Extraordinary Prayer & Fasting
Prayer is essential for making and multiplying disciples because through prayer we actively partner with God. In prayer we seek God's power and guidance to initiate and sustain spiritual growth, relying on the Holy Spirit to work through individuals and communities to reach new people with the Gospel.
“Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.” -John 14:12-14
Every disciple making movement is preceded and sustained by a prayer movement which is marked by intense intercessory prayer and fasting. Faith-filled intercessors ask God to bring His kingdom into people’s lives and whole villages and cities. This has resulted in transformed lives, communities, towns, and cities. Jesus taught His disciples to pray for God’s kingdom to come; this crucial prayer produces kingdom results
- “Motus Dei: The movement of God to disciple the nations”
Gospel Movement: The role of Prayer, Timothy Keller 2018
Jack Miller, a dearly missed minister who was a friend of mine, said you never see any gospel movement without prayer that is “kingdom-centered, extraordinary, united and prevailing.”
Kingdom-centered
A maintenance prayer is when you pray about your needs, and it’s a good thing. As parents and grandparents who are prone to worry, Kathy and I pray maintenance prayers for our family every night. In contrast, kingdom-centered prayer is when you really ask God to come down and do something in the world. There are always three parts to kingdom-centered prayer.
First, there’s a note of repentance. You ask God to help you repent, and it is almost always the case that gospel movements never happen without a strong note of repentance.
Second, kingdom-centered prayer has an outward focus. You’re praying for your city. You’re praying for people groups in your city. You’re praying for institutions. You’re praying for your government. There’s a long list of things to pray for, and you see prayer as work, real work.
The third part of kingdom-centered prayer is to simply ask for God’s presence. You don’t have gospel movement without a sense of God’s actual presence in the room. You want to see his face. Worship services should be worship services, not just instructional meetings, not like classrooms. You want God’s presence to be so great that you can cut it with a knife, and you ask for that.
If you go to Acts 4 or even Exodus 33 or Nehemiah 1, you see kingdom-centered prayers asking for more of God. In Acts 4, the disciples’ lives are threatened for preaching the gospel. And what do the disciples pray for? Do they pray for protection? No. They pray for a gospel movement. They pray for enough boldness and a sense of God’s power and presence in their lives that they wouldn’t shrink back from preaching.
Extraordinary
Extraordinary prayer means more than what you do now. Do you have a small group that you pray with? Do you pray on Sunday? Do you have your daily devotions? Sure. Don’t neglect the ordinary prayer, but none of those are extraordinary. Extraordinary prayer means going beyond the usual prayer meeting or prayer gatherings and asking God for a gospel movement.
United
Gospel movements require you to not just pray on your own but to get as many people praying for the same things as possible. You unite people to pray for a movement of God’s Spirit to send the gospel into people’s lives, into cities, into institutions.
Prevailing
Lastly, you just keep at it. You prevail, you prevail, you prevail. I knew of one woman who prayed for years that a campus ministry would get started in the college in her town. She prayed for 25 years before it happened. But then it did. Our prayers must be prevailing.
Prayer is critical in preparing for and bringing about gospel movements. And we must be bold, united and consistent in asking for God’s presence and the gospel to renew global cities. City to City wants to see churches all over the world praying for gospel renewal in cities and everywhere for that matter.
This article was originally published in the City to City Snapshot. Read the full article here: https://www.redeemer.com/redeemer-report/article/gospel_movement_the_role_of_prayer