Do You Pray Global Prayers?

John Piper got me thinking about the importance of praying global prayers on his blog. When I think about the importance of praying from a Global perspective, I’m reminded by some key verses that support this mindset:

“Go and make Disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19),

“You will be my witnesses…to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8),

“You ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation“(Revelation 5:9).

These verses are clearly calling us to think farther than our immediate sphere of influence, but I wonder if the Church is embodying this as opposed to putting on a facade of this through short term missions trips that give you a glimpse into another culture without really making a dent in living out even 3 of the countless verses in the Scriptures that call us to go around the world with the Gospel of Christ.

And if we don’t even have a clear mission on our homefront, how could we ever have one abroad?  I mean, do we really have a clear understanding of why we even “do church”. Is it simply a place to fellowship or meet people? John MaCarthur wrote a great blog about the mission of the church, that simply put is ‘to seek and save that which is lost’ as Jesus modeled to us. When Jesus said to his first disiples,

“Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men.”

I see from this statement a mission and a plan. Unfortunately, for some reasons many churches today do not have this on their priority list.  And, the Church shouldn’t have to depend on Christian organizations like Campus Crusade, Navigators, OM, Way of The Master, etc. to show us the way in this! Now, I love all these organizations and, in fact, I am humbled by what they do to live out the commands of Jesus and fulfilling the Great Commission, but the Church should be leading the way to model following Jesus and making disciples to become fishers of men and women.

To close,  I started by asking if you pray Global Prayers, but what I’m really asking is do you have a mindset that seeks to embody making Christ known starting in your sphere of influence and extending around the world. After all, if you are not modeling this now in your own backyard, why would you ever want to do this in a foreign land.

Here’s a strategy from Operation World that may assist all of us in this charge:

Missionary vision. An Acts 1:8 strategy is needed for every church and denomination. Amazing results have been achieved by a dedicated few. How speedily the world would be evangelized if all believers and every congregation obeyed the commands of Jesus in Acts 1, and believed His promises for enablement through the Holy Spirit! Pray for the awakening and growth of missionary concern. Pray for effective and practical missionary involvement in praying, giving and going and for the following:

a) The speediest possible completion of the goals given in the Great Commission by the Lord Jesus to His Church.
b) All churches to make obedience to the Great Commission their primary ministry objective. Only through this will the resources be available to bring the task to conclusion, or closure, in our generation.
c) All leadership training institutions and programmes to ensure that missions be a fundamental and essential core component of every course. It is failure to do this that has caused the centuries of neglect and marginalization of world evangelization in churches and agencies.
d) Mission agency prayer, planning and deployment to emphasize reaching unreached areas, peoples and cities. The Adopt-a-People Clearinghouse and the AD2000 and Beyond Movement have compiled a list of over 6,000 unreached and adoptable peoples submitted by agencies as targeted for entry. Many are those included in our World A totals, others are World B and C peoples. (See Appendix 2 for addresses of these organizations and agencies who can provide further information.)
e) The adoption of unreached peoples by churches, Christian groups, prayer circles and individuals. The task can be completed only as Christians take responsibility in earnest intercession until believers are won and churches planted in each people group.

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