It Seems To Me . . .

. . . pastors need to rediscover Acts 6:4.

Not too long ago, a national prayer leader sent out an email asking other prayer leaders for feedback. He was preparing to speak at a church staff retreat, a strategic opportunity to advance the cause of prayer in a congregation already having an impact. When my colleague and I connected by phone, he explained how he saw this as a challenge to cast a vision that went beyond the traditional understanding of prayer and the typical style of praying.

While I enjoy speaking with this friend for any reason, I was especially enthused on this occasion knowing the leadership team recognized they could incorporate more prayer into the life of the congregation. Certainly, my colleague's teaching would challenge them to integrate prayer into every ministry and activity. When the pastor and core leaders become champions of prayer, it is not long until the culture of small groups and committee meetings and corporate gatherings is transformed.

As we talked, I remembered a statement I first head many years ago at a prayer conference in San Antonio (I remember the event but cannot remember the preacher's name!). Obviously, the preacher's message was on prayer but he spoke one line that immediately became etched in my memory: "Every church prays, but not every church is a praying church."

Now a common statement among prayer leaders, back then the Holy Spirit used it as a paradigm shift that gave me a passion to help leaders understand the difference and to pursue it undeterred..

Throughout our conversation, my prayer leader friend and I discussed several implications and applications that could create a new set of expectations for this pastor and his staff. When the leadership of a congregation or ministry become seriously devoted to prayer (Colossians 4:2):

• Staff meetings change . . . Planning meetings change . . . Church calendars change because the Holy Spirit has greater access to leading the leaders
• Prayer permeates Sunday services (not just in the 90 second Pastoral Prayer, if there is one)
• Prayer is integrated into every ministry (not merely the prayer ministry), thereby touching the 80% of the members who never set foot in a prayer meeting
• Sunday school classes refocus to pray for the lost, fellowship groups for members' spiritual formation, and activity groups onto community impacting  ministry
• Outward focused prayer gets people out of their seats and into the streets (prayerwalking) to pray for, care about, and share Christ with their neighbors
• Outward focused prayer begins to follow an Acts 1:8 model: neighbors, community/city, Samaria (unloved people groups), the world
• Serious prayer develops the character of God in members and the church culture: humility, grace, mercy, passion for the Son of God, burden for the nations of the world.

Unless you are brand new to the ministry of prayer, this is familiar territory.  The question we must ask though is how to make this familiar territory for pastors . . . most of whom are already juggling too many priorities (should priority even have a plural form?).

About the same time as that phone conversation, I began working on a new website for pastors,The 6:4 Fellowship, led  by Jim Cymbala and Daniel Henderson. It is designed to serve pastors around the world to catch the vision for prayer. Based on Acts 6:4, the objective is to make clear the close relation between preaching and prayer. When the apostles declared to the early Church their need to "continue to devote ourselves steadfastly" to prayer and the ministry of the word, they were also making it clear to future leaders that we too must be equally committed to both. Not one or the other. Is it possible the Spirit placed prayer first is because so many of us who teach and preach tend to forget or minimize prayer?

Not every pastor is skilled or comfortable leading corporate prayer. Few seminaries offer a class or training for pastors. While church planters are encouraged to enlist prayer supporters, do they receive instruction in how to build a culture of prayer as they birth a church? With so much emphasis on leadership, how many pastors have a book about prayer high on their reading list?

Where am I going with this?

A simple idea--let's do all we can to, lovingly, bring Acts 6:4 to our leaders' attention . . . may we pray for them by name that they will devote themselves steadfastly to both prayer and the ministry of the word . . . affirm our leaders whenever they bring prayer into the life of the church.  Because, it seems to me, pastors need to rediscover Acts 6:4.

Phil Miglioratti

[This originally appeared on the Church Leaders Prayer Network]

ASSIST News Service (ANS) - PO Box 609, Lake Forest, CA 92609-0609 USA 
Visit our web site at: www.assistnews.net -- E-mail: assistnews@aol.com

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Obama talks openly about his personal faith in Jesus Christ
Speaking at the 2011 National Prayer Breakfast, the President talks about how he came to embrace Christ ‘as my Lord and Savior’

By Dan Wooding
Founder of ASSIST Ministries

WASHINGTON, DC (ANS) -- President Barack Obama took the opportunity of set the record straight at the 2011 National Prayer Breakfast held on Thursday, February 3, 2011, about his personal faith.

