Don’t
be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with
thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. —Philippians 4:6
Most people will not pray as they ought until they get absolutely
desperate. Especially if the pastor and the elders are not stepping up to pray,
the people of the church will never learn to pray.
Here are some simple strategies to encourage prayer.
1. Lock into your schedule
daily time to feed your soul and to pray for your ability to pray—possibly ten
minutes in the morning and five minutes just before going to bed.
2. Lock into your schedule
daily time for your family prayer, possibly five minutes in the morning to pray
for your family, and ten minutes around dinnertime to pray with your family.
3. Inventory your
relationship and lifestyle and develop a list of ungripped people, that is,
those people that you want to come to know Christ. I pray every day for people
on my list, that God might allow me to share Christ with them.
I believe in evangelistic shopping, evangelistic
dining; I pray for waitresses, for people at
the restaurants that I go to, and I ask God to help me be more effective
so that I might be able to present the gospel to them. My prayer is that God
would allow us to be together and that that person
would have a broken heart or a willing spirit ready to hear the gospel at
the same time that God allows me to share it.
Pray for “ungripped” people among your acquaintances, and for opportunities to present the gospel to them. Pray that you would recognize the opportunities God provides.