Article sent to Intercessors
of America regarding The History
of Christians United to Pray
About two and a half years ago a group of 6 Baptist Prayer Sista's who had been meeting every week for about 5 years to pray in our church prayer chapel were becoming
a bit restless with what we perceived as nominal
answer to pray. We decided to meet together for a weekend retreat to fast and seek
God for a clear direction and more defined
purpose.
God was audible…in complete unity, we gals sensed that God
was asking us to unify and mobilize our community around prayer... So at Judy’s breakfast table plans were
developed to start bi-monthly community prayer meetings to be held in a
nondenominational setting, the local public library auditorium. Out of great expectation, plans were drawn up
for excess parking and overflow prayer groups.
Ideas flowed freely as a group name was conceived, Christians United to
Pray, as well, as the overarching
motto, “We desire to break through the barriers that divide us and exalt the
ONE who unites us.”
Jobs were assigned to
each of us along with our spouses to get the word out to everyone on our email lists, every
friend we knew from previous church affiliations, and
some of us
knocked on doors and met with local pastors. One of
us with specialized technology gifting worked on and produced fabulous
informational flyers and power
points. Then we all met together to
craft prayer guides focusing on three major headings: personal repentance, families, and our churches;
local, state, and national government and culture; and Israel and the world topics. The wonderful
IT gal fervently labored each month
to create attractive,
relevant, and very precise and
complete prayer points over
which prayer warriors at each
event would appeal to the Lord.
Seeking to
involve many people from a
wide array of churches, planning meetings at a local restaurant
backroom were held seeking to attract others who
would catch the vision with us, and
a worship leader and pastoral oversight was provided. It was a great blessing to have Nita and Jim Tarter from Intercessors
for America step into the oversight role. Each of the prayer gals
would attest to this day that
the Lord went before each one of
us as
plans for each event would fall
into place, and we are ever amazed with the seemingly easy way
this all came together. The
leading of the Holy Spirit is readily
apparent when God’s children are willing to step out in obedience to his Will.
The first prayer meeting
was held September 20, 2012 with bimonthly meetings held in various locations including several different
churches. This past summer the events
became monthly and our 14th meeting
is seen as a most crucial meeting to be held November 3rd, the eve of the National elections with a 26 hour at home prayer vigil to be held immediately following the prayer
event. It has been very exciting to
see over these 13 events
the number of committed prayer warriors to grow, to
be blessed by praying in
small prayer groups with brothers and sisters of many denominations, crossing the barriers of differences to
exalt, praise, and petition the One in whom we all
call Lord and Savior. It is
also amazingly wonderful to see how God worked through the obedience of 6 very unworthy
yet committed women to
work through his Spirit to lay a foundation that
would jumpstart a move of
His greater work in our community through
Transforming Revival.
Upon receipt of the article I received a list of questions
to help clarify and detail our
experience.
1. How many
people are involved currently? (Was it “easy” to get people involved?)
We started out with
about 85 people attending from about 8 -10 churches. Since then, the number
fluctuates, but very soon the committed core became evident. We keep an email list for sending out notices
that at this time have around 150 recipients. Just last week, we made contact with a local prayer and
deliverance ministry that has an email
list of more than 200 followers. We hope
to see many new faces at our November event next week. When we invite any and
all to come to a planning meeting we usually get around 20 to come to our
meetings. We are always eager for suggestions, new opportunities, and open
doors.
2. What is the
mix of people (pastors, marketplace persons, intercessors, other spheres of
influence)?
When we have hosted a meeting at a church, that church’s
pastor will sometimes come, but not always.
We have commented among ourselves that churches in our area seem to be
very territorial... It remains a
disappointment among us six ladies that our own pastor, nor staff, of the church where this initiative was conceived, has ever
supported our effort. Recently a county
supervisor, who is very involved in our events invited us along with other
concerned conservatives to meet, and unite together to work toward a unified
community. Interestingly enough, the
consensus of that group was the need
for revival and protection of the
Constitution. At that time we created a website(ChristiansUnited2Pray.info)
to facilitate others in following our events and co-labor with us. Out of that group of about 20 including tea
party , NRA, Renewanation, and Straight Street
leaders, only 2 requested to be
added to our email list. I would say we
have a committed core of at least 25-35
intercessors representing a dozen churches who attend regularly.
3. What would you
see as the biggest contributing factor to people coming? (What motivates them)?
Believers in our nation today are becoming desperate as we see the increase in
immorality and the general movement away from godly principles. The family, education, increased crime, and
the economy are huge risk factors and
the overall confidence in our government leadership is at an all-time
low. Therefore, Christians are finally
waking up to the need for more of Jesus in our lives, our culture, and our
governing principles.
4. What’s been
the biggest answered prayer or indication that God is responding to your group?
Sad to say we are
still waiting to be stunned by the Holy Spirit in our community, government, and
churches. However, we do sense that God
is moving on individual hearts through soul restoration. Spending at least 20
minutes of our time in authentic worship is a huge demonstration of God's
presence among us.. Many partners
may never have witnessed such heart felt worship in their own church
meeting before. Even though they came
to pray, they do
love to spend that first 20
minutes in true praise.
5. In your
estimation, how important has it been to “publicize” the group? (You indicated
the flyers, ads, announcements, etc. – was that critical in getting people
involved vs. simply word of mouth)?
Yes, our IT person is
so gifted in the digital and printed resourcing. Word of mouth has proved successful,
email reminders, flyers in churches and public bulletin boards
help. I have used
social media, but that didn’t seem very beneficial. We are hoping our
new blog will prove to be
a great advertising tool. We are, also, considering having some business cards made up
with the blog address to
pass out and post in public places. It is
exciting to see newer
attendees bring a friend to the next event. But
it is a slow, but gradual, growth.
No comments:
Post a Comment
We value your comments!