President Obama speaking at the 2011 National Prayer Breakfast

He surprised the crowd of about 4,000 faith-leaders at the annual National Prayer Breakfast in the Hilton Washington International Ballroom, by speaking about his Christian faith in a most personal way.

In his most unusual speech, Obama called that faith “a sustaining force” in his life and he acknowledged persistent questions about his religion and offered what many believe were his most detailed comments about his spiritual beliefs and practices.

In his speech, the President said, “A call rooted in faith is what led me, just a few years out of college, to sign up as a community organizer for a group of churches on the south side of Chicago. And it was through that experience, working with pastors and laypeople, trying to heal the wounds of hurting neighborhoods that I came to know Jesus Christ for myself and embrace him as my Lord and Savior.”

The Obamas at a previous National Prayer Breakfast

Obama went on to say, “My Christian faith, then, has been a sustaining force for me over these last few years, all the more so when Michelle and I hear our faith questioned from time to time. We are reminded that ultimately what matters is not what other people say about us, but whether we’re being true to our conscience and true to our God. ‘Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you, as well.’”

Prayer Life

Obama then revealed that “When I wake in the morning, I wait on the Lord, and I ask him to give me the strength to do right by our country and its people. And when I go to bed at night, I wait on the Lord, and I ask him to forgive me my sins and look after my family and the American people and make me an instrument of his will.”

Obama went on to say, “Fortunately, I’m not alone in my prayers. Pastor friends like Joel Hunter and T.D. Jakes come over to the Oval Office every once in a while to pray with me and pray for the nation. The chapel at Camp David has provided consistent respite and fellowship. The director of our Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnership’s office, Joshua DuBois – a young minister himself -- he starts my morning off with meditations from Scripture.”

Then, on the subject of personal prayer, Obama said, “While I petition God for a whole range of things, there are a few common themes that do recur. The first category of prayer comes out of the urgency of the Old Testament prophets and the Gospel itself. I pray for my ability to help those who are struggling. Christian tradition teaches that one day the world will be turned right side up and everything will return as it should be. But until that day, we're called to work on behalf of a God that chose justice and mercy and compassion to the most vulnerable.”

He also said, “I pray that God will show me and all of us the limits of our understanding, and open our ears and our hearts to our brothers and sisters with different points of view; that such reminders of our shared hopes and our shared dreams and our shared limitations as children of God will reveal the way forward that we can travel together.”

Father Played No Role In His Faith Journey

With the controversy that has swirled around him since he became the 44th President of the United States [and the first African-American to hold that office], which has mainly concerned rumors that he was a Muslim, he explained his relationship with the Lord and the role his father, who was said to be Muslim, did not play a role in his decision to follow Jesus Christ.

“My father, who I barely knew -- I only met once for a month in my entire life -- was said to be a non-believer throughout his life,” said the President.

The young Obama with his mother

“My mother,” Obama continued, “whose parents were Baptist and Methodist, grew up with a certain skepticism about organized religion, and she usually only took me to church on Easter and Christmas -- sometimes. And yet my mother was also one of the most spiritual people that I ever knew. She was somebody who was instinctively guided by the Golden Rule and who nagged me constantly about the homespun values of her Kansas upbringing, values like honesty and hard work and kindness and fair play.

“And it’s because of her that I came to understand the equal worth of all men and all women, and the imperatives of an ethical life and the necessity to act on your beliefs. And it’s because of her example and guidance that despite the absence of a formal religious upbringing my earliest inspirations for a life of service ended up being the faith leaders of the civil rights movement.”

Twists and Turns

President Obama talked about how his “faith journey,” has had its “twists and turns.”

