Stage Overview:

LAYING FOUNDATIONS

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​ Depending on their background, disciples from the many Christians around the world may consider prayer important in theory, but in practice they may be tempted to treat prayer as something extra or peripheral to the actual “work” of the ministry. Of course, such an attitude reveals an idolatrous faith in our own ability, but for most this attitude is not intentional. Perhaps we can learn from the original apostles who, when they found themselves overly busy with "work", appointed deacons to manage administrative tasks so that they could focus on what they considered the most important ministry entrusted to them: "prayer and the ministry of the word" (Acts 6:4). It is instructive that when they were forced to narrow their priorities, the apostles chose to focus on just two things: prayer and ministry of the word - and perhaps more telling still that they listed prayer as the first of the two. If we consider our own apostolic work in church planting and seeking to catalyze movements, how much of that work would fall under "ministry of the word", and how much under "prayer"? Evangelism, discipleship, church formation, leadership development - in short, the overwhelming majority of how movement workers spend their time - is clearly "ministry of the word". We are not contending that the apostles set an example of spending exactly 50% of their time in prayer, but it should cause us some concern if we spend only a small percentage of our daily ministry in prayer. We might even go so far as to say that prayer is actually the “missing half” of the movement work into which the Lord is inviting us.

​ Different seasons of movement ministry will call for different allocations of time and focus, but the early stages when we are laying the foundations of a movement work are an excellent time to strengthen our prayer muscles and establish more healthy and robust rhythms of prayer. After all, if you are in the pre-launch phase of your work, you may be limited in how much you can interact with the people to whom God has called you, but you are not limited in how much time you can sow into prayer. If you are already on site in your focus location and are in the very early stages of your movement work, it is a vital time for prayer. You may not fully know what to ask God to do, at least not specifically - so what better use of your time than to engage in long times of listening prayer and intercession based on what you hear? Why not spend more time walking the streets of your focus area, asking God to reveal to you his heart for these people who are so precious to him? Why not ask God to expand and shape within your heart his vision for what he wants to see happen? Every movement of God is unique, though they often have many characteristics in common. What does God want to do in this place, in this time, among these people? The foundations of any movement work are laid in prayer, and those foundations are not laid overnight.

Prayer Priorities for this Stage:

• Receive or deepen our vision from the Lord for our focus people
• Clarify with the Lord what is our part in the work and what is His part
• Ask God to give us and our co-laborers a clear and compelling way to communicate His vision for our people
• Seek out further equipping in prayer, listening, and intercession
• Seek out mentors in prayer, listening, and intercession
• Make sure each team member has their own personal intercession team (a prayer shield) – praying for their endurance and spiritual and physical protection (see previous section)