How Does Prayer Fit In?

I'm intrigued by your comments to Charles' post--Abby (and Dave, to some degree) raise whether churches have a role in this endeavor at all, which seems worth some consideration.

But for now I'm wondering how you all think about prayer in this endeavor.  We've been throwing out that maybe our objective could be summed up as something like, "to help facilitate a stage 4 revival in the secular west."  Given that most of what we've seemed to be doing recently is define terms, this begs that same question.  What do we mean by "revival," most notably.  But I'm bogging down with defining things just now, so we'll leave that unanswered. 

So, however you think about "revival," what role do you feel prayer will pray in it?  Are you pursuing that kind of prayer in any fashion?

A few churches represented here are fasting and praying as whole churches right now for something at least along these lines.  Their thinking has been that cleverness and savvy cultural interpretation and good leadership and preaching skills can indeed take us somewhere down the path to this dream.  But limits will invariably set in.  Our smarts and skills and normal devotional practices can only take us so far.  Perhaps prayer and fasting will bump this up a level.

But what do you think?  Has prayer for your community (or the secular west) been part of your repertoire?  Has God spoken to you about this along the way?  What's God said to you? 

How does prayer fit in?

Comments

[Ben Catlin]

I think prayer would play a major part in a Stage 4 revival. I know it is something I am praying for regularly in my city and in the country.

But I would wonder, how different would it look from the prayer involved in a Stage 2 revival.

My take is that it wouldn't look very different. We might ask God to do some things in a slightly different way, but we're still basically asking for the same thing: Come and make himself known to people, and draw them to a relationship with him.

[Brent]

Our church has been moving toward taking prayer to be central to the Kingdom for some time now. This has involved some structural things - such as renovating an old chapel into a prayer room and having various workshops on prayer. But I think more importantly has been the impetus to get our congregation to rethink what prayer is or can be; to get us to imagine what it means to be constantly in prayer every minute of the day or how prayer and imagination interact. We have 'creative prayer' nights where spontaneous, artistic expressions of prayer are encouraged and 'soaking prayer' nights where people can simply soak in God's presence. We have also recently sent two young families to Madison, WI to be trained in the 24/7 Prayer Movement at the Boiler Room there.

Personally, I think all of this is incredibly important. And it tells me that prayer at Stage 2 and prayer and Stage 4 may in fact be very very different. It seems to me that prayer at stage 2 is very much about the fact that 'prayer works' - that engaging in prayer can lead to certain desirable results. But the kind of prayer I'm learning about lately sees prayer not as a tool or way to ask God for (even very good) things, but as the very meaning of what it means to interact with and submit to God. It is therefore totally central to the Christian lifestyle. In a sense, to be a Christian is to live a life of prayer, constantly submitting our hearts, minds, and imaginations to God and the life he has for us.

If we were to start thinking of and engaging in prayer in this way, I think a stage 4 revival would be inevitable.

[steven hamilton]

i think you're onto something with the stage 4 prayer...we probably don't want to have another "let's define (or describe) something post", because to me prayer would tend to be like love, best described, not necessarily defined.

i agree with cat and brent above: there seems to be some difference in stage 2 prayer and stage 4 prayer...

it seems to me that from scripture perhaps abraham might be decent example of moving from stage 2 prayer to stage 4 prayer. when the relationship begins God speaks to abram and no words of exchange are recorded, just action and really blind obedience. then later in the narrative, the relationship grows as abram begins to ask questions and dialogue a bit further. then comes a pretty funny breakthrough in the relationship: God tells abraham and sarah something, and abraham laughs about it (along with sarah) and they actually both make jokes about God's promise. laughing with one another about something like that seems to me to be a pretty significant breakthrough into new ground in the growing intimacy and relationship (relationship and intimacy are some descriptors i would put on "prayer"). then, a curious thing happens - that seems possibly pretty stage 4 to me - as abraham has been more and more open and intimate with God, God begins to be more intimate and transparent with him, so that in Genesis 18 God rhetorically asks: "Should I hide this thing from Abraham?" then, when God does reveal it, perhaps this is where we see the difference of an abraham coming into stage 4 prayer, and having the relational equity with God to actually push back to God about this thing God is planning to do...so much so that he bickers with God about it, in a way that shows abraham trusts God more with whatever reaction/response he has to what God says, and perhaps feels like God wants to hear what he has to say about it in a deeper dialogue, like long, true and deep friendship.

sorry to go on and on, but i feel like there is something there to point at and say: hmmmmm....

[Jeff]

I am down with the centrality of prayer- both for personal sanity and spiritual power. I think that encouraging a diversity of prayer styles and meetings is incredibly helpful. I think a lot of people get turned off to prayer when they are presented with a certain model that doesn't work for them and they end up feeling like spiritual failures. The "pray the Psalms" model was an absolute Godsend for me five years ago, it's probably the first reason I started following Dave/GBVC/CCS.

I've never been a 'pray for revival' guy. It's intriguing. I'd be interested in a description of what you think revival would look like. Note- not a definition (Lord help us if we get in another term-defining debalte). But- what would it look like? What specifically am I praying for?

[Kansas Bob]

The kind of prayer that changes us will eventually change the world.

[Otto]

Great topic :) I love praying and would like to do it more. I would like to have a community to pray with, since I'm not a member of a church now. Actually, that is the thing that I most miss about being in a community of believers.

So, it seems the main difference between stage 2 and stage 3 is about rules and unconditional belief in the Bible and God. And the main difference between stage 3 and stage 4 is prayer (relationship with God).

[Vinceation]

In the spirit of the story of Jesus sending out the 72, isn't prayer basically the only thing we've got going for us? We become a part of peoples' lives and then we pray for God's power and then interpret it as such.

[Tim Truesdale]

Dave,

Once again, thank you so much for creating this safe place to come and share our thoughts and feelings on the issues we wrestle with on a daily basis!

First of all, regarding definitions, in seeking to describe exactly what we are praying for, we have found it particularly helpful to add the term "community transformation" to the discussion.

The word "revival" carries a meaning that addresses a significant part of what we are seeking--kind of like the image pictured in Ezekiel 37 of God taking a spiritually broken down body and making it alive once more.

But what we are seeking is a bit more comprehensive, as we long for the Lord's healing and restoration that will occur when each individual and institution in our community created by God comes into alignment with his gloriful purpose for creating them.

I think this is consistent with a stage 4 God movement.

As for our understanding of the role of prayer and fasting in seeking this movement? We are starting with the assumption that--to be perfectly honest--the best strategy we have is travailing prayer and fasting.

It could be that we need more "cultural relevance". But we are convicted that the fundamental area to be shored up at this time is actually a re-sharpened focus on "listening and obeying". And these skills are best matured in a context permeated with travailing prayer and fasting.

Thanks Dave for opening up another great discussion!