He stated, “It hasn’t always been a straight line. I have thanked God for the joys of parenthood and Michelle’s willingness to put up with me. In the wake of failures and disappointments I've questioned what God had in store for me and been reminded that God’s plans for us may not always match our own short-sighted desires.

Abe Lincoln’s Words

“And let me tell you, these past two years, they have deepened my faith. The presidency has a funny way of making a person feel the need to pray. Abe Lincoln said, as many of you know, once said, ‘I have been driven to my knees many times by the overwhelming conviction that I had no place else to go.’”

Obama noted that the godmother of his two daughters, Kaye Wilson, had formed prayer groups all around the country as he campaigned for the White House bid. He acknowledged his own prayer life, waiting before the Lord in the morning and evening. The president recognized the need for humility, and jokingly said his wife Michelle was the catalyst to that answered prayer. As “debates have become so bitter,” Obama noted that “none of us has all the answers.”

The president went on to say, “The challenge I find then is to balance this uncertainty, this humility, with the need to fight for deeply held convictions, to be open to other points of view but firm in our core principles. And I pray for this wisdom every day.”

He also stated, “When Michelle and I hear our faith questioned from time to time, we are reminded that ultimately what matters is not what other people say about us, but whether we’re being true to our conscience and true to our God.”

Obama had been largely private about his beliefs and religious practices, following controversies during the campaign about his Chicago minister. He and his wife have attended church services in Washington only a handful of times in the past two years. When at Camp David, they attend the private Evergreen Chapel.

Mark Kelly

The Giffords during happier times

NASA astronaut Mark Kelly, the husband of Representative Gabrielle Giffords, the Arizona Democrat who was seriously injured during last month’s shooting rampage in Tucson, also spoke at the breakfast and gave the closing prayer and which he remarked about her steady improvement and he urged the national to keep her in its thoughts and prayers because “it's helping.”

He said, “Every day, she gets a little bit better. The neurosurgeons and neurologists tell me that that's a great sign. The slope of that curve is very important.”

Giffords, was injured on Saturday, January 8, 2011, when a gunman opened fire during a constituent event in Tucson. Six people, including a federal judge and a 9-year-old girl, were killed, and 13 others were wounded. Giffords, whose condition was upgraded from serious to good last week, is undergoing long-term rehabilitation at a hospital in Houston, where Kelly lives and works.

“I was telling Gabby just the other night, two nights ago, that, you know, maybe this event, this terrible event, maybe it was fate,” he said. “I hadn't been a big believer in fate until recently. I thought the world just spins, and the clock just ticks, and things happen for no particular reason.”

Kelly told the crowd, which included a representative from the ASSIST News Service, that he has come to believe, however, that things happen for a reason, “that maybe something good can come from all of this. Maybe it's our responsibility, maybe it's your responsibility, to see that something does.”

Hospital officials say Kelly has been a constant presence at Giffords' bedside.

Three Trips to Space

On Thursday, he made reference to his three trips to space and the humbling feeling of looking out on “the Earth as God created it in the context of God's vast universe.” He described a realization that struck him one day as he gazed on a makeshift memorial that had sprung up in front of the Tucson trauma center where Giffords was initially taken for treatment.

“That reminded me that you don’t need a church, a temple or a mosque to pray,” he said. “You don't even need a building or walls or even an altar. You pray where you are. You pray when God is there in your heart. And prayer isn't just asking. It's also listening for answers and expressing gratitude, which I've done a lot lately.”

He closed with a prayer that Giffords’ rabbi spoke in her hospital room the day of the shooting.

“In the name of God, our God of Israel, may Michael, God's angel messenger of compassion, guard over your right side. May Gabriel, God's angel messenger of strength and courage, be on your left. And before you, guiding your path, Uriel, God's angel of light. And behind, supporting you, stands Raphael, God's angel of healing. And over your head surrounding you is the presence of the divine.”

Note: The National Prayer Breakfast is a yearly event held in Washington, D.C., on the first Thursday of February each year. The founder of this event was Abraham Vereide and is actually a series of meetings, luncheons, and dinners that have taken place since 1953 and has been held at least since the 1980s at the Washington Hilton on Connecticut Avenue N.W.

