Eight Ways to Grow a Great Soul

Eight Ways to Grow a Great Soul

To cultivate an effective, fulfilling ministry, let’s get specific about how to grow a great soul. Try to view spiritual fitness as more than a high-octane spiritual additive to be poured into the details of ministry. Think of growing a great soul as nothing more or nothing less than an authentic Christian life—normal, whole, well adjusted and Jesus-focused—that is lived as God intends us to live.

The following section provides eight practical ways to grow a great soul. Note, however, that because spiritual growth can come from any activity or action that draws us nearer to God, this list is not exhaustive.

1. Cultivate a Soul Friend

Every pastor needs a trustworthy friend to whom he voluntarily makes himself spiritually accountable. A soul friend must be given permission to question him about motives, marriage and ministry. This soul friend must also be given permission to question him about his relationship with God.

A pastor needs a soul friend who loves him enough to be tender, yet tough. He needs someone to pray for him and with him. Ideally, the soul friend should be willing to listen redemptively to his hurts, affirm his strengths, and call him to authenticity. He must know when to pat the pastor on the back and when to kick him in the seat. This person should be a good friend as well as a demanding critic.

2. Resist the Seduction of Safety

Mere maintenance in church attendance, fund-raising or personal spiritual development sounds so good to us. Humanly, we want to hold on to what we have developed or inherited. It’s good, we feel, to be safe.

Years ago, I knew one high-placed leader who, when faced with a potential recruit or a new program, would always ask, “Is he/it safe?” In his quest for safety, he rejected progressive ideas because they might be controversial, and he seldom appointed maverick ministers because they were too threatening. To the detriment of the Kingdom, he often missed the energy and achievement of new ideas and of innovative people.

We are often like that, too. Our reluctance to risk, pioneer new frontiers or reinvent ministry hinders the work of God and makes it mediocre and inane. The word “great,” as in growing a “great” soul, frightens us. It is so much easier to be careful and cautious and predictable—words that do not seem to fit in the same paragraph with the gospel, missions and worldwide impact.

3. Solicit Prayers from the Faithful

Stamina strengthens ministry that is undergirded by prayer. Untapped prayer support surrounds us. We have more people than we realize who are interested in praying for us. We can have more prayer for the asking—and most of us need all the prayer we can get. Think of those people who might be willing to take your name and ministry to the Father.

People Who Nurtured Your Faith

Sunday School teachers, pastors and friends in your home church will feel highly honored if you ask them to pray for you every day. Power from these prayers cannot be hindered by miles, clocks or calendars.

People You Have Served with in Crises

Every person you helped through a crisis is a prospective candidate to support your ministry with prayer. Because of the difficulties you shared with them, they will have a built-in awareness of how much you need supernatural assistance as you seek to serve others as you served them. They are bonded to you forever by the tender compassion you once showed them.

People Who Need Attention

Every congregation has people who need and want more attention than a pastor is able to give them. A common example is shut-ins who regret they do not get more of their pastor’s time. They may be frail or sick and believe they are unneeded because they cannot do what they once enjoyed doing in the church. Their limitations make them feel useless. Consequently, asking them to pray for you turns their focus to significant concerns outside themselves and makes them feel needed again. It involves them in something important they can do and something you need. Everyone gains.

People Who Serve with You

Christian workers can expect to receive power when they band together in prayer for a common cause. Examples are a local church staff meeting daily for prayer or a church board gathering early Sunday morning to intercede for the ministry of the day. Try enlisting committee members of your church to covenant to pray for each other every day. Emphasize this need as being more important than agenda decisions. As a result, a spiritual synergism develops so two will do much more than twice what you could have done alone.

Ministry Peers Who Can Share Your Prayers

Topping the list of all the inspirational sentences I have ever received in a letter were the words, “Let’s trade prayers.” What an energetic, enabling force for ministry.

4. Rekindle Affection for the Bible

Use Scripture to energize your ministry. Saturate your life with Scripture by active Bible reading. Let your encounter with the Bible shape the details of your ministry. Enter into mental conversation with Bible characters. Synchronize your thinking with its message so you hear, respond and apply new truths to this moment of your life. Use Scripture to energize your ministry.

Read for Relevance

Be open to insight about your life and ministry. Develop a continuous friendship with the Author. Go for quality as well as for quantity. Listen closely to what the Spirit is saying. What does God want you to hear through Scripture about your service for Him?

