As I prepared for First Friday time of Prayer for August, I decided to google "praying for the lost by name." What popped up was a site by a friend, Darrel Davis with that title (I really should have known!!!!!). On his site was a quote from George Barna's Evangelism that Works. This quote caused me to stop and ponder.
"A church that strives to evangelize its community without saturating its efforts in prayer is like a race car driver that jumps into a car at the starting line and discovers that the tank has not been filled with Gas."
Thinking about that statement I looked back upon the many years of "Tuesday Night Visitation," door-to-door visititation, neighborhood canvasing, and yes - even Faith Evangelism. Many of those efforts I had written off as failures. Often times, when I speak to other pastors about their "outreach efforts," we recount stores of such failures. RARELY do I hear any of us speaking about bathing our outreach efforts in prayer. Could that be the reason much of the outreach effort of the church fails?
As I reflected upon Barna's statement, I have to admit I believe the answer to the above question is a resounding YES. Most of our "outreach effforts" have failed for three BASIC reasons:
1. Our PRIMARY motivation for any outreach effort is to build up attendane at our church. It does not have the kingdom focus that we ought to have.
2. There is little to NO PRAYER emphasis among the membership of the church toward reaching the LOST of our communities.
3. Few members - including those few that actually participate in weekly visitations - are genuinely committed to the task of reaching out to our communities.
What would be the overwhelming reason for the failure? In my opinion it is the lack of prayer. If you and I genuinely prayed for the LOST (by name) and for God's Will in our lives to reach them for the kingdom, then we would operate with greater power to accomplish the task of reaching the LOST. In addition, we would be more committed to the "long haul" as opposed to 2 or 3 times of "trying" with no success. After all, if we tried it once and it did not work, we can excuse ourselves for the next 25 years and allow another generation to not hear the Good News of Jesus Christ.
Yes - like that race car driver, we often set out to do the task, but without the gas of prayer in our tanks, there is no way we can even really get started. There is POWER in PRAYER. We should be engaged in it!
Immediately I think though, that race car driver has a "pit crew" to assist him in the race. Perhaps we need to do a lot more to involve prayer warriors with us in this ministry as well. The fervent prayer of a righteouss man or woman does avail much. PRAY!
If your church is SERIOUS about reaching the LOST, then I believe the members are fervently praying for the LOST. I believe the memebrs are grounding themselves in the Word so they can share His Word as they actively engage in witnessing. I believe the members see themselves as missionaries to their communities and are striving daily to see the "field that is white unto harvest" as Jesus saw his neighbors.
Perhaps the better question for us - even as pastors - is -----HOW SERIOUS AM I ABOUT REACHING THE LOST?
Our answer is reflected in ALL we are doing to reaching our communities for Christ. That includes our prayer life (in addition to our daily study of the Scriptures to become better grounded). And yes - it also includees a daily committment to be the Great Commission believer (and church) that God has called us to be to this generation.
Does your outreach efforts have the "gas" of prayer to power you towards the finish line or are you sitting at the starting line, dressed to drive, yet unable to go no where because there is no "gas" in the tank.
God is calling His church to reach our world. Will you commit anew to being all that God has called you to do as a part of His family?
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