Stage Overview:

NEW BELIEVERS & CHURCHES

As we consider this stage of a movement work, in which often groups come to faith together and begin to worship, pray, and grow together in study of the word and ministry to one another and their communities, we must consider at least two aspects of prayer. On the one hand, new believers and churches face many potential difficulties and early on may lack the strength of a larger network of believers or house churches, so we must consider carefully how we can support them in prayer, listening to God and out of that listening, interceding on their behalf.

On the other hand, we don't just want these precious ones to survive, we want them to thrive - sharing the good news, praying for those far from God, and growing in their own capacity to relate to God as beloved children, to hear him, discern his leading, and intercede for others. Usually, their zeal for their lost friends and family exceeds ours because of their personal love for these people and because they know what it is like to live in the darkness they have so recently escaped. Hopefully we have been living as prayerful people among the lost in our context, praying for the lost in the midst of our interactions with them, modeling and training local believers to pray for the lost, and primarily encouraging seekers to pray and ask God for revelation of truth through the study of his Word. Regardless of what has come before, we must certainly model prayer in all its forms with new believers and in emerging house churches, with the goal that the new believers would recognize that they have a beloved child's access to their Father through Jesus, without needing our help as an intermediary. We need to consider and ask God to show these new believers (perhaps with our help) how prayer should look in the context of emerging house churches in their context and among their people. We need to consider how to ensure that listening prayer, communal discernment, prayers of worship, and intercession all figure into the developing lives of individual believers, but much more so in the communal life of the emerging house churches.

Prayer Priorities for this Stage:

* Pray that these new churches will continue to share and start new discovery groups and churches (and not wait until they “know more”

* Pray that they will stand strong against persecution and overcome the persecution by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony

* Pray that “outside DNA” from local and foreign Christians will not get in the way of these new believers gaining a biblical DNA

* Pray that the good news will spread virally through relational networks

* Pray that the new disciples will be marked by love and boldness and that God’s love will cast out all fear

* Pray about how to best introduce new believers not only to personal prayer, but also to listening prayer and prayer for others

* Pray for more prayer to happen among new believers and churches

* Pray and listen around how we can help new believers and churches go deeper in prayer

* Pray and listen around the most pressing needs of new believers and churches in our context, and about how to mobilize more prayer for those needs

* Pray for the process of growth into Christlikeness for every disciple

* Pray for the unity of each house church and network

* Pray for cross-pollination and mutual servanthood between leaders and streams