This discussion is being added to feature various resources to help Pray.Network members pray for America. Websites, prayer guides, books, and events will be featured here. Some will be repeated in other areas of Pray.Network; but this discussion is meant to gather all these resources together as a starting point for those interested in praying deeply for the United States. We invite all those who are interested to visit the websites and check out the other resources posted here!
You need to be a member of The Reimagine Network to add comments!
SCROLL for additional content: Commentary ~ Resources~ Replies ~
How to Pray for People in Government
How to pray for people in government and other positions of authority
From: ‘Prayer changes everything’, written by Bennie Mostert, Carpe Diem publishers
1 Tim.2:1-2 has clear instructions that we should pray "for kings and all those in authority." This is a direct instruction from Scripture which we should regard seriously. A battle is under way in the air for political rule in each country. If the powers of darkness are allowed to work undisturbed and influence people, they will get control over governments and people in positions of authority. The consequences will be catastrophic. Apart from the fact that the Evil One wants to control and manipulate people in the political field, he wants to control people in any other position of authority.
The attached document, also available on the Operation World website (see link above), provides several helpful ways to pray for government leaders and others in authority.
How to pray for people in government.pdf
Prayer Watch Network
The Prayer Watch Network is ministry of the Presidential Prayer Team and provides real-time prayer alerts covering current events. PWN can be accessed on any mobile device, laptop, or computer. This is a great tool for "praying without ceasing" through the day for our country!
Click the link above for a short video.
Resources from the National Day of Prayer
Probably the best-known prayer event related to praying for our country is the National Day of Prayer. Over the years, NDoP has become much more than a one-day event. They now have a web page (see the link above) devoted to providing multiple resources to help us pray for the United States. This page includes, among other resources:
Check out these resources from National Day of Prayer and get praying!
PPT's outlook is morally conservative but is carefully neutral politically. On the site you'll find prayer requests for the President and Executive branch, for judges, and for Senators and Representatives regardless of political affiliation, in accordance with Paul's instructions to Timothy (1 Timothy 2:1-4). This is an important distinction, as many prayer movements and organizations are strongly political. PPT seeks God's answers to prayer, rather than "giving God the answers" and asking him to simply bring them about.
The PPT site is updated constantly with new prayer requests. Two email prayer letters are available; the first, a daily devotional that includes three timely prayer requests about current issues; the second, a weekly prayer digest including prayer items for all three branches of government, with a focus on praying for individuals. PPT also emails special prayer alerts for time-sensitive issues and crisis situations.
The site features pages with several different contributions toward praying for America:
PPT runs a Pray the Vote campaign for each national election - both in Presidential election years and in "off years". The related page features comments from the candidates and analysis of the campaign trends.
Many of PPT's pages are interactive, allowing members to respond to various stories and posts. A Prayer Wall page allows members to share prayers around multiple themes.
If you're interested in praying for our country with a spiritual rather than political emphasis, check out the Presidential Prayer Team. You can find them at http://www.presidentialprayerteam.com/index.php.
There are many ways to pray for the United States. Some take a very politicized approach to prayer, seamlessly blending politics with spiritual truth in ways that are sometimes inspired and at other times, well, pretty agenda-based. Others take a more generic approach, simply trusting God to bring about the right results without really concerning themselves too much with specific issues. Still others take an approach founded not in politics but in Scripture and less issue-based than Word-based. In this last camp falls a 40-day prayer devotional entitled Desperate for Change, by Dave Butts.
Desperate for Change focuses its prayer topics on scriptural themes such as peace, hope, courage, and wisdom. Each day's devotion features a couple of paragraphs on that day's theme, then two or three bullet points to guide prayer and finally a written prayer from Dave. The tone is heartfelt, worshipful - and yes, a bit desperate. Desperate to see God glorified in our country; desperate to see our country return to His ways. Desperate, in the words of Day 1's devotion, to see the United States reverse the trend of placing man's wisdom above the truth of God's word.
This 40-day devotional is great for individual or small group use; but perhaps its greatest potential lies in using it as a guide for a churchwide prayer campaign. If it's true (and it is) that the greatest difference Christians can make on the direction and shape of our country is through prayer, then Desperate for Change is an investment in our country that the Church cannot afford to pass up.
Desperate for Change is available through Harvest Prayer Ministries at www.prayershop.org (click the picture for a link directly to this resource). It's also the basis for the "As One" prayer campaign featured in the Praying for the United States group (http://www.pray.network/group/praying-for-the-united-states) here on Pray.Network.
Over the next few days, I'll be excerpting specific articles (again, permission granted) and copying them into this discussion as replies to this entry. Meantime, I encourage everyone to click on the image - it will take you to the PC website where you can access all the articles at any time.
We hope you will find these articles useful and inspirational as you pray over the direction of this country's future and especially as you pray for this year's elections.
Prayerwalking Every Street
Coalition Calls for Prayerwalking Every Street
The coalition—including Paul Cedar (Mission America), John Bornschein (National Day of Prayer Task Force), Ed Silvoso (Harvest Evangelism), Dutch Sheets, Lou Engle, David Butts (America’s National Prayer Committee), Mike and Cindy Jacobs (Generals of Intercession), and David Kubal (Intercessors for America)— came to a consensus that God is leading them to unite and issue a national call for multiple days of fasting and prayerwalking.
Out of this has emerged a coalition of ministries called As One. The strategy revolves around two 40-day periods of prayerwalking, fasting, and corporate prayer events. The first will start on Easter Sunday, March 27, and run through the National Day of Prayer on May 5. The second begins on September 30 and ends on Election Day. There will also be collaboration with other major national prayer events happening throughout the year.
