Five Big Prayer Asks
Thirty years ago the “United Prayer Track for the AD2000 Prayer Movement” called on prayer intercessors worldwide during the month of October, 1993 to pray together for the 64 nations within the 10/40 Window, that a movement of God might begin. The organizers in the US hoped for one million intercessors and they got 22.5 million to sign up.
Two years later for the month of October 1995 they called on intercessors worldwide to pray for the “100 Gateway Cities” of the world. The organizers were blown away when 37.7 million intercessors from 120+ nations signed up.
Two years later in the month of October 1997, intercessors gathered to pray for the unreached People Groups of the world and over 40 million signed up.
Two years later in October 1999, over 50 million intercessors worldwide gathered together to pray for a breakthrough in the 21st century.
Did anything happen? Did anything change? What has been going on the past two decades? If today has been a typical day, 30,000 people in China, 20,000 people in Africa, and 10,000 people in South America all came to Christ! And our Fellowship chaplains reported 128 professions of faith in 2022 with another 31 in January and February of 2023.
Is this all just a great big coincidence?
A prayer movement has inaugurated and fueled every great movement of God in history. We see this in Scripture, we see this in Church history. My hope is that the Asbury Seminary Revival of this past February 2023 is the beginning embers of revival fire. I’d love to see Gen Zs lead the way. The AD2000 Prayer Movement was envisioned, planned, strategized, and financed by leaders in the United States but consistently, North American believers largely chose NOT to sign up to become intercessors. We are a “prayer-less” Church and our breathtaking decline in influence and size over the past 20 years is the result.
What must we do?
We must intentionally choose to PRACTICE EXTRAORDINARY PRAYER to fuel a movement of God in Canada. We must adopt an attitude that trusts completely in the Lord and believes in His adequacy, not our inadequacy. We must become desperately dependent on the Lord. We must become intercessors—“go-betweens”—between a thrice-Holy God and spiritually lost sinners. We must die to self and unashamedly reintroduce Canadians to their Saviour. It will be in this safe place that we find serenity, peace, and courage amid the cultural storms and obstacles currently before us.
PRAYER is the FUEL, the POWER that will enable and mobilize any great movement of God.
As leaders we need to teach, equip, train, coach, and most of all, model what it means to be a praying-disciple. The prophet Ezekiel tells us in Ezekiel 22:30 that God is looking for those who are willing to stand in the gap for Canada. The hardest thing about praying is the small gap between thinking and preaching about prayer, and actually praying. Who will do the actual praying? A little prayer leads to more prayer, and neglecting prayer leads to more neglect.
Several years ago, I was in a morning meeting with several of our leaders from Québec. At two minutes after 10am, their phones and computers began to beep and set off alarms. I asked, what was this was all about?! They told me: “Luke 10:2 (NIV): ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.’” At 10:02 every morning throughout Québec, various devices remind Fellowship folks to pray for workers to come to Québec and help reap the awaiting harvest. And in the past few years I believe it has started, as I hear of English Canadians moving to Québec along with other workers from the US, France, French Africa, the Caribbean, and hopefully Colombia soon. An answer to our prayers!
Brother Richard Houle and others are navigating an intentional prayer movement in Québec with 297 intercessors each taking one hour each week to pray—some intercessor has the 3am time slot every Tuesday morning. These intercessors also meet in 14 different prayer groups each month to help strengthen their resolve along with days of fasting and prayer.
We have not because we ASK not.
What do we need to ASK for? Briefly, here are FIVE critical ASKS that need to happen:
- ASK the Lord to send labourers: Pray Luke 10:2.
Canada, not just Québec, needs workers to reap the harvest. We need to see Fellowship Baptists get on mission, a movement of Gen Z (ages 14-24) and Millennial (ages 25-40) prayer warriors unleashed, thousands of new immigrants and refugees given freedom in our churches to show us how to reach spiritually lost people, and prayer that many African and Asian missionaries to Canada will help show us how to evangelize Canadians for Christ.
- Secondly, ASK the Lord to touch the heart of people:
John 6:44a (NIV) states: “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them...” Pray for the Spirit of God to be loosed in our cities and communities, and pray that our local Churches actually notice it.
- Third, ASK the Lord to show us “people of peace”:
“When you enter a house, first say, ‘Peace to this house.’ If someone who promotes peace is there, your peace will rest on them…” Luke 10:5-6a (NIV). Pray for those who are open and will help build bridges in your community to others who are open to hearing about the Good News!
- Next, ASK the Lord that every stronghold be broken:
2 Corinthians 10:4-5a (NIV) states that: “The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God…” As leaders we model what it means to pray against the darkness. Not just “nice” pastoral Sunday morning prayers about Aunt Martha’s dental surgery this Thursday, but WARFARE PRAYING. Praying against the strongholds in our communities and country. Our people will learn what it means to pray against strongholds when they witness their leaders and pastors doing it regularly.
February last year (2022), I popped into one of our churches to visit their brand-new pastor whom I knew and wanted to hear preach. I learned that morning that he had invited Heritage Seminary professor Dave Barker to preach that Sunday and had given him a specific assignment to preach from one of the many imprecatory Psalms. I had to admit that I had not heard, nor preached personally, from many of these Psalms that curse and spit out accusations. But Putin had just invaded Ukraine a week before, and Dr. Barker shared some sound Biblical imprecatory counsel for Vladimir! Our people need to hear the whole counsel of God, and pastors and leaders need to regularly model praying strongly against the strongholds in our communities.
There is one more “big ask”, but we’ll address that in next week’s A Word from Steve.
PRAYER—the practice of extraordinary prayer is the key to seeing a spiritual breakthrough in our lives, our churches, and our country. Please consider a renewed commitment to prayer in your life today.