Essentials Part 4: Prayed Up

This is a series about Essentials for ministry growth (in quantity and quality).

Essential #1: Healthy at the Core
Essential #2: Reduce complexity to the point of quality

Essential #3: Prayed Up

I fly into town for a week-long mission at Campus X.

It's pretty clear when the host ministry is all prayed up:

Ordinary secular reality is broken apart. 

Holes have been blown in the well-established walls of spiritual resistance that I've come to expect on college campuses, due to targeted prayer.

Surprising openings appear before us. Christian students display boldness and compassion. Other students come to faith in Jesus.

******************

One of my favorite churches, Bethel Christian Fellowship (BCF), is situated strategically near Macalester College in St. Paul, where I work.

BCF is pretty much always prayed up.

I guess that's why this non-trendy work of God is so healthy and fruitful. Of note:

• Over 25 nations represented in the congregation. A flag flies in the foyer for each country.
• Multiple other ministries come under its gracious oversight.
• They say: Prayer is not peripheral to our programs, it is the atmosphere in which our programs will be fruitful.

BCF always feels to me like a non-anxious place.

****************

In closing: I think of how often prayer is talked about in various ministries but how often it ends just there.

I hope you'll pause to consider whether the ministry in which you serve is all prayed up.

(As for myself, the practice doesn't come easily.)