Home > Part 3 - General Prayer Resources for All Stages > Creating Contextualized Strategic Prayer Tools

Creating Contextualized Strategic Prayer Tools

"Give a person a fish, and you feed them for a day; teach a person to fish, and you feed them for a lifetime." There are a good number of prayer tools for different stages of a movement work already given in this resource, but as we considered them all, we were forced to concede at least two limitations:

  1. all of these tools were created in a specific ministry and cultural context, which may or may not be universally applicable
  2. Even if there are many tools one could use from this resource, that number is still limited

Hence the realization that a greater service might be to help the users of this resource develop their own awareness and ability in developing their own tools for strategic prayer. If you can grow in that skill, then you can develop your own tools for your ministry context, stage of life or ministry, cultural or team context, etc.

We'll now endeavor to provide a few simple guidelines for you to develop your own tools for use in your own context.

Foundations - Listening & Context:

  1. Above and beyond all else that we could say, we must say this: Begin, continue, and end in an attitude of listening prayer. The development of any tool, strategy, or methodology must happen in this space of relational interaction with the Spirit of God. After all, this is His mission into which we are graciously invited. We must hear His instructions and guidance and much more, we must tune into what is on His heart! You might consider reviewing Exercises That Help You Listen and the Questions for Listening Prayer (from Section 1: Abide & Mobilize Intercession). So then, in an atmosphere of relational, listening prayer:

  2. Consider your context. In what context are you serving? How does this context impact or inform how you need to be praying in this season? There are several facets of context to consider:

    1. Cultural context of focus people \ location
    2. Cultural context of outside catalyst
    3. Social context of focus people \ location
    4. Social context of outside catalyst
    5. Economic context of focus people \ location
    6. Economic context of outside catalyst
    7. Team and organizational context of outside catalyst
    8. Team and organizational context of same-culture or near-culture partners
    9. Season of life and ministry of outside catalyst and local brothers and sisters \ local partners
    10. ​ (10) What else is unique about your situation? About the people to whom you are called?

Write down your own notes and thoughts regarding your context as it might relate to the challenge you're facing and how God might have you pray into it.

  1. Consider your relationships. With whom has the Lord connected you? Who are you co-laborers, both foreign and local? Who is God highlighting both among believers and the lost in this season? We are called to be a relational people as we reflect the eternally relational Trinitarian reality - so whatever we do must take into account relationships, and what God is doing and wants to do in those relationships. How do your relationships impact how you need to be praying in this season? Consider relationships with:
    1. The lost
    2. The local existing \ above ground \ institutional church
    3. Local brothers and sisters on the periphery of the movement work
    4. Local brothers and sisters actively engaged in the movement work
    5. Believers among your focus people
    6. Your own outside catalyst team
    7. Your family or friends
    8. Others in your organization
    9. Your prayer network and supporters both locally and internationally

Write down your own notes and thoughts regarding your relationships as they might relate to the challenge you're facing and how God might have you pray into it.

  1. Consider your asking. What is the Lord leading you to ask for? This should flow directly out of our listening, but often times we ask for less than what God is inviting us to ask for! An example might be prayer for a movement to start, or for an apostolic leader to emerge, when God is inviting us to prayer for multiple movements to start, or for dozens of apostolic leaders or leadership teams to emerge. A few questions here as you consider the development of a prayer tool:
    1. Is my asking aligned with the heart of the Father?
    2. Am I asking big enough? Am I unintentionally putting boundaries on my own expectations of what God wants to do? Does whatever I am asking for require more than I could possibly provide? How dependent are we on God to see happen whatever we're asking for? Is what we're asking for achievable through human means? If so, ask bigger.
    3. Am I thinking and asking in faith? Meaning, is my asking based on the unshakeable certainty of God's promise of future harvest?
    4. As much as I am able, am I asking from a pure heart? Can I rejoice regardless of how this thing happens, whether it happens through my efforts or those of others? Is my asking unalloyed with personal ambition or a drive to perform to certain standards? Am I asking for God's glory, or my own?
    5. Am I aware of my own limits and where I need help? Are you pushing harder than God has called you to push? Are you trusting in His power over your own efforts, even in prayer? Are you seeking and finding the help you need to walk according to His calling in this season?

Write down your own notes and thoughts regarding your asking as they might relate to the challenge you're facing and how God might have you pray into it.

  1. Consider how God is moving in your own life and community right now. What is God stirring in your own heart? What themes is He highlighting in team times, or prayer gatherings with others (foreign or local)? Through what scriptures, teachings, books, or conversations has He spoken to you in the past few weeks? Where in your own heart are there seeds of passion, hunger, and faith? Consider how you can connect these burning embers in your own heart to the need you perceive in prayer - we will always pray more passionately when our prayers spring from the work of God in our own hearts and communities.

Write down your own notes and thoughts regarding your own life and community as they might relate to the challenge you're facing and how God might have you pray into it.

Consider the Challenge:

With all the above in mind (along with whatever the Lord brings to mind or impresses upon you or your group in the listening process) as a foundation, consider the issue that you are facing.

  1. What is the obvious, surface issue?
  2. What are the deeper issues or roots that might defy easy description?
  3. Where might the enemy be at work to deceive and divide?
  4. Where might you, your team, or other believers be complicit in the challenge you're facing? What part might you or other believer have played in creating or complicating the issue? Is repentance needed in some way in order to move forward?

Write down your own notes and thoughts regarding the challenge you're facing.

Discern God's Desired Solution:

  1. What are God's promises regarding this situation (either generally from Scripture, or specifically to you, your community, or the local believers in your context?)
  2. What might it look like for the Kingdom of God to invade this situation or overwhelm this issue that you have identified? What would bring a smile to God's face regarding this issue?
  3. What is God already doing in your life, the life of your team or community, or in the lives of local believers that reflect His desires solution for the issue you're considering? How might God be leading you or your community to replicate these bright spots through prayer?

Write down your own notes and thoughts regarding God's desired solution.

Putting It Into Practice:

Now that you've taken the time to consider all of the above, how might you formulate what you've heard and discerned (alone with God and in community) into a tool that you and others could use repeatedly in this season as you navigate the issues you're facing? Could you write a crafted prayer that you and others could use as a template to guide prayer around the challenge you're facing? Is there a way that you could use what you've discerned to create a prayer challenge to send out to your network of prayer supporters, or that could be circulated in local institutional churches, or within a movement, or among other teams and leaders in your area or organization? Maybe God has planted the seed of an idea through this process of listening that might grow into some kind of prayer training for new believers?

Regardless of whether you create some new strategic prayer tool as a result of this process or not, how is God leading you to put into practice what you have heard and discerned? What has God shown you, and how will that change how you and your community pray into the situation you're facing? Remember the point of listening to the Father is twofold: (1) to hear and rest in His great love for us and (2) to grow in our ability to obey Him and join Him in His work. So take some time now to consider how you might put into practice what you've received from the Lord through this process.

How is God leading or stirring you to put all of this into practice in your context and in this situation? What ideas are coming to mind? Are they genuinely from God? If so, how should you pursue them with other likeminded people in your context? What is your next faithful step to put this into practice?