For anyone interested in evangelism, discipleship, or church planting, the first step is always prayer.
In the book, Contagious Disciple Making, Paul Watson says that the one common element in every successful church planting team “was a high commitment to prayer” where the “leaders spent an average of three hours per day in personal prayer,” plus “another three hours in prayer with their teams every day.”
That’s a lot of prayer.
But in addition to the personal prayer and the team prayer, they also mobilized others to pray for the church planting. On his CDM Podcast, Paul Watson instructs his hearers to get a minimum of 1000 people praying for the work.
The following video shows the part prayer has in the life of a church planter:
If you’ve noticed, we’ve mentioned personal prayer (in your “prayer closet”), united prayer (with others), and this video talks about prayer walking.
Maybe the idea of praying three hours a day is too overwhelming to you. How about starting with just 5 or 10 minutes praying that God will use you in leading others to Christ, and in helping you disciple them? In those few minutes, pray for your family members and friends that don’t know Christ. Pray for them by name. Then pray for your neighbors, whether you know them or not. After supper, why not go out and do a prayer walk in your neighborhood or apartment complex? You can do this alone, with your spouse, your kids, or ask friends to join you. Why not ask some friends to join you weekly to pray for a your area, your town or city?
It’s okay to start small, but all the time get others to pray for you and with you. Increase the number of people praying for you.