Interrogate Scripture

Walk around its message and its meaning. Check similar ideas in various passages by using a concordance and commentaries. Probe the passage. Explore, research, study, compare and contrast. As you read, ask questions about how this passage affects your life.

Personalize the Passage

Put your name in a promise or a command. What affirmation does the Scripture say about your ministry? Does it seem to have your name and zip code written on it? If you were present at the particular biblical event, what would you feel and what would you do?

5. Grow Past Your Prayer Hang-Ups

I (Neil) love the old story about lightning striking a nightclub in a tiny western town after the Christian people had an all-night prayer meeting, asking God to destroy the “den of iniquity.” When the nightclub owner heard about the prayer meeting, he sued the church. Immediately, the church people denied any responsibility. The judge threw the case out of court after he observed, “Apparently, the night club owner believes in prayer more than the church people.” This is an interesting parable for pastors.

Like other believers, pastors sometimes suffer from prayer hang-ups. As a result, they focus on problems about prayer without experiencing its possibilities. Most of us have at least one or more of these prayer dilemmas, but a single obstacle should not keep us from earnest conversations with our Lord.

Unanswered Prayers

Although we do not have much light on why some prayers are not answered, God has proven Himself to be the dependable One. Therefore, why not pray in an act of intentional Christian commitment: “I trust You, even though I do not understand why a particular prayer was not answered. I love You. And I want to serve You all the days of my life—in the storms as well as in the sunshine.”

Delayed Answers

Delayed answers often seem unnecessary, even cruel. However, because God knows tomorrow as well as He knows yesterday and today, His wait-awhile answer is always best. Remember that delay does not mean denial.

Guilt About Not Praying Stalks Lots of Good People

In their inwardness, many people carry a picture of God as a harsh, heavenly timekeeper who inspects their time cards every day. They believe God would be more pleased if they prayed longer and louder. Of course, we all could pray more, but the quality of our relationship with God affects our prayers, too. To stop praying because we did not pray enough last week or last month does not move us nearer to God.

Unrelinquished Concerns

Every genuine believer sometimes feels handcuffed by people or issues he cannot control or change. These concerns may perhaps be the consequences of past sins.

Then, too, people from our past have complicated our lives in ways we cannot shake. Some feel defeated by lies told about them, even by good people. Some have been cheated by duplicity or outright stealing. Others have been locked out of “what might have been” by parents, spouses or children. A victorious relinquishment of these concerns will liberate us to live satisfying lives and have an improved ministry. This may be the precise time to pray for the grace of relinquishment—to take your hands off for all time.

6. Enjoy God

Many believers dread spending time with God. They are afraid because they picture Him as an authoritative judge, accusing parent, perfectionist professor, unbending boss or absentee landlord. Accordingly, their meetings with God are dreadfully unpleasant.

If we want to grow a great soul, however, it is essential to wholeheartedly embrace the fact that God champions us. More than the most loving human parent, God wants us to succeed so we can find joy in service and do our adventuresome part to advance His kingdom.

Recently, I (Neil) heard a pastor tell about an early-morning appointment he kept with God. Being a night person, he has difficulty getting up. After dragging himself out of bed to pray on a particular morning, he started back to bed with sleepy eyes and a sluggish brain. Then he experienced an impression as real as an audible voice: “So you would rather sleep another hour than keep your appointment with Me. Who would miss for anything in the whole world a meeting with the King of the Universe, the Lord of resurrection life and the Lover of your soul?” God’s friendly chastisement transformed the pastor’s devotional duty into winsome fellowship with the Father.

Ministry, by definition, makes us partners with omnipotence. Even though we are junior partners, we are important, needed and essential. The mental pictures we have of God provide affirming inspiration we too easily overlook:

• The Judge sets us free when we deserve imprisonment or death.

• The Parent affirms us as a member of God’s family.

• The Professor teaches us truth about the world and ourselves.

• The Ruler stands as sovereign Lord of our lives.

• The Landowner provides us with shelter and security.

Although the possibilities of enjoying the Father are thoroughly rooted in Scripture, the Westminster Catechism summarizes it in beautiful shorthand language: “What is the chief end of humankind? To glorify God and enjoy God forever.”

Look for ways to enjoy God continually. Discover fun and fascination and exhilaration in prayers, Scripture reading, people to whom you minister, hymns, and the magnificent examples of grace all around you. Great souls enjoy the sparkle and satisfaction of friendship with God and His people. Cultivate a sense of joyful ministry for the sheer adventure of it.

