Jennifer Kennedy Dean joined Pray.Network in July 2010. She is a featured speaker at prayer conferences and is the founder and Executive Director of Praying Life Foundation. Pray.Network recently caught up with Jennifer for a quick interview.
PN: What is the heart of the Praying Life Foundation's ministry?
JKD: My passion is to see the body of Christ become the prayer force it is designed and called to be. “His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms“ (Eph. 3:10 NIV). And to see individual believers living in the power and provision of God, thereby acting as platforms for God’s activity. Being His living proof.
PN: You distinguish between a "prayer life" and a "praying life". Can you explain that?
JKD: You might think of prayer this way, “I have a home life, I have a work life, I have a leisure life, I have a prayer life… .” Prayer is part of your life. Or, you might realize that you can live a praying life. That prayer is more than words sandwiched between “Dear God” and “amen.” That prayer is a constant and uninterrupted flow between your heart and His, sometimes articulated in sentences, but sometimes rising from the heart in like incense and understood perfectly by your Father in heaven. All my adult life—40 plus years – from my earliest days, I have been writing and speaking about a praying life. It defines the essence of my message.
PN: What led you to start Praying Life Foundation?
JKD: My late husband and I constituted The Praying Life Foundation in 1990 to provide a ministry framework for the message we felt called to invest our lives in. We wanted to offer resources to the body of Christ to help develop mature intercessors.
PN: What do you believe is the unique contribution that God has called PLF to make in promoting and teaching about prayer?
JKD: I think my particular call in communicating truths about prayer is to help believers tackle some of the hard questions about prayer, like “If God is sovereign, why do we pray?” My niche is to be an “explainer.” I believe my strength is to be able to impart a deep and solid understanding of prayer that will give my audience a grounded discernment and acumen in the area of prayer.
My own private approach is to pull at every thread until I find its end—to ask every question until the Living Word has revealed in Scripture a satisfying answer. Over all these decades, I keep discovering more and more about what makes prayer work the way the Scripture promises it will work. I am on a long journey, the end of which I have not seen.
PN: In your experience, what are one or two areas that people struggle most with in prayer? How would you address those struggles?
JKD: My book Prayer Fatigue: 10 Ways to Revive Your Prayer Life addresses just this. If I had to choose just two, I’d say (1) Feeling that prayer is having no effect; and (2) trying to follow someone else’s pattern and feeling that you fall short.
PN: Finish this sentence: "If you _______, then Praying Life Foundation can help you _____.
JKD: Want to find a deeper understanding of prayer, or are feeling stuck and discouraged about prayer, the Praying Life Foundation can help you discover what the Word says about living in the power that prayer releases.
PN: Any parting thoughts for Pray.Network members?
JKD: I am obsessed with prayer and how to live a praying life! Have been for all of my adult life. My core message comes in Live a Praying Life® which was one of my earliest works and has been updated and revised several times since first released. Teaching and talking about those concepts is as new and exciting to me as when I first began to teach them, decades ago.
PN: Be sure to check out Jennifer's latest blog entry on Pray.Network.
Bloggers can sign up for a copy of Jennifer Kennedy Dean's new book #Synced. Join the tour with @litfuse http://bit.ly/1IYXT9H.
Pray.Network Spotlight by Andrew Wheeler.
See Andrew's website at www.togetherinprayer.net
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