process, not simply a few people deciding if they like or don’t like a particular candidate.
This public discernment process has become a source of assurance for me personally. In the past when leaders moved or resigned, I always worried how we would replace them. But I have seen that God has a plan for those who leave and for those who will come to fill their places.
Our search committee spends a great deal of time in prayer. While we do our best at recruitment and interviewing, we’re convinced it’s God who will bring the right person our way. And he reveals his choice to the team and to the candidate.
We conducted several nationwide searches for key staff positions in the past year. Each time this is exactly what happened.
Let the Spirit create a hunger for prayer
Several years ago one of our leaders, Priscilla Van Giesen, began to outline a new position. Its primary focus—taking our prayer ministry to the next level. The Holy Spirit was leading her in this. We all recognized it, and she soon became our first Director of Prayer Ministries.
Priscilla’s passion for prayer has blessed our church. Under her leadership, teams pray regularly for the requests submitted by worship attenders and via our Web site, and they send nearly a hundred cards each week to people for whom we have prayed.
Our prayer director develops classes and retreats. She helps organize our prayer breakfasts, prayer vigils, and other prayer activities. Her presence encourages us to be more intentional about keeping prayer at the center of our work.
As the church has grown in its passion for prayer, we have developed numerous prayer opportunities. Our prayer chapel is open until 11:00 each night. We have turned an interior courtyard into a prayer garden. And each Monday evening, we have a special service for prayer, healing, and the Eucharist.
I frequently teach that prayer is at the heart of the Christian life. Prayer is the very essence of a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
Pray daily, seasonally, vigilantly
The lifestyle of prayer is vital to the Christian’s relationship with God. But beyond encouraging the daily walk, we also have seasons of more intense, focused prayer.
Our first all-day prayer vigil was on Good Friday 1992. That became an annual event. Now we also have an all-day vigil on the day before Thanksgiving. We invite our members to take time away from work and come to our sanctuary for a half-hour to pray. For many this is the first time they have prayed for 20 to 30 minutes straight. The experience is powerful.
More than 1,000 attended the recent vigil. We gave them written guidelines explaining what to do during their time of prayer, which helps teach prayer to those who are novices. During the vigil we prayed for every family in the church.
A third prayer vigil is held each year specifically for the children’s ministries. Staff and parents come and pray for God’s blessings on our children and for the Holy Spirit to speak to the hearts of our members as we move into teacher recruitment time. When we began holding this prayer vigil, we saw a significant increase in the number of people signing up to work with our children.
At Church of the Resurrection, our aim is to know Christ, to be transformed by his power, to be open to his work, and to be used by him to accomplish his purposes. Prayer is the essential avenue for pursuing these aims.
Prayer is, of course, more than simply putting ourselves in a position to be used by God. It is the primary means of developing intimacy with and experiencing the presence of God. For this reason, our congregation sees its pastors on our knees at the chancel rail before worship begins. They hear us sharing some of our experiences in prayer in our sermons. And we regularly encourage them to grow together in this life of prayer.
We pray as a church, borrowing Wesley’s words, “Put us to what Thou wilt.”
And He does.
Adam Hamilton is pastor of United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kansas.
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