Church, Wake Up And Pray!
Could it be that the current state of missions perfectly reflects the state of today’s Church – in terms of prayer? Perhaps the reason we still have so any unreached people groups is because our prayers are inadequate to address the challenge of the harvest. The Church of today has highly prioritized other things than the core mission of her very existence which is discipling the nations. I believe if the Church would consistently pray missional prayers, then all nations without exception will be reached.
The early Church in Acts set us an example to emulate on prayer. The Church was alive, prayed for laborers, raised resources, sent out missionaries. No wonder their Gospel conquered the then known world – the Roman Empire was impacted by its witness. I have always asked myself, what happened that suddenly the mission movement stopped? What changed? What was the early Church doing that we are not doing? It is my conviction that if we want to see what we read in the book of Acts happen again in our generation, then we all must willingly pay the price in prayer.
Today’s church is divided, divided along non-essential issues. It is weird that all churches agree that they have a responsibility to reach the lost with the Gospel but most of us do not obey the Great Commission. This is clearly shown in our prayer content. In my country, most churches don’t even have a clue that there are unreached peoples still in the country. They have no idea who are the unreached and where they are located in the country. How then can the church effectively engage in prayer if no information is available to them? Clearly this is not possible. I believe some churches will actively pray if they had access to relevant missional information.
For the Church to go and make disciples of all nations, serious prayers are needed. All members must be involved. Both “Ordinary” Church members and the leaders must be involved in praying. I have observed that in several gatherings of serious believers, when asked how many pray for missions and missionaries, only a handful confirm that they occasionally pray. Instead of praying Kingdom prayers first as the Lord taught us, they pray about other things first then the Kingdom if they happen to remember. Missions has entirely been left to missionaries and this approach will never get the job done. I imagine what could happen if all Christians prayed missional prayers. This could accelerate the progress of the Gospel and make a huge difference.
The number of missionaries who are focused on reaching the unreached are way too few and if a church is not directly associated with them, the church abstains from supporting or even praying for such missionaries. It is a sad reality when I see “wealthy” churches fail to support a missionary because he/she is not from their denomination. These are petty issues that the church must outgrow if we are to do something meaningful in our time. A soldier of the Cross in the front lines will make it without the church’s backing and support.
God has always been ready, ready to give to those who are asking, ready to answer those who are calling, ready to open for those who are knocking. God is ready to answer us with precise answers that will change the course of history. What if the church united to pray instead of competing with each other?
There is no missions without prayer. Prayer is the work in missions for “it is the work that works” But the question is, who will pray? If you would like to commit time to pray and participate in global missions, sending a short whatsapp text to +254 746 622 211. ACTIVATE has various ways to plug you in.
***Peter Kale (not his real name) is a missionary serving among an unreached people group in Northeastern Kenya
