the Walk: Evangelistic Prayer
Is our class prayer time evangelistic? This is an essential question that we must answer as Sunday School leaders and participants. One of the key components of the Walk plan is prayer. Bob Mayfield gives us some great insight to the reason we must focus on evangelistic prayer. You can read the full article here, but let me give you a brief summary. Evangelistic prayer lists work! He says, “Very rarely do I ever find a class that is intentional about praying for unreached people to come to Christ. Yet James 4:2 states, “…you have not because you ask not.” Could it be that one of the reasons that we do not see more people coming to Christ in our churches and yes, even in our small groups and Sunday School classes is because we do not pray for the souls of our lost friends and neighbors?”
Do you remember when we did a Power Up your Sunday School campaign? We were challenged to create a evangelistic prayer list for our class. Some of us got creative, like our youth, who made a cross and put the names of their lost friends on sticky notes and put them on the cross. Our teacher’s class created a list of names that I carried with me. Did you know that several people on that list came to Christ? It didn’t happen immediately, but over time God did some wonderful things, even saving a 80+ year old that we prayed for every Wednesday. Our Pastor even had the privilege to baptize that man a week later.
Can we do a better job at praying for unreached people in our community? Absolutely! Can you imagine what would happen in our church if we committed ourselves to praying for the lost by name? Would our hearts be attune with the heart of God? I pray that God would burden us and our classes with the desire to see the lost come to faith in Christ. I want to encourage you to start an evangelistic prayer list and faithfully pray for lost by name each week. You will be amazed what God will accomplish as we pray.
