A few months ago one of the few living members of the Battleford Revival, came to our city to give us a wake up call about prayer. He was an amazing gentleman - 85 years young! He said something that really made me think.
'We need to change our mindsets about prayer meetings.'
Now..to be honest I didn't think I had a 'mindset' about prayer and/or prayer meetings, but I realised as he shared a vision he had for our city of Abbotsford, that I did fall in that category of needing to change my mindset. Let me share with you, what I've come to realise because that wonderful man's talk. ( google him: James Watt - you may be able to find some of his writings/articles on this subject.)
One of the things we all seem to say, is that we know that where 'two or three are gathered, there He is' in the midst. We also quote that where ' two or three are in agreement' there is great authority. And let's not forget that ' one can chase a thousand and two can chase ten thousand'. We quote these scriptures, we spout them at appropriate times, but do we believe them?
If we did believe them, we'd begin to realise that we need to take them literally.
IF there are two or three of us praying together, then there IS power. We seem to have fallen into the trap of believing that a 'successful' prayer meeting must have large numbers. If only 4 or 5 people show up, we are often disappointed and we consider the meeting a failure. We've somehow adopted the world's mentality or yard stick of what is 'success'. Success always seems to mean BIGGER....BETTER....but especially bigger! Have we somehow adopted the attitude that we need to 'super size' everything - including church, church meetings and yes, prayer meetings?
Are we buying into an enemy lie, that makes us give up when our prayer meetings don't draw big crowds?? When the Kingdom reality is, if there are two or three of us - we have a majority! We are aligning ourselves with the hosts of heaven! We are in agreement , and with agreement comes alot of spiritual power and clout!
So...am I changing my mindset? You bet!
Have I repented for thinking small groups are not powerful groups? You bet!
And now I can see the power of prayer groups meeting in homes all across our city. Groups of 2 - 4....maybe even five - meeting to pray together. Think of what a city would look like with 100 or even 200 of these groups meeting on any one night of the week - think of what would happen if 50 groups met each night, in homes throughout a city! Think of spiritual impact! Think of how much more people would be 'praying together' - not just listening to one person pray!
The smaller the group, the bigger the possibility that everyone IN the group will pray, and now think of that and the possibilities of lots of people praying! Whoa!!! Everyone adding their piece to the prayer that night. Everyone speaking out what the Holy Spirit is putting on their heart to ask for, speak out or declare! Now...isn't that picture exciting?!
So...let's change our mindsets about prayer meetings! Let's get prayer going again in our cities - in our city! Let's stop buying into the 'super size' mentality for our meetings ( not that big meetings are bad), but if they are causing us to feel that a small meeting is lacking in power and punch - we need to get a Kingdom view, a Kingdom mindset of what happens when we gather, in a spirit of agreement to pray!
My prayer for my city? That in the coming year, we will have 100 prayer groups meeting in homes, praying for our city - at least to start with! What about you and your city?
Now..to be honest I didn't think I had a 'mindset' about prayer and/or prayer meetings, but I realised as he shared a vision he had for our city of Abbotsford, that I did fall in that category of needing to change my mindset. Let me share with you, what I've come to realise because that wonderful man's talk. ( google him: James Watt - you may be able to find some of his writings/articles on this subject.)
One of the things we all seem to say, is that we know that where 'two or three are gathered, there He is' in the midst. We also quote that where ' two or three are in agreement' there is great authority. And let's not forget that ' one can chase a thousand and two can chase ten thousand'. We quote these scriptures, we spout them at appropriate times, but do we believe them?
If we did believe them, we'd begin to realise that we need to take them literally.
IF there are two or three of us praying together, then there IS power. We seem to have fallen into the trap of believing that a 'successful' prayer meeting must have large numbers. If only 4 or 5 people show up, we are often disappointed and we consider the meeting a failure. We've somehow adopted the world's mentality or yard stick of what is 'success'. Success always seems to mean BIGGER....BETTER....but especially bigger! Have we somehow adopted the attitude that we need to 'super size' everything - including church, church meetings and yes, prayer meetings?
Are we buying into an enemy lie, that makes us give up when our prayer meetings don't draw big crowds?? When the Kingdom reality is, if there are two or three of us - we have a majority! We are aligning ourselves with the hosts of heaven! We are in agreement , and with agreement comes alot of spiritual power and clout!
So...am I changing my mindset? You bet!
Have I repented for thinking small groups are not powerful groups? You bet!
And now I can see the power of prayer groups meeting in homes all across our city. Groups of 2 - 4....maybe even five - meeting to pray together. Think of what a city would look like with 100 or even 200 of these groups meeting on any one night of the week - think of what would happen if 50 groups met each night, in homes throughout a city! Think of spiritual impact! Think of how much more people would be 'praying together' - not just listening to one person pray!
The smaller the group, the bigger the possibility that everyone IN the group will pray, and now think of that and the possibilities of lots of people praying! Whoa!!! Everyone adding their piece to the prayer that night. Everyone speaking out what the Holy Spirit is putting on their heart to ask for, speak out or declare! Now...isn't that picture exciting?!
So...let's change our mindsets about prayer meetings! Let's get prayer going again in our cities - in our city! Let's stop buying into the 'super size' mentality for our meetings ( not that big meetings are bad), but if they are causing us to feel that a small meeting is lacking in power and punch - we need to get a Kingdom view, a Kingdom mindset of what happens when we gather, in a spirit of agreement to pray!
My prayer for my city? That in the coming year, we will have 100 prayer groups meeting in homes, praying for our city - at least to start with! What about you and your city?