Take the glumness out of ministry for a week, and it might never return. Build an enjoyable relationship with God into the fabric of every pastoral effort. Pastoring links you with God’s mighty power. Let’s act like it.

7. Pray Risky and Adventuresome Prayers

Some prayers seem like tough exams that show us what we do not know, what the professor expects, and what significant issues we have overlooked.

Spiritual directors and devotional saints across the centuries have cautioned believers against prayers that request miracles with no effort on their part. Prayers are generally not answered that way.

Far from being magic formulas, prayers are usually answered by receiving an assignment that can be achieved only with divine aid. God answers prayers by empowering us after we have done our best.

Human experience offers many examples. You will have your patience tested when you pray for patience. You will be given a peacemaking task when you petition for peace. Pray for generosity and God will ask you to give more than you have ever given. In a similar vein, genuinely great sermons usually grow out of human anguish or even travail before they receive divine anointing.

Here are five risky, adventuresome prayers that will add a supernatural dimension to your ministry, send you into specialized tasks, make you more Christlike and require more than your best efforts. These prayers could change your ministry forever:

1. Search me.

2. Break me.

3. Stretch me.

4. Lead me.

5. Use me.

Seldom does a person pray even one of these petitions without incredible growth happening in his inner relationship with God or in his outer expressions of Kingdom service. These petitions produce authentic achievement in the front lines of ministry.

8. Commit to Spiritual Self-Care

Adequate spiritual self-care is a little-understood secret of a flourishing ministry. To adequately care for his own spiritual fitness, a pastor must buck busy schedules, priority pressures, unreasonable expectations and secular values. But it must be done.

Like everyone else, pastors should desire the best possible life: Christ-directed living centered on our Lord’s teachings, energized by His nearness, and steeped in His will. The center of a minister’s responsibility is to find such a life for himself and then share it with those he serves. Thus, self-care multiplies his ministry rather than being a favor he does only for himself.

Seeking such a satisfying life may be the main reason people come to church week after week. Sadly, many seekers believe it is a spiritual mirage or an unobtainable ideal because such a Christ-quality life is so seldom modeled before them. Perhaps more people would want this valuable life if we reminded them that Christ brings eternal newness to people of every generation as they welcome Him into the details of their lives. Perhaps more people would thirst for such a quality life if the Church did not keep faith safely embalmed in ancient words or yesteryear’s creeds.

We have the privilege to show them authentic Christian living at its best. Shout it from the housetops and live it in the streets. Nothing faintly compares with the Jesus way of life. The people we serve will be significantly affected by its relevance and sweetness as they observe it working so well in our songs, in our catastrophes, in our ambiguities, and in our victories.

Remember: To teach and live a Christ-quality life is the most gratifying style of life anyone has discovered or enjoyed.

Too many pastors feel their personal spiritual development is hindered by problems, difficulties or limitations. Sometimes they blame their shallowness on a power-hungry matriarch or patriarch in the congregation. But a pastor must look past every impediment to realize a Christ-quality life can be cultivated anywhere. Even tough pastoral assignments offer enough stretching points and affirmative influences for a pastor and spouse to build a Jesus-permeated life.

To nourish this kind of life, a pastor must realize continuously that he is a grace consumer, not a producer. To make this happen for himself, a pastor must value and celebrate the momentous serendipities of pastoral service. Reading, praying and knowing God are part of his job description—something very different from the occupational demands of average Harry in the parish.

Self-care is not only beneficial for the pastor, however, but the congregation also benefits. Such bonding with Christ deepens a pastor’s devotion to ministry and helps him portray Christlikeness in the expressions of his ministry. It positively affects his preaching, counseling and worship leadership. A holy contagion will then ignite his congregation.

As a result, church members move nearer to Christ because they see spiritual adventure at work in their minister. As they see the life of Christ embodied in their leader, their spiritual appetites increase. They begin thirsting for a life of love and trust and grace. This spiritual interplay between pastor and laity is spiritual blooming at its best.

However, without vibrant personal spiritual self-care, a pastor sentences himself to leading a well-intended religious business enterprise, a do-goodish relief agency, or an affable social club. That’s not much fun, and it produces a boring life.

A Great Soul Revitalizes Ministry

Grow a great soul so that supernatural strengths of character will enrich and energize every expression of your ministry. Your personal spiritual strengths can become a mighty combined force for curing the discord, disharmony and confusion that prevail in the Church and in society.

