“Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18
The longer I serve as Senior Associate for Prayer with the International Orality Network the more I realize the need to have prayer as a foundation in everything we do, This verse brings us back to the center of it all.
Praying Without Ceasing: What Might That Look Like?!
As a network we want to share in this month’s ION Prayer Focus what this might look like:
• Realize prayer is a “being thing” with God, not just a “doing thing”. Asking for prayer to be in the mix of everything.
• Keeping an attitude of prayer as we work.
• Making a priority to have a biblical lifestyle of praying unceasingly (It is not saying a “pray before we start or asking God to bless the work”).
• Presenting the biblical model in Acts, as the foundation of everything.
• Recognizing our roles, as individuals or corporately together, we are responsible to be people who pray and encourage a sustainable measure of allowing the Holy Spirit access to all.
• In addition to talking about prayer, that we have as a foundation the goal of having a specific prayer connection point person such as a prayer coordinator & working toward having in place a physical prayer team as a basic element to every team in our network, as well as us as individuals or corporately together.
• When prayer is a natural element of everything we are, then we see the component of “praying unceasingly”.
We invite you to link in together each Thursday at 2pm (Eastern) in united prayer for the “more” of Ephesians 3:20-21 for the entire ION network as well as the body of Christ, in the area of having real tangible prayer in place.
In unity we pray. . .
Luke 10:2 & Matthew 9:37-38:
Lord of the Harvest,
SEND Your laborers into Your harvest field. Lord, close the gap in having Scripture for the Every & All. In Jesus name. Amen
We join together to echo Your Son’s Request TO ASK:
He was saying to them, “The harvest is abundant [for there are many who need to hear the good news about salvation], but the workers [those available to proclaim the message of salvation] are few. Therefore, [prayerfully] ask the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest.”
We invite you each Thursday at 2pm (EDT):
Dial-in: +1 (641) 552-9404
Code: 818908#
Let’s pray for the Holy Spirit’s guidance as it will look differently for each group or organization as they put prayer into their foundation in a real way. Join in praying the Word from Ephesians 3:16-19:
Father,
Strengthen the inner man of each one, that Jesus would dwell in our hearts thru faith. That we would be rooted and grounded in Jesus. That we individually and as the Orality Network might be able to know the love of Jesus and be filled with the fullness of God. Let us allow for the freedom of Your work. May we celebrate the work of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit as we watch and pray. In Jesus name. Amen.
Let’s pray for a greater portion of not just the thought process of thinking that a couple of people who you think are praying –but the reality of knowing we have prayer support and full prayer coverage however that looks for each group withing the ION network.
In the month of September we invite you to join to pray for dedicated Prayer Associates for each of our ION Regions.
What might that look like?!
Each ION Region would have a dedicated person/s that would work toward providing prayer support and prayer mobilization for that specific Region. We are believing for the “more” as we see God bringing the different Regions into place. Those Region Prayer Associates would link together with the Senior Prayer Associate, so that prayer across the globe would be united in purpose.
We know this will be an ongoing need because the Regions are still being formed. But we are believing that if we put the priority on having prayer in place and being prayerful in everything, that God will hear and answer.
We have seen this to be true in the past 11 years, being involved in the prayer support and mobilization as a huge part of the acceleration we have witnessed in ION. There are Orality networks being birthed all over the globe. We join God in the place of prayer for what He is doing around the globe and are united in our prayer for the Orality movement and continue to ask Him for the “more”!
Join to pray for Oral & Oral Bible-less at: http://fetchaprayer.net/?page_id=5&target=Oral+and+Oral+Bible-less+Peoples&pronoun=group&pcwpnl=1&cat=35
In John 5:17 Jesus replied, “My Father is always working, and so am I.” We must be actively at work in the area of prayer and responsible to pray. It is not just the prayer team who engages in prayer with the Father, but everyone as a whole works together. Remembering back to the book of Acts, it happens in the mix of everything.
Our ION Core Prayer Team is praying into the reality of every group having an active prayer team.
We invite you to join us this month to pray.
We are seeing and hearing testimonies from several of our ION network partners who are actively putting into practice prayer as the foundation. It must be functional for a shift to occur. Do you have an active prayer director and how are you seeing prayer making a difference? We would love to hear from you.
If you would like more information or send us a note email: [email protected] We look forward to how we might connect further to each other in a very real way. So much more can be accomplished together than alone.
As we shift, it is a shift into the arena of extraordinary prayer as the norm. What God does is extraordinary, it cannot happen without our extraordinary God. So why would we think that “ordinary” prayer would be sufficient at anytime?
What does extraordinary prayer look like in this mix of collaborating together?!
A great model to check out, that might be helpful to you is Team Expansion: Why does Team Expansion value extraordinary prayer?
“We value extraordinary prayer because we believe it’s the power behind missions, crucial strategy in reaching the unreached, and the key to the fulfillment of the great commission.” Betty Byrd -VP Prayer, Team Expansion
Click here to read the full interview: https://teamexpansion.org/breakdown-extraordinary-prayer/
Another wonderful resource to take note of can be seen in the following screenshots from Pray4Tunisia, CLICK on the individual links to go directly to each page:
How to pray with amazing insight: https://pray4tunisia.com/en/universal-elements/
How to Start a Prayer Network: https://pray4tunisia.com/en/prayer-network/
Currently there are very few resources available to use in the area of setting up a prayer group or prayer network related to Prayer & Missions as the focus.
As we see a fresh desire again of Collaborating Together Prayer & Missions there is a move to join together to look at what it will take to collaborate together in a convergence of these two streams becoming one.
This month will you join to bathe this in prayer and ask God to let you take note as you see this convergence more and more. Both of these streams have much to learn about each other. In addition we must re-learn how to operate as one.
Collaborating Together Prayer & Missions is not new.
Look back over the centuries the History of 24/7 Prayer, not just the model of IHOP Kansas City or 24/7 Prayer (UK), but a return to the ancient path of unceasing prayer as a lifestyle that goes back to the biblical standard over the centuries.
