For more than a year before Campus Crusade for Christ began, Bill
Bright led church teams into college dormitories, fraternities, and
sororities in the Los Angelas area. Yet during this time, not a single
person committed their life to Christ. After launching Campus Crusade, Dr. Bright held the first evangelistic
meeting at the Kappa Alpha Theta house at UCLA. That night, more than
half of the 60 girls present expressed a desire to receive Christ. In
the course of the next few months, more than 250 students at UCLA,
including the student body president, the newspaper editor and several
top athletes committed their lives to Christ.
What made the difference?
Dr. Bright explains:
"This unprecendented demonstration of God's blessing was
not an accident. God was responding to the prayers of many of His
children." "When God called this ministry into being, we immediately
formed a 24 hour prayer chain, which we divided into 15 minute time
periods. Scores of Christians invested 15 minutes in prayer every day
on behalf of our new ministry at UCLA."
The surest way to build a movement that lasts is to build it God's way.
And if we want it God's way, we must begin a movement on a living
foundation of prayer. History and God's Word make it clear that prayer is more than
preparation for the work — it is the work. Unfortunately, rarely do we
see instant results from our secret prayer life. We know it's vital,
but we're too busy. We think we can pull off a ministry with only
perfunctory prayer. It takes discipline to pray effectively, because we
don't always see what prayer is accomplishing.
Have you ever heard of Epaphras? He's not too famous, but he's the one
who brought the gospel to Colossae. In Colossians 4:12 he's named as
the prayer warrior: "He is always wrestling in prayer for you ..." "Are
we prepared to be like Epaphras? Are we prepared to really pray? Group prayer was a characteristic of the early Christians.
- Acts 12:12 - Peter went to the house of Mary where others gathered for prayer.
- Acts 1:13-14 - scripture records that all with one mind were continually devoting themselves to prayer, along with the women.
Old Testament characters also participated in group prayer.
Remember that the purpose of your prayer time is to communicate with God. It's not merely a ritual to get done or for preaching at each other.
Some tips for leading a time of prayer
Conversational Prayer
During conversational prayer group
members should talk to God as they would talk to a friend. Encourage
the group (especially a group unfamiliar with group prayer) to feel
free to pray sentence prayers. Everyone is free to pray, or not to
pray, as the Spirit directs. Don't worry about silence. Allow God to
speak to everyone in the group during times of silence.
Different Elements of a Group Prayer Meeting
Choose one or more of following elements for your prayer meeting. Be Creative!
You can switch the elements around, eliminate some of them or do
something completely different. Don't make prayer boring or monotonous.
It's an inspirational and enjoyable time where students leave feeling
refreshed and renewed.
Introduce a prayer topic or request, one at a time then allow the group
a few minutes to pray for the that. When finished, the leader
introduces another topic or request. Designate a specific person to
close at the end of each time. This helps insure that the prayer time
will not bog down when everyone has had the opportunity to pray if they
so desire. Below are some examples of topics that can be used:
- Thank God for His love, forgiveness, the beautiful day, the ways He is working in peoples lives, etc.
- Thank God for something that has happened in your life in the past 24 hours.
- Please help _______________ (yourself or someone else).
- Thank God for how He will answer your requests.
- Let the group members share prayer requests.
- Pray using Scripture. Have the group use one or more passages of
Scripture as their guide for praying. Choose any passage you feel is
appropriate.
Here's an example:
Read a Psalm of praise (e.g. Psalm 103; Psalm 145; 150) or teach the group to pray using the following:
- The first person reads a phrase or verse aloud then prays a simple prayer relating to the phrase or scripture verse.
- Other members of the group join in audibly or silently agree.
- The next person reads a different verse then pauses to pray aloud.
- Others follow with their prayers.
A.C.T.S.
Use the ACTS Acrostic. Here's how the guide works.
Adoration: Worshipping and praising God with your heart, mind and voice.
-
Praise and pray through a Psalm, sing, adore God, praising Him for His
attributes such as: loving kindness, holiness, compassion, majesty,
etc. Praise Him for who He is.
- Sing a hymn and use the words of the hymn to guide the your time for prayer.
- Select a few of God's attributes and spend the time meditating and
praising Him for His character.
- Share answers to prayer and notice how
these answers reflect different aspects of His character.
- Spend time
thanking God for the answers and His faithfulness.
Confession: Agreeing with God concerning any sins He brings to your mind.
-
Review I John 1:5-9
- God will bring to mind what you need to confess.
- Allow time for confession.
Thanksgiving: Giving thanks to God for who
He is, what He has done,
what He will do in our lives and what He is doing in the ministry; a
prayer expressing gratitude.
Supplication: Asking God for his divine help to meet needs, solve problems, work in someone's life, etc.
Read Philippians 4:6,7; Psalm 116:1,2 and lead the group in supplication by praying aloud.
Introduce the PRAY acrostic.
Praise
Repent
Ask for someone else
Your own needs
Use scriptures to pray for the fulfillment of the Great Commission, the three other critical path steps.
Evangelism
Discipleship
Sending
- Recognize the problem of the labor shortage in the spiritual harvest (Matthew 9:37,38; Romans 10:13-15).
- Make a list of you want to send as missionaries (Isaiah 6:8; Matthew 9:37,38) and pray persistently for them.
- Pray
for the fulfillment of the Great Commission in your area and around the
world, according to His command and promise in Matthew 28:18-20 and
1 John 5:14,15.
- Mobilize and teach others to pray for laborers (2 Timothy 2:2).
- Help
expand the group's world vision by praying for specific country,
overseas mission worker or group. (Your group may want to adopt a
country to pray for regularly.)
Other Ideas for Prayer Requests
- Christian students would confess their sins to God and choose
to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Especially that Christians would
break off immoral sexual relationships and be restored and walk in
purity (I John 1:9; Joel 2:23).
- Non-Christians seek God and come to know Christ.
- The Holy Spirit convicts professors and administrators to receive Christ.
- God
calls out committed believers in every area of campus. (residence
halls, fraternities, sororities, student government, minority groups,
athletes etc.)
- Evangelistic surveys and outreaches are done in every dorm, fraternity sorority and athletic team on campus.
- Christians of different races become united in spirit, intent on one purpose.
- Spiritual awakening revives believers and brings large numbers of unbelievers to Christ.
- Students gain an eternal perspective instead of defaulting to the usual temporal perspective that pervades college life.
- Graduating
seniors would go where God calls them and they wouldn't seek security
or materialism but instead serve God as full-time missionaries in their
careers after graduation.
- The Great Commission (Matthew
28:18-20) becomes the most important mission for every Christian on
your campus and that Christians become pioneers of faith.
- Christians end all gossip and criticism.
- Spiritual awakening on campus affects the surrounding community and hundreds of students fill churches every week.
- Your zeal and love for Christ touches many campuses nearby.
- The greatest skeptics of Christianity on campus are won to Christ.
- For
a growing worldwide network of prayer movements, a college student
uprising for Christ around the world and thousands of missionaries go
to the world.
Other Things to Keep in Mind
- As a prayer request is offered, have another member be
responsible to pray for that request during the prayer time. This
ensures that each person's request will be prayed for by at least one
other person.
- You may wish to have group members record on a
sheet of paper each request as it is given. They can refer to the list
during the group prayer time as well as throughout the week.
- Allow
group members to volunteer to pray for requests without assigning them
or writing them down. This way members would rely on their memories
during the prayer time.
- You can pray for each request as soon as it's given, before sharing the next request.