Therefore, fill your inner life with the spirit of Jesus so His character shows in your ministry. Then the work of Christ will survive and thrive or even flourish under your leadership. And remember:

• Great souls preach powerfully, warmly and redemptively.

• Great souls care for hurting, broken people and point them to the Savior.

• Great souls lead worshipers into God’s awesome presence.

• Great souls build strong families, cherish their marriages, and see the Church as the family of God.

• Great souls substitute supernatural achievement for cheap, empty talk.

Consider the incredible possibilities. God intends that your ministry will profoundly affect those you serve. But He plans much more. God wants your ministry to shape you into Christlikeness and to add adventure to your life in ways beyond your fondest imagination. Ministry takes you to adventuresome places. Ministry allows you to rub shoulders with people you would otherwise never know. Your junior partnership with God allows you privileges and permits you to receive grace in a measure no one experiences in other occupations.

Genuine greatness expands your credibility and kindles your passion for Christ. Growing a great soul blasts away the corrosion that, like acid, eats away at the Church’s achievement and vision. A thousand pastors with growing souls can rekindle fires of principle, hope, devotion, conviction, magnanimity, servanthood, imagination, creativity and holy living.

Contemporary Challenge

How to Keep in Shape Spiritually

• Go beyond a professionalized ministry to a personal pilgrimage with God.

• View ministry as a colossal opportunity to grow a great soul.

• Apply to yourself principles of spiritual wellness that you preach to others.

• Refuse to allow your own spirituality to become ceremonial.

• Renew the adventure of being a spokesperson for the resurrected Lord.

• Model the God-permeated life.

• Balance your ministry between being and doing.

• Resist the seduction of safety.

• Solicit prayers from the faithful.

• Enjoy God.

In the middle of the bad, it has never been so good! —Student Prayer⁹

To a New Generation of Pastors
God Loves You—You Matter a Lot

Musings from H. B. London, Jr.

In every worship service I conducted, I always found some way to remind worshipers, “God loves you as though you were the only one in the world to love, and that makes you a very special person.”

Although St. Augustine had a similar phrase, I think the apostle John crystallized the thought when he said, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son” (John 3:16). John was saying that Jesus came in person for each of us—as though we were the only one!

This is a truth that the people in our churches should hear over and over again: They are loved in a unique way by an Almighty God. What a great message! If people could embrace that truth as little children, the Christian walk would be so much easier for them.

What about you? Do you understand that God loves you as though you were the only pastor-teacher-leader in all the world to love? The battles you engage in are His battles. The circumstances you face are familiar to Him. The burdens you bear may be placed on His shoulders with His permission.

So many influences in our world seek to discourage us by telling us we are simply one in a billion. Don’t ever believe that, my friend. God’s love for you is the greatest story ever written.

Live in this great inspiration: “How great is the love the Father has lavished upon us that we should be called the children of God—that is what we are!” (1 John 3:1)

===>Click here to access complete book information . . .

24/7 & Taking Back Our Cities by Juan Ramirez

24/7@Ezekiel 7:23
There are many reasons why a "temple" should be openned 24/7. One is that people need to learn the art of prayer. Because of the violence, the jealousy, the idol worship, the corruption, the distractions of the times. This makes it firtle ground for those seeking to make an impact for God. Gods house whom you are and the temple must open for prayer, worship and the word.

The people will come. I say to pastors, prepare seven leaders and seven assistant leaders to open the place of worship 7 days per week, for the just to come in and bring in the riches of the nations:SOULS and RESOURCES.

The days could be divided which ever way, weather youth night, family night, singles night, childrens night etc;but every thing must be done to save souls and heal lives.

HOW TO BEGIN- Begin by preparing the workers, secondly prepare the people of the church for this, thirdly prepare the ambient, fourthly anounce it by radio, television, news paper,door to door by all means possible. Anouncements should be done for one full month publickly before you begin. Start by having salvation and healing meetings every day and then as the needs arise God will focus your attention to the following step to take.This way the leadership, the church body and the publick know just where to go any day of the week for salvation, healing and hearing the word, faith will grow...so will the congregation. Remember you do not have to spent a lot of money if you hunger for Gods presence and cry out for lost souls.

Begin prayer 24/7 during and after the month of preparation where one person or two or more pray around the clock . Pray for cleansing, for revival of the first love, for unity, for souls, for Gods presence.

