Who is Praying?
And a random note
Random note: You have ups and downs in your spiritual disciplines. Right now, I am greatly enjoying and being blessed in my reading through the Bible. Some times, you feel like you are slugging through. It is more like not being able to get enough now. Thank you, Lord.
Who is praying? Key to the church mulitplication work of the future will be networks of pastors and churches. While no one church may be able to plant a bunch of churches, a network of churches and pastors pooling resources and working together can do it.
I know we are in a liminal time, church disaffilitions, wondering what is coming next, but the work of the Gospel doesn’t stop. I had been running into a lot of brick walls in trying to start forming some networks of pastors to plant new churches that will plant more churches… until recently.
The past couple days have been a blessing. I was able to wrangle my schedule under control and get down to the work of discipleship. I walked into a coffee shop today for a couple meetings and who do I see but a fellow pastor, who asks me what I am up to, and I say, because I can’t contain myself, “Bro, I am totally focused on discipleship today.” I have to say he honestly looked happy for me. Then he said, and I kid you not, “for like 5 years now I have been really pushing that discipleship is not about gaining more information about the Bible. It’s about obeying what it says.” Did we just become best friends? His church has really been through a lot the past 10 years, he is new there, but feels like they are going places. He says, “maybe even planting a church…” Are you kidding me, Lord? I told him about my network, he wants in. I need one more pastor, I’ll take 2 or maybe 3 before we think about having a second network. I was blown away… been languishing in getting this network going and now, two guys are in.
These kinds of breakthroughs don’t come because of my smiling face. Some people are praying, and I thank you. Multiplication of churches and disciples starts with prayer. Real, serious prayer.
I started this substack to mobilize people to pray. Yes, I want to share insights, tell some stories… but I know that nothing will avail besides prayer. We can know all we want to about church planting, evangelism, and disciple-making; put all the techniques to work… but if it is not birthed in prayer and covered in prayer, it won’t glorify God.