Prayer opens the door to sharing the good news of Jesus Christ with our friends, neighbours and family.
Prayer prepares the ground as we seek the working of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of people we know.
And offering to pray for people in need can be a first step to talking about Jesus.
Felicity Dale talked about the importance of prayer in a session at an Exponential conference about discipleship and evangelism in the United States.
She mentioned that her husband Tony, a medical doctor, reached out to patients in a poor area of London, asking them if they had ever considered praying about their medical problems. This ultimately led to 50 patients becoming believers in the first year.
Alvin VanderGriend, author of Shine His Light, tells the story of a non-Christian owner of a corner store in Brooklyn, New York, calling a Christian pastor and asking him what he was going to do about the fact that her store was being robbed frequently and drug dealers were in front of the store day and night.
The pastor suggested that he and a group would come down to her store once a week and pray for God's intervention. She agreed and the group prayed earnestly at the back of the store during store hours.
They prayed for protection of the store and that the drug dealers would be dealt with. In four weeks, four drug dealers were arrested, two frequent shoppers at the store became believers, and several weeks later the store owner became a Christian.
VanderGriend also writes about the amazing impact of a group of praying believers who offered to pray for people in a Bakersfield, California apartment complex. I wrote about that in a blog post on March 23, 2014.
On a broader scale, fervent prayer for cities can bring city-wide change.
Ed Silvoso writes in his book Prayer Evangelism about a city-wide evangelism thrust in San Nicolas, a city in Argentina. The evangelism effort was centred on prayer and a unique "prayer fair".
San Nicolas was a spiritually dark city when the campaign was launched in the 1990s. Pastors came together and prayed against the dark forces.
Believers from many churches prayer-walked the entire city, praying peace and blessings on the homes they passed. Then, people prayed and fasted for several days before visiting homes throughout the city giving families a newspaper clipping and coupon mentioning a prayer fair that day.
Thousands converged on the prayer fair and were directed to the areas where their issues were being prayed about - family problems, marriage problems, health issues. Miracles happened and many became believers that day.
I saw a five-minute video on the Bless Minnesota web-site at http://www.blessmn.org/ which speaks about the "adopt-a-street" prayer campaign in Newark, New Jersey in 2007. Pastors and churches working together prayed for people along streets throughout the city.
The murder rate dropped 33 per cent after 33 per cent of the streets were adopted. When 100 per cent of the streets were adopted, Newark had its first murder-free month in 44 years.
Prayer is powerful. It opens the door to change. It opens the door to people's hearts. And more people enter the kingdom of God.
Prayer prepares the ground as we seek the working of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of people we know.
And offering to pray for people in need can be a first step to talking about Jesus.
Felicity Dale talked about the importance of prayer in a session at an Exponential conference about discipleship and evangelism in the United States.
She mentioned that her husband Tony, a medical doctor, reached out to patients in a poor area of London, asking them if they had ever considered praying about their medical problems. This ultimately led to 50 patients becoming believers in the first year.
Alvin VanderGriend, author of Shine His Light, tells the story of a non-Christian owner of a corner store in Brooklyn, New York, calling a Christian pastor and asking him what he was going to do about the fact that her store was being robbed frequently and drug dealers were in front of the store day and night.
The pastor suggested that he and a group would come down to her store once a week and pray for God's intervention. She agreed and the group prayed earnestly at the back of the store during store hours.
They prayed for protection of the store and that the drug dealers would be dealt with. In four weeks, four drug dealers were arrested, two frequent shoppers at the store became believers, and several weeks later the store owner became a Christian.
VanderGriend also writes about the amazing impact of a group of praying believers who offered to pray for people in a Bakersfield, California apartment complex. I wrote about that in a blog post on March 23, 2014.
On a broader scale, fervent prayer for cities can bring city-wide change.
Ed Silvoso writes in his book Prayer Evangelism about a city-wide evangelism thrust in San Nicolas, a city in Argentina. The evangelism effort was centred on prayer and a unique "prayer fair".
San Nicolas was a spiritually dark city when the campaign was launched in the 1990s. Pastors came together and prayed against the dark forces.
Believers from many churches prayer-walked the entire city, praying peace and blessings on the homes they passed. Then, people prayed and fasted for several days before visiting homes throughout the city giving families a newspaper clipping and coupon mentioning a prayer fair that day.
Thousands converged on the prayer fair and were directed to the areas where their issues were being prayed about - family problems, marriage problems, health issues. Miracles happened and many became believers that day.
I saw a five-minute video on the Bless Minnesota web-site at http://www.blessmn.org/ which speaks about the "adopt-a-street" prayer campaign in Newark, New Jersey in 2007. Pastors and churches working together prayed for people along streets throughout the city.
The murder rate dropped 33 per cent after 33 per cent of the streets were adopted. When 100 per cent of the streets were adopted, Newark had its first murder-free month in 44 years.
Prayer is powerful. It opens the door to change. It opens the door to people's hearts. And more people enter the kingdom of God.
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