The plan is to prayerwalk every street and zip code. A new website, prayasone.org, has devotions, information, and many resources to equip this prayer effort.
(C) 2016 Prayer Connect.
United Cry DC16 Calls Pastors to Prayer
United Cry DC16 Calls Pastors to Prayer
According to organizers, when a nation is in crisis, Scripture is clear about the solution: “Gather the people, consecrate the assembly; bring together the elders. . . .” (Joel 2:16–17).
Lewis Hogan, co-founder (with his wife Rachel) of United Cry DC16, describes it as a pastor-led initiative reclaiming America’s future. “Throughout our American history pastors have also always played a significant role in bringing about spiritual and social transformation in our nation. We need our pastors to rise up, teach us how to pray, and lead all of us within the Body of Christ back to a relationship with the Lord!”
They believe that making the effort to gather in the nation’s capital has been of historical and spiritual significance. The website explains: “Each time thousands of Christians gathered to pray in Washington, D.C., our nation encountered significant events and God intervened. [This is] not a time to protest, but to pray; not to rail against, but to repent of our national sins.”
The Hogans believe the core issues of America are not political, but spiritual. They are planning for 30,000 pastors to join them at the Lincoln Memorial. For more information or to register your attendance, go to unitedcry.com.
(C) 2016 Prayer Connect
Million on the Mall
Million on the Mall in July
Hundreds of churches, ministries, and partner organizations are coming together to make this day possible. Nick Hall, founder and chief communicator for Pulse (an evangelistic ministry primarily to young adults), is the originator of this vision. He explains that there have been times in history when the call to Jesus assembled the masses: Explo ‘72 at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas, TX; Stand in the Gap with Promise Keepers in Washington, D.C., in 1997, and many crusades in cities across the nation led by Dr. Billy Graham. These were historic events, and their impact stretched beyond the Church to all of culture. Hall believes, “The time has come to define our moment, for our generation.”
He adds, “We believe our generation needs a reset. We’re praying for Jesus to move in our lives, to move in this generation. This is a call for all of us to come together. We believe this will be a historic and generation-defining moment. This is about Jesus and His invitation to us.”
The hope is that at least a million people will pray together on a single day, especially from the Millennial generation. The Together 2016 gathering is characterized by what organizers call a “reset” prayer: that Jesus brings hope and change by offering a reset in a person’s life. Collectively, they believe this prayer is also an outcry to God to reset a generation and the nation.
Several national leaders are adding their names to the growing list of participants who will be on the National Mall on that day. They include Francis Chan, Kari Jobe, Ravi Zacharias, Hillsong United, Luis Palau, Casting Crowns, Jeremy Camp, Nick Hall, Josh McDowell, Lecrae, Matthew West, Michael W. Smith, and others.
The hope is for a million intercessors to join the prayer team to pray in advance for Together 2016. Anyone can sign up as a prayer partner, church prayer leader, or prayer network leader by going to reset2016.com/prayer. Participants will receive monthly prayer updates and information.
“God is doing something today. He is calling movements together. In fact, you’re seeing this inclination in churches and ministries that are willing to rally together for something bigger than themselves,” says Hall. For more information on the event, travel, and hotels, go to reset2016.com
(C) 2015 Prayer Connect.
Praying for Neighbors Up Close and Personal
Praying for Neighbors Up Close and Personal
Collin County is one of the fastest-growing counties in America. Yet only an estimated 25 percent hold evangelical beliefs. Almost 50 percent profess no religion at all. So local pastors came together and dreamed about what might happen if—through prayer—God would arrange divine appointments with those who needed Christ, would restore broken relationships, and would transform neighborhoods. As a result, together they created Pray 4 Every Home.
As these more strategic prayer efforts developed in their community, they began to hear stories of answered prayer. One woman said her grown daughter had wandered from God and wasn’t sure He existed. But one day when the daughter was on her way to her mom’s house, she stopped at a traffic light and saw some young men yanking an elderly man from his car directly in front of her. He was trying to fend them off with his cane.
The daughter called 911 on her cell phone and then got out of her car to assist the elderly driver. When she did, the young men ran off. After making statements to the police, she and the man each got into their cars and left.
They kept making all the same turns all the way into the mother’s neighborhood—right onto the same street. It turned out that the mother and this man lived only a few houses apart!
When the daughter told the story, her mom pulled out her printed prayer list and found the name of the man her daughter had helped. “I’ve been praying for him. Do you think this is a coincidence, or can you see that this is God?” Mom and daughter cried together and rejoiced in the way God orchestrated the divine appointment.
Praying for Neighbors
Organizers of Pray 4 Every Home formed a partnership with Mapping Center for Evangelism and Church Growth to provide maps and demographic information to help participants pray more effectively.
When signing up for this software, you can create a personalized list and map for your neighborhood. This interactive map shows a house icon for each neighbor. When you click on an icon, you will see the name, address, and demographic information—marital status, number of children, length of residence, possible ethnicity, language spoken, and approximate ages.
You can choose to receive a daily email and prayer prompt with the names of five neighbors. In real time, you can see if any of your surrounding neighbors are also using the software and praying. If you want to customize your list, you can add other individuals or families. Your prayer progress can be recorded in an online journal.
Churches can also use the software to map out a radius of 70 miles, which is helpful in targeting specific ministry to certain areas, in encouraging neighbors to pray together, and in sending mailings specific to certain demographics.
To sign up as an individual or become a partner church, go to pray4everyhome.com.
-
1
-
2
of 2 Next