Dan Wooding, 70, is an award winning British journalist now living in Southern California with his wife Norma, to whom he has been married for 47 years. They have two sons, Andrew and Peter, and six grandchildren who all live in the UK. He is the founder and international director of ASSIST (Aid to Special Saints in Strategic Times) and the ASSIST News Service (ANS) and was, for ten years, a commentator, on the UPI Radio Network in Washington, DC. He now hosts the weekly “Front Page Radio” show on KWVE in Southern California which is also carried on the Calvary Radio Network throughout the United States. The program is also aired in Great Britain on Calvary Chapel Radio UK. Besides this, Wooding is a host for His Channel Live, which is carried via the Internet to some 200 countries. You can follow Dan on Facebook under his name there or at ASSIST News Service. He is the author of some 44 books. Two of the latest include his autobiography, “From Tabloid to Truth”, which is published by Theatron Books. To order a copy, press this link.Wooding, who was born in Nigeria of British missionary parents, has also recently released his first novel “Red Dagger” which is available here

It Seems To Me . . .

. . . we need only one spiritual new year's resolution.

I confess, I have never been good at setting, let alone keeping, resolutions at the start of each new year. Those who stop smoking or start diets impress me; those who keep at it longer than a few days (or hours) make me jealous. And those who go beyond good health resolutions and set spiritual goals and stick to them throughout the coming months shame and humble me.

Anyone can make a resolution; it takes commitment to stay resolved to fight the battles to achieve the objective. And commitment, someone said, is moving beyond good intentions. I have a long list of good intentions.

Which is why Don Whitney's "Questions for a New Year" in LifeWay's Pastors Today E-letter caught my attention. The author, a former pastor and then seminary professor, presents 31 questions designed to aid our spiritual transformation; one-a-day spiritual vitamins! He writes: "The beginning of a new year is an ideal time to stop, look up and get our bearings."  I especially appreciate how he then formats his insights as questions because someone elses' declarations call for my agreement (not a bad thing) but questions call for my reflection and discernment. Much more potential of Holy Spirit partnership.

But I said we need only one spiritual new year's resolution, not 31.

"For starters, here are 10 questions to ask prayerfully in the presence of God," Whitney begins as he sets us on our journey with wisdom that is so obvious we often fly right past it! How many of us have prayed about our resolutions but only after we selected them. "Help me lose those 5 extra pounds or start each day at the fitness center or stop this or begin that"--probably all worthy goals but chosen without and before any prayerful dialog with the Lord.

I began reading down the list of questions . . .

1. What's one thing you could do this year to increase your enjoyment of God?
2. What's the most humanly impossible thing you will ask God to do this year?
3. What's the single most important thing you could do to improve the quality of your family life this year?
4. In which spiritual discipline do you most want to make progress this year, and what will you do about it?
5. What is the single biggest time-waster in your life, and what will you do about it this year?
6. What is the most helpful new way you could strengthen your church?
7. For whose salvation will you pray most fervently this year?
8. What's the most important way you will, by God's grace, try to make this year different from last year?
9. What one thing could you do to improve your prayer life this year?
10. What single thing that you plan to do this year will matter most in 10 years? In eternity?

I searched first for any questions that related specifically to prayer and found #7, praying for lost persons to find Christ (imagine what changes our nation would see if every Christ-follower began to seriously pray for his or her neighbors by name and need and for his or her neighborhoods and networks!) and #9, focusing specifically on our own prayer life (someone said we need to exchange a prayer life [usually referring to a brief time spent telling God what we need Him to do] for a life of prayer). Two in the first ten seemed like better representation for prayer than usual. Very hopeful.

My second time through the list was an "Ah-Ha" moment!

