Building a Culture of Prayer Together

The dust has settled after another amazing season of nationwide prayer into Pentecost, and the privilege of witnessing how different churches and towns engaged with the initiative has got me thinking about how important it is to build a strong culture of prayer - in our churches, in our towns and cities, and right across our nation.

Churches

The strength of our prayer culture, especially when it comes to the radical expression of night and day prayer, has little to do with the size of a church and everything to do with the culture that’s been built within it. It’s been so encouraging to see churches all over the country engage with initiatives like Pentecost Prayer. (As a side note - there’s another opportunity to pray by jumping in with us for a global week of prayer this September.)

That said, across the church in Aotearoa, we’ve still got a way to go before our prayer culture truly reflects the priority it held in the life of Jesus, in the early church, and in the global church today.

If you’re reading this, you probably don’t need convincing, but it will be a fight! There’s an enemy fighting tooth and nail to discourage the church from praying. So let’s get determined and press on together. I loved hearing a great example of this kind of tenacity recently when Elim Dunedin joined in our Pentecost Prayer Initiative even while their roof was being repaired. It was messy and complicated - but they made it work. That’s the kind of grit we need.

Brian Heasley recently had a great chat with our South African friends about building a culture of prayer in your church. It’s a brilliant encouragement and well worth sharing around. You can watch it here.

Towns and Cities

But wait, there’s more! I think God wants to give us a bigger vision that’s not just about our church praying, but about building a culture of prayer across our towns and cities.

I’ve been living in Napier for eight years now, and I’m realising that as we partner together, something significant is being built here. As Brian points out in his seminar, one way we shape culture is by setting rhythms of prayer. In Napier, we’ve now worked together for two years to pray into Pentecost. It’s gone so well that next year we’ll probably need two prayer rooms in different parts of the city, because the hours fill up so quickly.

This year we also set out to prayer-walk the city using the ‘Holy Here’ app, and wrapped up the 10 days with a big combined service at the Municipal Theatre. The sense of God’s presence and blessing as we gathered together was tangible and the unity among the church leaders is very moving.

It really hit me then - we’re building a culture of prayer for this city, and we can do far more together than we ever could on our own. Imagine what it could look like if the churches in every town and city committed to a shared, yearly rhythm of prayer!

Nation

This is where it starts to get exciting. When churches begin to take responsibility for praying for their towns and cities in unity, and those rhythms become part of the life of the church, we’re starting to build a nationwide culture of prayer.

A church leader asked me recently - a little cynically - “Do you think if more people pray, God will do more stuff?” I get the question. God is God. There’s no formula for seeing Him move. However, there is a posture of heart we can cultivate deliberately. The narrative of Scripture shows time and again that when people’s hearts turn towards God, He releases healing, blessing and renewal to nations. Correspondingly, when hearts turn away, God’s heart is grieved.

For too long, the church in the West has depended on our cleverness, personalities, slick production and a full calendar of programmes to try and grow the Kingdom. None of those things are bad in themselves, but the priority must always be His presence - on us nurturing a hunger for Him, and practicing a deep dependence on Him.

I’ve got so much faith for what God wants to do in our nation in the coming years as we come together in prayer, with shared passion, unity and hunger. He’s the God who hears and answers prayer.

Would you partner with us as we work with you to build a culture of prayer that will reach every church, town, and city in Aotearoa?

You can by giving financially, by praying for us, and by being a local champion for prayer in your community.

Kia tau mai tō rangatiratanga!

May your kingdom come!