God has been kind to me, allowing me to be a part of some wonderful churches and serve in multiple ways. He has allowed me to see Him do some mighty things that opened doors for me to help other leaders. God allowed me to be in a church that grew by a thousand people in attendance over a five-year period. God used a lot of resources to make that happen in that church. Staffing, city culture, and a variety of other things came together for that church to be driven with a passion to reach people with the gospel. We saw college students, convicted felons, a satanist, and many others become faithful followers of Jesus.
Several of us joined the staff at the beginning of those five years, giving the appearance that we were major contributors to that growth. Several of us began to be asked to write articles and lead conferences explaining what we were doing. As those invitations began to come, the challenge was figuring out what we were actually doing that contributed to the growth. Obviously, God used us and our talents to impact what was going on. We were faithful to training people, to looking for ways to reach out in our community, to starting new Bible study groups, and to giving outreach a priority, but those were actions others were taking and not seeing the same results.
The answer to why the growth was taking place came on an early Saturday morning when I went to the church parking lot to meet a group of men for a golf outing. To my surprise, another group of men were already in the church facilities. It was a smaller group comparably, no more than ten men. They had keys to the building, which was unusual to say the least. They met in the building every Saturday morning to pray. They prayed for what would happen the next day, for God to remove obstacles for those who needed the Sunday School lesson and sermon, and for the people who would be leading the classes and worship. This smaller group met regardless of the weather or of the season. Not all would be present every week, but some would. Their only purpose was to pray. There was no coffee or food present. They had been faithfully doing just that for several years. The church had been steady during those years, but what was happening at that point was what these men had been asking God to do from the first day they met to pray. They were finally seeing God answer the prayer they had begun voicing for several years.
People were aware of this group of praying men, with most being impressed by their consistency but not impressed enough to make the commitment to join them. To be fair, they invited others to join them but did so with humility and without fanfare. They did not brag about what they were doing. Instead, they simply carried out the task of asking God to impact their city—every Saturday morning—for years. This group of men were marked by prayer. They were the reason we were seeing God do what He was doing at that time in the life of that church.
Imagine what might happen in your church if a few people were willing to be marked by prayer, to approach God with the hope of seeing Him reach a community or city for His glory regardless of who God used to do so or how He did so.
Imagine Sunday School classes ending their weekly gathering with a time of prayer that grew out of the passages studied during that hour, committing to follow God in whatever way He saw fit.
Imagine what might happen if the people who attended the Bible study groups then spent some of their prayer time during the week that echoes the emphasis of the Bible passage studied, expressing their willingness to follow Jesus and His plans for them.
As leaders of Bible study groups, we can impact our community by the way we lead the people in our group to pray. Here are some specific actions we can take that might help:
Maintain a list of the names of people our group is praying for who need to know and follow Jesus.
Carry a list of people for whom we and the group are asking God to draw to Him through our conversations and witness.
Make sure those names are the first item on any prayer list we distribute to our Bible study group.
Set aside the second Sunday's group prayer time to focus specifically only on those same names, adding and updated.
What other actions could you take to encourage your group to consistently pray for people who are far from God and for the opportunity to share with them?