Begin fasting 24/7, one or two or more persons can fast one meal, two meals or the whole day. Understant that the time of judgement is now and we must prepare our bodies for suffering, something that was out of our scope until September 11. Well September 11 pales at the things that will take place as of 2007. Thats why is vital that we pray and fast. There will be a changing of the guard.

Teaching-empowerment 24/7, you know you can start by one day or an hour until you reach the point where training is going on every day, recruting,and sending is part of an armies attitude and life.Is there a center like what Iam invisioning and some of you envision?

Sending 24/7, the time has come when new paradigms will take effect. Is like rediscovering the old pattern to enter into the new. Pray the Lord to send for reapers. Now you send them to reap. It is reaping time. It is reaping time. Even if that means crossing borders. Culture, linguistic,and racial. The souls are waiting on us. Romans 10:8-17, is where is at.

Sharing 24/7, where can our people who work nights go and fellowship at three in the morning? No where, because most 99%8 of the churches-"Gods houses" are closed. Making God unprepare and uninterested, and unwilling, non-caring and irresponsible. This Wednesday and Sunday deal is not going to cut it. The job is not getting accomplish this way.Lonelyness is written in many hearts. Frustrations. Desperation. Profound pain. People of God need to know each other in order to realte to one another, serve one another, pray and fast, learn and fight together.People of God heal each other through honestly caring.

Results:
Purity will be the key for revival and visitation. Purity of thoght, of emotions, of will and of soma-body is necessary for a movement like waht we need now in this mid night hour. The water of the word washes us thats why we feel so clean after we have met together for worship, for the word- then feel misreable because there lacks an ingridient call work-Job-not JOB.

Purity brings power. When the blodd cleanses of all sin and unrighteosness, the word comes and washes emotional hurts and negative feelings, confession makes bridges of reconciliation. Purity brings unity and with unity-POWER- The gifts as well as the fruits of the Spieit will begin to manifest. The five-fold ministries begin to flourish, blosom and mature- then the load is easier to bare, because the body parts are now functioning. Prayer, fastind, learning, sharing, going and casting the ent heals people. Every one will begin to excercise spiritual gifts, they will not have time to think that days of miracles are over because the whole atmospheric realm will be filled with miracles God is causing through our simple obedience of 24/7.

Provision: The most worrisome thing is provision and control.My God shall provide because you are fulfilling his will. Save the world-purify the church-make her ready! God is providing right now for some of you a vision which has been in your heart,but not in your agenda.Lets do it..Is possible. But allow God to have the control.

Excercise the power of influence and organization, God will permit the administrative gifts to now operate the way they should for his glory!
His provision is his vision. Where there is a vision there will be pro- in favor of the vision, the necessary resources to fulfill it. See you on our next chat. If you wish write or call, be glad to hear your comments I am in the same quest! Dr. Juan Ramirez /juan4147@sbcglobal.net or 512-751-6437 cell

Taking back our cities

@24/7 PLAN
The church was birth in a tremendous movement-so the question remains why can't we win our city and our nation back to Christ? The movement stop short, we gave in before reaching the world, so now the world is reaching us.God is not stagnated he is Spierit, he is movement. We are still waiting for thenext move and God is waiting for the first one to move so he can bless him. We must repent and stop saying "peace...peace" when there is no peace but a sword, the sword of the desert.

Jesus said:GO-we say COME. Jesus said:DISCIPLE-we INFORM. Jesus:Baptized we say it is politically incorrect. Jesus says:TEACHING them to observe these commandments-we say, business as usual.

A TIME FOR WAR
Jesus engaged his disciples in a war. It will take a militant mentality if we are to get the job accomplish. He said;"deny yourselve take up your cross and follw me." Every one who follows the WAY knows ahead of time that death is a possibility, that is if you follow JESUS! It is not optional is a command "Take up your cross>" This meant and it means today the same thing-death! Jesus was not afraid to speak about suffering 1 Peter4:1-Because he was not a hireling, he was the good shepherd. See for Jesus it wasn't a 9-5 job. He did not depend on a salary from his perishioners so he couldnt be bullied by deacon Perry. Jesus says "Follow me." Some dare say to him, "where can we turn to when only you have words of eternal life".

Profesional pulpits will not get the job done, because they are more aware of statsics than discipleship. More interested in earths gold than heavens worth. More earthly golf minded than sweet blood and tears. The uncouth martyrs of Islam teach their people to be soldiers.

