Creating a Personal Culture of Prayer
At our Prayer Gatherings in October, our District Superintendent shared an impassioned message on the primacy of prayer as the foundation of all we are and do. He encouraged us to develop a personal ‘culture of prayer.’
Our General Superintendent has identified prayer as a primary need in every local church in the PAOC network.
The gathered statistics indicate that consistent prayer has not been a priority in the lives of congregants and is only slightly more so in the lives of leaders.
If we are committed to leading a group of God’s people to create a ‘prayer culture’ in our local church, developing a ‘personal prayer culture’ must precede it. We are often too quick to place expectations on others that we have not wrestled through ourselves. Ultimately, the people we serve will adopt the same priorities that we consistently endorse. That is what makes us leaders.
The truth is simple. We cannot take a church or a ministry any deeper into a prayer culture than we have personally gone.
How does one create a personal prayer culture?
An Awakening Pledge – “Early will I seek you!” Let your very first morning thoughts be focused on God. The duties can wait, human interaction can wait, Facebook can wait, breakfast can wait. The exercise is a simple but vital one: “Lord Jesus, I acknowledge You at the very beginning of this new day as my Abba. All my desires, plans and wishes I lay at Your feet. I ask for Your guidance. I have one goal for the day – to bring glory to Your Name.”
An Awareness of God’s Immediate Presence – “I am with you always.” Business and busyness tend to push us away from the constant awareness of God with us, God in us. God desires to be part of every part of our day. David declares that there is nowhere in the created universe where we are away from the presence of God. In the glorious old hymn ‘Be Thou My Vision’, the author Dallán Forgaill includes these words: “Waking or sleeping, Thy Presence my light.” We say it, but do we practice it?
Appointed Prayer Times – “Go into your closet and shut the door!” The creation of a personal prayer culture requires regular, exclusive, daily times of fellowship with God. The development of any close and healthy relationship depends on times of uninterrupted and intimate fellowship. This does not happen automatically. God will not force Himself into our hectic rhythms of life. He will only leave an open invitation for us to draw close to Him. Unless we deliberately set time aside and hold it sacred, days will slip by without any intimate communication with God. “I come to the garden alone ... and He walks with me, and He talks with me, and He tells me that I am His own.”
Acuity to the Voice of the Spirit – “God was in the still small Voice.” Noise dominates our world. I visited my cousin’s farm in Saskatchewan, and the absence of noise was alarming. It took me several days to recalibrate and forced me to ask myself a pointed question: “In the midst of the cacophony that continually bombards my life, how can I ever hear the still, small, inner voice of the Spirit?” I may not be able to turn down the volume of the clamour around me, but I must learn to still my spirit to a place where I can hear and heed the guidance of the Paraclete.
Assent to God’s will and obedience to His Word – “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.” It is most often in the place of prayer that God gives us our next steps in obedience. Prayer is stymied when we equivocate on His instructions to us. Like the children of Israel, we are destined to a wilderness journey until we come to the place of acquiescence. God will never force obedience upon us. However, prayer becomes a redundant exercise when we refuse to obey. “Yes Lord,” is the operative phrase that keeps prayer current and fresh in our lives.
In our times of ease, God invites us to the place of prayer. If we refuse His invitation, He allows circumstances in our lives that compel us to the place of prayer, and we come out of desperation. In His mercy, He welcomes us either way.
“More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of.”
Al is an experienced pastor and counselor who works out of our ABNWT District Resource Centre in Edmonton as the Pastoral Care Coordinator. A pastor to the pastors, Al is a friend, mentor, and confidante to all.