(Reading Time: 6:35) Today I want to update you on our Weekly Prayer Circle here at Calvary. Each Saturday night four of us have been gathering in the Prayer Tower to pray since the beginning of this year. It’s a round-robin type of prayer meeting. I voice my prayers, then we move in a clockwise fashion around the circle as each person shares their heart with the LORD.
I have tried several ways to foster prayer here at Calvary over the years. I’ve tried gathering our people in the sanctuary for corporate prayer. I’ve tried leading our people in prayer models. We’ve all prayed out loud in unison and many other short-lived ideas. Each endeavor started out good and then wained down to just a few. Then one New Year’s Eve at the end of our Watch Night Service we gathered in a circle and each person took at turn praying to the Lord. During this “circle of prayer,” I saw we had hit upon something that felt right. It was something I had tried with the men during our former monthly prayer breakfasts. After we fellowshipped and ate, the men gathered in the Prayer Tower and prayed. This too, wained away to nothing, but there was something that felt right about the prayers and the way we approached praying together.
So this January, during the National Week of Prayer we inaugurated a Weekly Prayer Circle, based on the best of those leadings from the Lord. In this environment it is proper to be a small group. This format gives time for us to discuss what’s on our hearts, and each person gets to voice their prayers to the Lord, while the others listen and give their amen. It just feels right.
That leads me to thesecond thing I feel the Lord wants me to express from this. When we receive a leading from the Holy Spirit, it might take several attempts to trim our ideas down to the essence of what he is asking of us. In the example of the Weekly Prayer Circle, it was for us to meet together and pray. You just have to keep trying things until you have that feeling inside that you have hit upon the essence of God’s leading. All of the other things will fall away, but the desire of the Spirit is what will remain. That is, if we keep seeking his guidance all along the way.
I am sure the Weekly Prayer Circle will grow into more of a prayer ministry in the future, but for now I feel we are heading in the right direction. This is an important thing to understand about pursuing any passion in your heart. Sometimes the Lord shows you the final outcome of your faithfulness, rather than the immediate thing he is asking you to do. This is only to give us direction and encourage us to be faithful. However, sometimes we will begin striving for the final outcome and try to skip the process that takes us there.
When I originally endeavored to bring a culture of prayer to our church, the Lord showed me a great prayer ministry which reached deep into our community. He showed me how prayer would go up from the Prayer Tower continuously and people would be calling our church to ask for prayer. As this vision became a great passionin my heart and mind, the Prayer Tower was born. However, the PLACE is only part of the plan. PRAYER is the essence. The Prayer Tower is literally a PLACE for PRAYER.
Now, as the Weekly Prayer Circle meets, we are practicing the part of the plan that will cause real spiritual growth to come. The first thing we need to see out of these prayer meetings is answered prayer. We cannot allow ourselves to just go through the motions and not focus on answered prayer. Well, I am proud to say that this is what we are beginning to see. Recent answered prayers are confirmation that we are accomplishing the essence of what the Holy Spirit is asking us to do. If we remain faithful to this, the increase will come.
This principle of increase through faithfulness can apply to so many areas of ministry and to our personal lives as well. Nothing starts out as it ends up. As we invest ourselves in the vision before us and develop it into a passion, results begin to layer one upon another. I have seen this in other areas, like with our weekly radio show. When I completed the 200th show, on Sunday, January 12th of 2014, I took some time to explain to our radio audience how it came to pass. I walked them through the learning process, the changes along the way, andthe vision for future programming which will touch our community more directly. The essence is to be on the radio speaking each week. The vision however, expands as our commitment and capabilities grow. The same holds true with our other fledgling ministries: TV Show, Media Ministries, Worship Team, Leadership Team, etc.
In another sense, the radio show is like the Weekly Prayer Circle. Doing the show each week is just part of my weekly agenda now and it’s content is always on my mind. The Prayer Circle is becoming the same—it is just part of what we do at Calvary each week. Until what it currently is becomes just another part of the culture of what we do, then we will not see growth in it and a larger vision accomplished. Again, the inspiration for growth comes through answered prayer.
I’ll end on that today. Answered prayer is actually the real essence of what we want to see the Weekly Prayer Circle produce—and it is doing that! Two areas we have prayed over have recently seen progress—the anointing returning to our services and visitors once again attending Calvary. It is good to have new people to pray for that just a week ago we did not even know.
I know most people focus their prayers on healing and blessings, and we do want our people to possess all God has for them in these areas. However, in returning to the essence of what God wants out of our prayers, we must acknowledge that he wants us to pray earnestly for people who we can help. The answers he wants to give us in prayer are how we can help those he sends our way. God is still all about those who are lost and need a Savior. Now that we have a Prayer Tower and a Weekly Prayer Circle, we need to focus on the essence of what God wants us to pray about—our mission to our community of reaching families for Jesus!
“Calvary exists to demonstrate the love of God to the families of our community!”