Following Jesus is exaccly what made this nation great-the sacrifice, the blood shed during the independance, the civil war and the many wars fought, even the one we are in now. Yet we refuse to suffer.

PROBLEM
Suffering is what we need to teach as well as prosperity. In the Bible, if you notice the word problem never appears.This is the excuse of Satan, "this is the problem...the problem is ." Let me say to you that there is no answer to the word problem. A mathematical problem has an answer. What is the answer to divorce? Pain..

In God there is solutions to needs-"my God shall provide all your needs, not all your problems".

What we have in scripture is persecution, suffering, denial, sacrifice, anguish, the sword, etc. you see I committed the error of telling people in my meetings, "come to Jesus, he will free you from all your problems." The truth is that coming to Jesus doesn't take peoples problems away, these increase, rather than decrease. Telling the truth to your audience eventually will set them free..The Lord allow me to see thousands of people come to him, he has permitted me to see a city touched by Gods Spirit. Jesus delivers from sin, but not from the cross principle! Be not afraid, fear not, be of good courage, be well, be strong! Juan

Prayers written and offered to God @ National Conversation on Revival

HEART CRIES
From The Glen

Prayers written and offered to God

at the close of the

“National Conversation on Revival”

convened by the National Revival Network

Glen Eyrie Conference Center, Colorado Springs

August 30-September 1, 2006

This past August, in the final hour of a 48 hour retreat involving 32 Christian leaders from across the nation, each convinced of the urgency for corporate revival in the Church and a nationwide Christ-awakening movement, the participants were invited to compose a one paragraph prayer. Each prayer was to be designed to express the core burden of one’s heart, summarizing what we would each want to say to the Father if we stood before His Throne in the presence of the Lamb and under the reign of His Spirit.

After about 15 minutes in private, with prayers written on cards, we knelt while each leader read his prayer, one after the other, with the whole group expressing agreement with each prayer by a united “Amen”. At the conclusion of this experiment many remarked that it was one of the most profound prayer experiences they had ever witnessed.

But there was more. Next we placed a huge sofa in the middle of the room, to represent the Throne in Revelation 5. Then we gathered around the chair on our knees, laid our written prayers on its seat, placed our hands on the chair and on each other, as we joined in prayers and hymns of consecration. We offered ourselves to be an answer to these prayers whatever it would cost us.

To our amazement, we discovered when we stood up that, due to a number of our group who had to leave earlier that morning, there were exactly 24 in the circle, recalling the 24 elders around the Throne in Revelation 4-5. Quickly we concluded this was not coincidence. We saw it as a sign of God’s favor on our prayers of passion for the glory of His Son and for the revival of His people.

Below are the prayers of the “24”. Remember, these prayers represent the overflow of a 48-hour “conversation”. They are the heart-cries of Christian leaders who have given their whole beings to foster and serve whatever God desires to do in this hour to deliver His people from our spiritual disobedience, darkness and paralysis, to revive us again and to bring the Church into a fresh revelation of the greatness and glory of His Son – who He is, where He’s headed, what He’s doing and what He deserves.

[You may read further on the vision behind this “National Conversation” by ordering a copy of the NRN foundational document: AN URGENT APPEAL – To Christian Leaders In America For Consensus and Collaboration On The Nature and Hope of Corporate Revival (published by NavPress).]

THE PRAYERS

• Father: Fulfill ALL you have purposed for your Son in this nation, in my city, region and in the church you have called me to serve. Restore your glory in the earth and in our nation. Manifest your glory! Glorify your Son! Magnify your Son! Make His name known among us. Come Holy Spirit and fully fulfill the purpose for which you have been sent! For Jesus’ sake. AMEN

• Holy Father: In your love, grace and mercy, your sovereignty and power, please pour out your Spirit on the deserts of the churches in this nation. Reveal yourself in all your glory and splendor and beauty so that the world may see who You really are and long for You as never before. Make our churches into the Church you want them to be. Enthrone Yourself in our lives, our churches, our nation and the nations. Do all this for the glory of the cross and the glory of your Holy name. In Jesus’ precious name we ask. AMEN.

• Father: I trust you to give us a greater vision of what our communities would look like if you came in power, visiting us with the blessing of your manifest presence. I believe it is your desire to meet with us, revealing our great need, igniting a passion for the lost and giving us an obsession for your glory. We desire more tongues to give Jesus glory. Give us the desire and strength to prepare for such a visitation. We invite you to come. In Jesus’ exalted name, AMEN.