Responding to the first, then the second and third and continuing, I realized "Pray" would be a more than appropriate answer to each question.
1. What's one thing you could do this year to increase your enjoyment of God? Pray. True prayer is enjoying the presence of God, not merely telling him things he already knows.
2. What's the most humanly impossible thing you will ask God to do this year? Pray. Praying is very hard work that, once accomplished, sees impossible results.
3. What's the single most important thing you could do to improve the quality of your family life this year? Pray. Especially out  loud, together.
4. In which spiritual discipline do you most want to make progress this year, and what will you do about it? Pray. Pray for a partner who will hold me accountable.
5. What is the single biggest time-waster in your life, and what will you do about it this year? Pray. What I do instead of praying is a hugh time-waster.
6. What is the most helpful new way you could strengthen your church? Pray. For the pastor. For a reviving of faith and a revising of how we function.
7. For whose salvation will you pray most fervently this year? Pray. Everyone agrees with this but not everyone brings up in heaven real names of real people.
8. What's the most important way you will, by God's grace, try to make this year different from last year? Pray. By praying about and for and through every thing.
9. What one thing could you do to improve your prayer life this year? Pray. Read, study, use website resources, yes, but actually carve out time and place to pray.
10. What single thing that you plan to do this year will matter most in 10 years? In eternity? Pray. Hands-down winner. Everything (missions, evangelism, stewardship) flows from the life of a person who has moved beyond good intentions to a life of prayer.

It seems to me . . . we need only one word to describe our one spiritual new year's resolution. (If you do not agree, will you at least agree to pray about it?)

For starters, here are 10 questions to ask prayerfully in the presence of God.

Phil Miglioratti

Originally published on the Church Prayer Leaders Network

Poll: Religion's Influence Waning in America

Seven in 10 Americans say religion as a whole is losing its influence on American life.

This is a near-record high percentage since Gallup began asking the question more than 50 years ago.

Poll: Most Americans Ring in News Years with Prayer

Before the clock strikes midnight on Friday, Americans will look to the heavens before they look forward to a brand new year.>>>

Sure hope you are having a joyous Christmastime!

A family update:

• Carol and I spend the holidays with Jennie and JJ, Macie and Preston in Myrtle Beach (don’t be jealous if you are in a cold winter city … temperatures in the 50′s and down to the 30′s await us)
• Jorie and Tim, Sophia and Addison (and their dog, Louie) moved to Austin, Texas during Christmas week (Tim sent us video clips as he and Louie drove from California)
• We celebrated early with our parents and Chicago family

A ministry update:

• Planning for Orlando 2011 is increasing speed – only 3 months to go and dozens of affinity consultations (breakout groups) and main session presenters still to be indentified and invited ~ Please pray for me to lead this process with wisdom and excellence …

• A simple breakfast meeting and another conversation over hot chocolate two hours later hold great promise for collaboration ~ pray for the Lord’s continued guidance for possibilities for Loving Our Communities to Christ and Church collaboration around Chicagoland and across the nation …
• I’ve been asked to be a contributing author/blogger to a new website – The 6:4 Fellowship – Pastors Committed to Prayer and the Ministry of the Word – Launching soon for pastors to recognize the vital relationship between the ministry of the word (pounded in at seminary!) and prayer (not pounded in anywhere). I am honored to be on the team led by Pastor Jim Cymbala ~ pray I find time and critical resources for this important new site.

Blessings, as I listen to Beach-Boy-sounding, Lord-praising, “God Vibrations” … “God has given joy to the world!”

Phil

It Seems to Me . . .

. . . we may talk too much when we pray. Or not enough.

As I was preparing for a week-long trip out of town, I peeked ahead on the daily cartoon calendar we have in our kitchen. On the back of each day's cartoon, is a riddle or a trivia item or, and this is what grabbed my attention, a statistic: "Every day, women speak 7,000 words; men 2,000." More unmistakable evidence that men are from Mars and women come from Venus. The Church has applied this statistic in marriage counseling for both not-yet and long-ago couples and in training leaders of mixed gender small groups with good results. This gender-based communication reality is helpful in building healthy marriages and balanced ministries.

But, as I headed out the door for the airport, I began to think of how this 7,000 versus 2,000 word count impacts prayer in our churches.

