L1-09 PRAyer

INTRODUCTION

It’s well known that the first Young Life, “Club,” came into being as a process of Jim Rayburn figuring out the right style and method to reach kids at the high school in Gainesville Texas. But it didn’t really begin with style and method. Rayburn said it this way:

“I found out that across the street from the high school a group of elderly women had been meeting for six years, every Monday morning, getting down on their knees in the living room of dear old Mrs. Frasher’s. They prayed every Monday morning for six years, long before I ever heard of Gainesville, Texas, for the high school kids across the street. I was there a year before I heard of that prayer meeting. I used to go over there with those five or six old ladies and get down on my knees with them after that club started to roll. That was the thing the Lord used to start it.” [excerpt from the book “Dance Children Dance, p. 36]

“It all started with a prayer.” Our view and practice of prayer is crucial to our being and our ministry. In this lesson we will consider how we take what we say, “prayer is our first work,” and put that into practice.

Evidence of staff demonstrating this objective looks like:
  • Has a Matthew 9:38 List and actively prays over it
  • Has a strategy for prayer in their ministry team
  • Develops leaders who have Matthew 9:38 Lists and regularly pray over them.
  • Has a Kids Known By Name list for their ministry and active strategy of how they pray over it as a team.
  • Has a strategy for engaging a wider community in prayer for ministry. ​

 

“What the church needs today is not more machinery or better tools, not new organizations or more and novel methods, but men and women whom the Holy Spirit can use — people of prayer, people mighty in prayer. The Holy Spirit does not flow through methods but through people.”

E.M. Bounds

 

“No person can do a great and enduring work for God who is not a person of prayer, and no person can be a person of prayer who does not give much time to praying.”

E.M. Bounds

 

 

“Great is the one who goes to man and tells him about God; greater is the one who goes to God and tells Him about man.”

Oswald Chambers

 

To be involved in any Christian ministry and at least give lip service to the necessity and priority of prayer to the success of that ministry is not hard. Yet, the question is not what do we, “think,” about prayer but what is the, “reality,” of prayer in our lives and in our ministry? I have never met anyone in Young Life who could not articulate a strategy of prayer for the work entrusted to him or her by the Father. Sadly, I have not met as many individuals who have put that strategy into practice on a consistent basis.

Why pray? I believe that at the heart of everyone involved in this ministry is a desire to be a part of something that is so obviously of the Lord that we, and everyone around us, knows it. At the end of the day we want to put our heads on the pillow and trust that what took place was not as a result of our human effort but was a mighty work of God. How can we know this unless we bathe that work in prayer? Prayer realizes that God is God and we are not. It affirms that even with all the gifts and talents that He has given us that we lack the inherent power to change anything or anyone unless the Spirit operates through us.

Prayer actually rejoices in our affirmation that ultimately, we do not know what to do in any given situation, but that God, from His perspective, has the answers and is longing to impart those answers to us. 2 Corinthians 10:4-5 echoes this refrain.

“For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.” 2 Cor 10:4-5

What are our weapons? Great skits? Clever illustrations in our club talks? An exciting scavenger hunt? No, our weapons for this battle are prayer, the Word of God and our obedience to Christ. For whatever reason God has decided to pin His actions to the prayers of His people. Through prayer, the Father opens and shuts the doors of people’s hearts and the doors of the school.

Allow me to make three suggestions:
  1. Make prayer YOUR first priority of each day and give someone permission to hold you accountable to this task. Let someone into your life in a way that you will not be able to con him or her into believing that you are praying when you are not. Prayer is hard work and we need help to be consistent.
  2. Make prayer a priority for your TEAM. We need to pray as teams as well. This creates a greater sense of community, belonging and mission in our team. Create a strategy of how you will pray at each team meeting and make prayer a priority – not just a quick summary at the end of a meeting. ​
  3. Make prayer the cornerstone of the ministry in your COMMUNITY. Announce it! When you do this you will have to add action to your words. When you are planning the year ahead, schedule days of prayer and fasting. Invite leaders and committee to be together in this fashion and then act on it even if you are the only one who shows up. You will not be alone for long because the Lord will draw others to you. Invite church leaders and invested parents to be part of this with you and watch how the Lord draws more people into this community!

Start a List. As an area you should have a Kids Known By Name list of all the kids you and your volunteers know by name. Create a system to save those names, pray over them as a group and individually. You also want to create a Matthew 9:38 List – who are the people you are praying will join in your community in prayer, financial support, as leaders, as Action Team members. Add those names to your list and pray regularly over them. Watch and see how the Lord moves!

The last thing any of us needs is one more thing to do. However, if God can be believed and if we focus on prayer, then we will depend on ourselves less and on Him more and trust that He will move with greater and longer-lasting results.

ACCOUNTABILITY:
  1. Do you personally HAVE a Matthew 9:38 List and a strategy of how you pray over it?
  2. Are you ACTIVELY praying your List with your strategy?
  3. How are you SHARING prayer with others in your team and community?
  4. Is your team and community GROWING in its commitment to prayer for the ministry and young people in your area?
ACTION STEPS:
  1. For your next training meeting, bring your ministry Kids Known by Name List and your Matthew 9:38 List.
  2. Talk with 2-3 staff who have active prayer strategies about how they (and their teams) actively pray for kids and their ministry. Bring your notes from this call to your next meeting.
  3. Begin to create a plan for your prayer strategy as an INDIVIDUAL, as a TEAM, and as a COMMUNITY. (See the example from Stratford below) Work through this with your supervisor and begin to put your plan in action. You will report back to your supervisor on how this is going in the upcoming meetings.
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