So here I am.
Preparing for two important speaking engagements that are fast approaching.
Next saturday at St Mary's Church in London where I will be teaching on prayer in three sessions. Then next thursday, Dawn and I fly to the beautiful City of Riga in Latvia to speak at the Latvian Salvation Army regional prayer conference, and I will be preaching at Riga 1 Salvation Army Corps a week on sunday.
I've done a lot of contemplating and reflection as part of the prep for these events. More and more church communities both collectively and individually are getting hungrier to discover more about deepening their relationship with God through prayer. I feel massively privileged to speak into this hunger, and I am more convinced than ever that one of the main contributors to a decline in the Christian faith is not just how the church does things, but it is a lack of prayer, and definitely a fading understanding of the sheer vital importance of putting prayer first.
Of course you can't deepen your relationship with God without prayer.
If you don't pray, you're missing out on your part of that special relationship.
And.
As I reflect.
I see the seriousness of the consequences of a lack of prayer.
The really sad consequence of not praying or relegating it to a place of low importance, is this.
No prayer? No mission!
I remember an old lecturer challenging me on something i'd wrote in an assignment at University. I had made a statement that prayer fuels mission. He fixed his old but vibrant deep green eyes on mine and said, "Gary, prayer doesn't fuel mission, it is mission."
And I find more and more that he is right.
Prayer is mission.
Ive seen peoples lives changed through it.
Ive seen my own life dramatically turn from a life going nowhere, to a purposeful existence through it.
So why?
Why do I get so many requests to speak on prayer? Usually accompanied with a reason that goes something like this, especially from leaders, "How can I get my congregation to pray?"
And its true.
Here is a story extracted from an earlier blogpost of mine.
A few years back now where I went to speak at a prayer conference in the North West. I had been asked to do a talk kind of aimed at getting people to pray more effectively. At the end of the session there were loads of people queuing at the back of the auditorium for a cup of tea at some strategically placed tables. People were shaking my hand, hugging me (I so hate that!) saying really encouraging things as they thanked me for my talk. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a guy walking towards the back.
A guy about 75 years old.
His face looked like he was chewing a wasp.
He looked very angry.
I knew he was heading for me.
I just felt it!
And sure enough a couple of seconds later he came straight up to me and said in a very agitated voice, 'I want a word with you.'
As he said it, his face was about three inches from mine.
As he spoke his bottom set of teeth did something really weird they kind of came out of his mouth, but he managed to sort of suck them back in in one swift movement.
They were like hydraulic teeth.
I so wanted to laugh.
But I thought if I did he would probably hit me or something!
He continued his vocal attack.
'Are you telling me that you believe prayer works?' he asked, as his teeth did the hydraulic thing again.
Trying to keep the laughter locked in was getting quite painful now!
' If you were faced say in a Russian roulette situation and you had a gun pointed to your head would you pray then?
I thought to myself, mate that is one time I would definitely not forget to pray!
'And anyway', he continued, 'has the Salvation Army got a department that can prove prayer works?
I said, 'well we've got SP&S?
He finished his little rant by rounding it off with a very authoritative, 'that talk was a load of rubbish. You have nothing to back up that prayer works.'
I looked at him as he had to physically place his teeth back in this time as the sucking motion was not working very efficiently now. As he was tending to his problem, I asked him, 'do you go to Church then?' he replied, ' O yes I've been to church for fifty years.'
Fifty years!
He didn't understand that prayer was important?
Church for him must not have been a very dynamic experience.
How many more are there?
How many?
I meet so many Christians who are where this guy is with prayer.
So today.
Don't leave it so late. I implore you. More than that, much more, God implores you to speak to him and listen to him.
If your prayer life is not amounting to much or worse still its none existent, then don't leave so late, don't leave it too late either.
Just start talking to God and listening back.
All the time.
In every part of your life.
Believe me.
It can change a person.
And to the church.
Sooner or later you will need turn to God otherwise someone will have to hand your church building keys over to an apartment developer or a furniture warehouse or something.
And.
Without speaking and listening to God? We will never know what he is doing in this world. We will never experience his love for he poor, his healing for the broken, his passion for this world to be changed.
Put prayer first.
Capture God's urgency on this.
Start now.
