A Plan of Attack
Your Strategy's Starting Point
While some churches just let prayer happen, like any
ministry that wants to be more effective, you need to
develop a plan, a strategy. After you have your coordinator
and your prayer team, developing this strategy is your
next step.You may want to bring in more people than just the team to develop this strategy. This is especially important if your team is made up of the prayer zealots in your church. These people may need the dose of reality that a greater cross section of the church would bring. You probably need about 6 weeks to two months to develop the plan. This assumes meeting every two weeks. After selecting the team, here are some suggested steps:
- Pray about the Strategy. Come together for a meeting or two just to pray about the strategy. Seek God's agenda. Fasting might be good—it is that important a task.
- Look at Resources. Purchase as many different resource books/tapes as you can find and afford. Pass them around from person to person, even during the weeks you are simply praying about the strategy. I recommend at least having several copies of The Prayer-Saturated Church and a copy for everyone ($7 each) of My House Shall Be Called a House of Prayer (Pray! Books 2002). This little booklet is loaded with practical help to take prayer to a more foundational level in the life of a church.
- Brainstorm. Bat around ideas. Discuss what God has been pricking each member with. Develop ideas in both the Ministry side (what will we do) and the Motivation side (how will we get our people to participate).
- Narrow It Down. Once you have all sorts of
ideas you need to put the plan together. Start small.
Look for something to wrap your ideas around. I would
wrap you plan around one of two pillars:
A. Your church's mission statement. If you have one, make sure that your prayer strategy focuses on it. If there is an element of outreach in the statement, you need prayer for outreach. If there is missions or discipleship mentioned, you need prayer to come alongside those as well.
B. Where is God moving in your church? Look for the areas that God seems to be moving the most (especially those areas that have the most reach into the community). Develop prayer strategies that focus on those ministries first.
—Jonathan Graf