• Father: Break the hearts of all the Christian leaders in all the churches and ministries, and renew those hearts in such a manner that they seek to be one. Let the Scripture that expresses Jesus’ prayer to you about our being one (Jn. 17) stand as a command in each ministry’s mission statement. Lord, calm our fears of each other and unite the streams of preferences and distinctives in such a way that the unbelieving world is drawn into salvation. For Jesus’ glory. AMEN

• Father: Your Son is so glorious and worthy of complete surrender and worship. Would you please pour out the Spirit of Christ upon your disillusioned, rebellious, prideful, wounded and depressed people in order that we might behold the promised land of intimately knowing Jesus. Then help us to embrace this exchanged life doing whatever it takes, at whatever cost, to know Christ as the Lion and the Lamb. Please lead us into a season of repentance and enable us to humble ourselves before you and tremble at your Word, that your incomparable face might radiate upon us for our ultimate joy, as well as for the renown of your supreme Name among us and all the peoples. In Jesus’ name and authority. AMEN

• My Father: I ask of you that you would pour out your Spirit on the pastors of this land That once again they would love Jesus with passion; that once more they would seek the authority of the Holy Spirit for their preaching; that once more they would be pure in their living and secure in their dying. O my God, create a brotherhood of the flaming heart that spreads throughout out country and leads the Church into revival, awakening and transformation. AMEN

• Lord: Our land is in desperate need and we see many forces arrayed against you and your righteousness. But you are the Lord of history. You are Lord of the forces working against you – who do so in vain! Now, Lord, consider the threats your people face and enable your servants to proclaim your Word with great boldness. Stretch out your hand to heal and perform miraculous signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus. Shake your church, fill us afresh with your spirit, and send us forth to speak your word boldly (Acts 4). AMEN

• Dear Lord: We thank you for your promises. We hold dear in our hearts your love for us. We come now with thanksgiving and supreme gratitude for your mercy that endures forever. Lord, pleases intensify our hunger for you. Allow our cities and nation to become desperate for your presence. May we become Christ like in every way possible. Open the doors of blessings upon us and transform us into people of holiness. Disrupt our comfort zones and bring total surrender into our lives. I pray now, believing revival and repentance will come, beginning with me. In Jesus’ mighty name we pray. AMEN

• Heavenly Father: I pray that you would pour out a desire upon your people to pray – that your Church would once again be a House of Prayer. Father, I pray that your people would humble themselves before you; surrender their lives unto you and seek your will in their lives and for this generation. I pray that your glory would be more manifest in your Church such that the whole nation would be gathered unto you! AMEN

• Father: Awaken the dream of Kingdom-life within us. Quicken our passion to seek you and to serve you. Empower us with a confidence that you can take a glowing ember and turn it into a raging fire. Draw our hearts to desire the pleasure of obedience to your Word. Create in us clean hearts and renew right spirits with in us. AMEN

• Father: In the days of Elijah you bought fire to show you alone were the true God. Your fire displayed your glory, then you opened Heaven and rain brought life to the land once again. Lord God: Your Church, the bride of Your Son, needs again the cleansing and purifying work of your fire as well as the refreshing work of your rain. We are desperate for it. When the time was right, you sent both in an instant. I humbly ask that both would fall today in another one of your “suddenlies”. We can’t wait much longer, Lord. Show your fire and rain and Glory in your Church again. AMEN

• Lord: Please give us the brutal honesty to stop calling the “death valley” of our religious experience a “rock garden”. Dis-illusion us fully regarding the propaganda of the false hopes of our own making. Turn us profoundly and simply to Christ that we may experience “resurrection”! Saturate us so that the genuine faith, love and power of Christ’s life will triumph over death and evil – for our joy and your glory. AMEN

• Lord Jesus: We have shamefully broken covenant with You. We have resisted You, and many on our campuses and throughout our country have greatly rebelled again you and renounced you. But even so, aware that we do not deserve anything but judgment, we humbly submit ourselves to you to ask you, in your mercy, to pour out your Spirit on our land. Awaken us, save us, renew our first love. Save your people. AMEN.

