Prayers for Evangelism

As we’ve discussed different aspects of sharing the message of the kingdom in this blog, we’ve seen over and over the importance of keeping a spiritual perspective. Seeing the need around us and seeking the Spirit’s empowerment to speak to that need, it becomes clear that we cannot rely on just human ability. This is especially clear when we see today’s growing darkness and begin to appreciate the need for additional approaches.

Looking to Jesus for guidance, notice that when He saw the great need around Him, His response was to point the disciples to prayer. Responding in obedience, we can start by considering the Scriptures, and as is often the case, we can start with the Lord’s Prayer.

In doing so, we find that the first request in the prayer is for God’s kingdom to come. There are multiple aspects to this, ranging from personal spiritual growth to the full establishment of God’s kingdom here on Earth at Christ’s return. One specific aspect would be a desire to see people come into the family of God now, because this is one way that God’s kingdom comes – by the arrival of the Holy Spirit in someone’s life.

Jesus focused His disciples this way when He responded to the great spiritual need around Him by telling them to pray for workers to be sent into the harvest. He did this during His own preaching, just before sending out the twelve, and then again when sending out the 72.

The disciples also echo this sentiment later when they asked for boldness in Acts 4 – basically combining obedience to the Lord with Isaiah’s “send me” heart. In addition, Paul sought prayer for his own evangelistic ministry on several occasions.

Overall, the need to pray for the work of proclaiming the kingdom is taught by Jesus, commanded by Jesus, and modeled by the disciples. It seems good to make this a deliberate part of any kingdom growth strategy.

In my experience, it’s fairly common to include prayer for missions, for evangelistic programs, and for specific people in our lives. However, I think that there is an opportunity to add an element of directed prayer modeled on specific Scriptural principles.

For example, since Jesus told us several times that we should pray for people to be sent out, and especially since this is the only such prayer that He specifically commanded, then we should obey it.

Similarly, since Jesus said that the Father would give us words to pray when speaking of the kingdom, and Paul specifically asked for that in his letters, it would be appropriate for us to pray for this ourselves.

In fact, there are a number of similar specific things we could pray about regarding evangelism that I plan to develop in this blog. Here is a preliminary list of possible topics:

• That the Father would send people into the field (Matt 9:37, Luke 10:2).
• That, in particular, we would be sent, echoing Isaiah’s heart (Isa 6:8).
• That the Spirit would speak through us and give us effective words (Matt 10:20, Luke 12:12, Eph 6:19).
• That we would be given boldness (Acts 4:29 & 31, Eph 6:20).
• That, like Stephen, the Spirit would give us words that cannot be withstood (Acts 6:10).
• That we would be given the ability to speak in ways that our listeners can understand, as the Spirit did at Pentecost (Acts 2:11).
• That we would have servants’ hearts to become whatever is needed to reach others (1 Cor 9:19-23).
• For wisdom from above in order to exhibit purity, peace, gentleness, openness, mercy and good fruits (James 3:17).
• That our eyes would be open to people’s spiritual needs (Matt 9:10-13, Mark 2:15-17, 2 Cor 4:18, 5:16).
• That God’s kingdom would come in people’s hearts and His will would be done in their lives (Matt 6:10).
• That we would exhibit unity, and that such unity would indicate to the world that the Father has sent Jesus (John 17:21).
• That God would open doors for the word, to clearly declare Christ as we should (Col 4:3-4).
• That the word of the Lord would go out and be honored (2 Th 3:1).
• That we would be delivered from wicked and evil people (2 Th 3:2).
• That God would work in people’s lives to reveal Himself to them (Acts 4:30).
• That he would save even those who seem hard-hearted (Mark 10:25-27, Acts 4:34-35).

Each of these could be developed into a devotional, and praying them regularly, especially as part of evangelism work, seems good.