Do some women use more words than men (and thereby take longer time) when they offer a prayer? Do some men stay home from prayer meetings or avoid prayer groups or remain silent during group prayers because they perceive themselves as having a smaller vocabulary than women? Does the word count disparity also indicate a different tone or approach to praying? Are some men more reluctant to pray aloud because, well, they are also reluctant to speak-up in normal social conversation? If women answer in paragraphs, are men who talk in headlines too uncomfortable to actively participate? Does each gender pray differently when in mixed gender prayer situations than in all-women or all-men settings? Does it matter? Is this an insightful statistic or a simplistic steortype?

While it is possible this male/female differentiation has only minimal relevance to corporate (or even personal) praying, the questions ought to be asked. Behaviors should to be observed. Discussions, even debates, could be beneficial. Admittedly, observation is anecdotal and not scientific research but as a part of the prayer facilitator's skill-set, it helps him or her discern a possible cause for an ebb and flow of a prayer group. (Is there equal participation? Are only a few persons dominating the praying? Is it a good time to move into pairs or small groups? Has someone spoken too much [female or male] or not at all?) If a particular group or congregation exhibits gender-based differences, prayer coordinators can create gender-specific prayer groups (such as a Saturday morning men's prayer breakfast) or encourage small group leaders to divide men and women periodically during the time devoted to corporate prayer at their group meeting.

To be clear, these descriptors are merely numbers describing overall differences. Persons who use 7,000 words a day should not aspire to speak only 2,000 (though some husbands might disagree with me) nor should 2,000-a-day speakers start employing long monologues when headlines are adequate (I know, ladies, headlines are not adequate in building and maintaining close relationships). My point is simply that as leaders of prayer meetings-groups-events, we must be listening to more than the content of those we are praying with. We must be aware of whatever might be inhibiting participation, even gender traits, so the experiences we design feel inviting to every person . . . because it seems to me some of us may talk too much when we pray. Or not enough.

Phil Miglioratti
Curhch Prayer Leader Network & Pray! Network

Convened by The U.S. Lausanne Committee / Mission America Coalition
April 4-7, Orlando

On Sunday afternoon of the last day at the Lausanne Cape Town 2010 Congress, participants gathered according to country into breakout sessions. The Mission America Coalition team helped coordinate the U.S. meeting and cast vision for a spring gathering in the United Sates that would bring those delegates together with hundreds of MAC / U.S. Lausanne Committee partners and other Christian leaders. The purpose of this gathering is to bring together practitioners, academic leaders, mission strategists, pastors, evangelists - all who carry a burden for the Gospel of Jesus Christ to transform neighbors and neighborhoods, nations and corporations.

Fueled by the glorious gathering of the Church in Cape Town, MAC partners, Cape Town 2010 participants, and leaders from the cities of America will come together for a catalytic consultation on evangelization. We will be in listening mode and learning mode: seeking the mind of Christ on how to reshape our efforts at evangelizing our home nation and looking for ways to partner with the global Church in reaching the nations with the message of Christ. Take advantage of early-bird registration rates at www.missionamerica.org. Then, help us shape the meeting that will shape the future - add your ideas and insights at www.orlando2011.org.

Psalm 67:1, 2

God, be merciful to us and bless us; look on us with kindness, so that the whole world may know your will; so that all nations may know your salvation.

Why is it so easy to pray from the first part of this petition but more difficult to add the second half?

Maybe it is because to desire the second half, we need to give-up on some of what we typically associate with the first half.

Your thoughts?

Group Type=Group Activity

Small groups are often defined by their main activity. This is a good approach, but let me offer my alternative.

Before deciding on a specific activity for your group, think through the central reason for which the group exists.

• Process-oriented groups focus on the spiritual and/or social relationships among the members. What the group does is secondary.
• Content-oriented groups meet to study or discuss a biblical passage or topic. Little time is spent dealing with group dynamics.
• Task-oriented groups meet to accomplish a purpose. The reason for meeting is why the group exists.
• Need-oriented groups, sometimes called support groups, offer common understanding and encouragement.

Adapted from How to Lead Small Groups by Neal F. McBride. © 1990 by Neal F. McBride. All Rights Reserved.