• Oh, God my Father: I know you love your Church and the world very, very much. Please pour out your love and grace upon both. Have mercy and continue to show your love to both. Change hearts and place your hand upon us all. AMEN

• Oh, Lord God of all nations: We, your Bride, have rejected you, your Word and your ways. We have fallen in love with other gods – money, sex, and pleasure. Our sins have hurt you, grieved you and even angered you – resulting in a withdrawal of your presence; leaving us to ourselves and self-destruction. O, Lord, on behalf of your people I repent and turn from my wicked ways, Please, oh please, extend your mercy. Turns us again unto You. Cause your face to shine upon us and we will be delivered. Fill your surrendered, broken servants with the fullness of your Spirit. And may the nations tremble at your presence. May your glory fill the earth and may the whole world worship you alone. AMEN

• Father: Though we have all deserted you for our idols, you have said: “I will capture the hearts of the people of God (Ezek. 14:3). We bless you for this promise. It is our hope for a Christ-honoring revival that produces by your Holy Spirit the fruit of repentance, reconciliation, restitution, renewal and reformation. Recapture the hearts of your people in the cities and communities of our nation. Soon, Lord. Even today! AMEN

• Lord: You promised that the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. I fully expect and believe that we are on the verge of its completion. Before this great company of witnesses, pour out your Spirit and fill the earth. Bring forth rivers of grace in the wastelands; life where there is now death; and praises, like golden bowls of incense – so that Christ is rightly adored and humankind redeemed. AMEN.

• Father: In Jesus’ name and by Him alone, I ask that You would draw your Church, your Bride in America, to your Word. Then reveal your living Word, bringing repentance, salvation and perpetual holy surrender. Do this in all who are alive in this generation, including within every ethnic group. I pray that people’s motivations would become like Yours – love. I pray that your people would worship You in spirit and truth, thus becoming intimate laborers among all the nations. I pray that we would be a people driven and consumed by the passion of YOUR heart, not our own, that YOUR NAME would be glorified in all the earth. Lastly I ask that people everywhere would fear you once again. AMEN.

• Father: Glorify your Son in the midst of His people. Awaken your Church to see and experience Jesus in all of His glory. May your Holy Spirit be poured out upon us – turning us from sin and self-centeredness. Give life and breath to dry bones. Would you so fill us with your life, light and power, that your transforming Spirit would forever change our communities? Lord Jesus: Live out your life in us in a way that attracts unbelievers, convicts of sin, brings us to holiness and sends your word in power to the very ends of the earth. AMEN

• Lord Jesus: We long for your presence more than we value even our own lives. We want your Lordship, comfort, grace, healing, life, light, beauty, creativity, resurrection and everlasting love. Whatever the cost this means for us, we willingly embrace you yourself. We embrace the ultimate cost to give us this awakening, and we will pay the price gladly. Come, Lord Jesus. AMEN

• Father in Heaven: I hunger for your holiness to be known by all who live in this land. My Lord, this is your land, the United States. May all know that you are set apart, above and beyond anything our minds can grasp. May your rule be absolute over every heart and habit. Capture every heart with your love, every habit with your holiness. Find more than lip-service from those who know you, find “life-service”. And bring every lost sheep home. Feed, clothe and provide for every one. Bring to repentance very sinner, so that you can forgive and restore. Remove all temptation, destroy all evil. And, hasten the day when every knee will bow and every tongue confess the Lordship of Jesus, here and everywhere. AMEN

• Oh, Lord: Move the Church, your people, your house, from being self-focused to being truly focused on the pleasures and joys of Jesus Christ. AMEN

• God: I ask that you graciously reveal yourself through a dramatic and transforming manifestation of your holiness, love, power and majesty. Through that manifestation of who you are, renew and deepen the devotion and faithfulness of your people, and expand even further the reach of your Kingdom by bringing multitudes into a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. I ask this through the wonderful name of Jesus. AMEN

• Our precious Father: I appeal to you for the re-conversion of your people back to your Son for ALL that he is. I appeal to you to raise up a host of leaders to become “messengers of hope” all through the Body of Christ, saturating your people with a message of the supremacy of your Son that will lead them into large hope and deep repentance. Restore to us a spiritual passion for the cause of Christ everywhere. Especially, I appeal to you to manifest the Kingdom of our Lord Jesus and the power of his Gospel in the life of this nation. Do so with such transforming impact that this gracious revival will strengthen afresh the work of Christ among your people in every part of the earth. Hear and answer. The time has come. Truly, this ordained Christ-awakening is at hand. We are undone without it. Do not delay. For Jesus’ sake alone. AMEN.