Prayer is the Work

A needed reminder for myself and other Christian leaders

5 min readJul 28, 2021

I tend to be an “idea guy.” I love thinking about the future, innovation, and great ideas that have the potential to change the world. When leading others, I also want to help people uncover their own great ideas and act on them. I’m always starting, experimenting, trying, or pivoting in order to accomplish something. Specifically, I want to see the Kingdom of God expand in new places and with new people. This year, that has manifested itself in the creation of Citizen House — a ministry designed to equip and support microchurches in Dallas/Fort Worth.

As much as I believe some of these tendencies are a God-given part of my personality, even an apostolic spiritual gift, I’m also increasingly aware of a danger - That if I’m not careful, I can believe that if I’m smart enough, have the right strategy, and execute well enough, I can accomplish something great for God. It’s a subtle lie from the enemy that says that the Kingdom of God depends on me. That I can create a movement of the Spirit. It’s similar to the original lie spoken to Adam and Eve, “You can be like God.”

I was reminded of this last week after a meeting with three friends who are each planning and preparing to launch new Kingdom initiatives. We spent the majority of our time talking about the people we want to reach with the Gospel, creative ideas we have, and next steps — all great things! But I was convicted towards the end of our time together that we may be relying too much on ourselves and not enough on the power of the Spirit. We hadn’t spent nearly enough time in prayer.

The truth is, it doesn’t matter how great our ideas are, how gifted we are, or even how seemingly good the opportunities are in front of us. If the Lord isn’t the one making it happen, it’s a waste of our time.

I have to continually remind myself that prayer is the work. Prayer is my primary job as a Christian leader. I don’t want to pray and ask God to bless my plans or ideas. I want to be close enough to Jesus to see where He is moving and join in His work.

There are a few things that continually remind me that prayer is the primary work in planting microchurches and other Kingdom initiatives.

The Example of Jesus

Jesus came to earth on a mission: to proclaim good news to the poor, liberty to the captives, recover sight to the blind, liberate the oppressed, and proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor (Luke 4:18–19). In order to accomplish this mission, Jesus prayed.

He fasted for 40 days before beginning His ministry.
He prayed as he was baptized and the Spirit fell on Him.
He prayed before selecting the 12 disciples.
He continually retreated to the “wilderness” to pray.
He prayed before and after teaching large crowds.
He prayed before performing miracles.
He lays his hands on children to pray for them.
He radiates the glory of God as he is praying.
He prays in the garden before his captivity and crucifixion.
He prays on the cross.

The Teaching of Jesus

Not only does Jesus model for us the extraordinary prayer life of a Kingdom leader, he explicitly teaches his disciples how to pray.

He teaches them “The Lord’s Prayer” (Matthew 6:5–15).
He tells them to pray for more laborers (Matthew 9:37–38).
He explains that certain kinds of demons are only cast out via prayer (Mark 9:29).
He teaches them persistence in prayer (Luke 18:1–8).
He challenges them to pray for strength during trials and tribulations (Luke 22:36).
He told them to pray that they would not enter into temptation (Luke 22:39–46).

The Model of the Early Church

After Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension, Jesus’ followers adopt his patterns of prayer.

They’re praying before the Spirit falls at Pentecost.
They’re said to be devoted to prayer.
They pray for boldness amidst intense persecution.
They create the role of “deacon”, in part, so that the apostles can spend more time in prayer.
They pray for people to receive the Holy Spirit.
They lay hands on and pray for missionaries as they send them into new places.
Paul & Silas sing and pray while in prison.
Groups of people pray before saying farewell to Paul.

Not only does the message of Jesus spread rapidly throughout the Roman Empire in the book of Acts, but historians and missiologists note that by the year 310 AD there are up to 20,000,000 Christians! This kind of explosive church growth didn’t happen simply because of some man-made strategy or idea.

The Spirit was building the church through people who were intimately connected to the heart and mission of Jesus through prayer.

The Example of the Global Church

The renowned missionary Hudson Taylor once said, “When we work, we work. When we pray, God works.”

So often in America, we think that the center of Christianity is in North America or Europe. That’s no longer the case. Africa already contains more professed Jesus followers than any other continent. And by 2050, it’s projected that more than 50% of Protestants will live in Africa.

It’s not just Africa. In the past few decades, there have also been rapidly multiplying disciple-making and church planting movements in South America and Asia. New Generations records that since 2005, disciple-making movements in the Global South have catalyzed 84,633 new churches with 1.9 million new disciples!

At the heart of these movements are people dedicated to prayer.

When you look closely, you’ll see that prayer movements precede disciple-making movements.

Ordinary believers fast weekly and for 21 days to start the year. Intercessors are assigned for each neighborhood to pray for people of peace and against any powers of darkness. There are “Houses of Prayer” set up where believers can go and pray together for hours at a time. This type of devotion to prayer seems completely foreign to many of us in the US. But for our brothers and sisters planting the Gospel in the developing world, this is the normal Christian experience.

I don’t know about you but I want to see this type of movement of the Spirit where I live. I want to see disciples made, people healed, justice restored, and the Gospel take root in the darkest crevices of our city. I want to see ordinary believers planting Jesus communities with new people and in new places. But it’s not going to come because of the shapes I drew on my whiteboard. It’s not going to come because of a perfect plan or well-executed strategy. It’ll come when God’s people listen and obey.

Am I going to do the work? Am I going to pray?