Missionaries Of Prayer

The activity of prayer is a necessary practice and meetings should always start with a quick “word or prayer”, but is prayer really that important for the missionary?

Some would say prayer is an indispensible ingredient of missions, but what about a missionary whose primary focus is prayer?

We have heard, “No prayer, no power; little prayer, little power; much prayer, much power” (Hudson Taylor), but is there room for a missionary of prayer?

Here’s something to think about:

Goa, India - An Indian mission reports that in spite of repeated attempts to plant house churches in Goa over the past 20 years, as of August 1994, they only have eight small, struggling churches in the city.

A team of Brazilian intercessors comes to Goa in the summer of 1994, rents a house and prays for 12 months. They do not engage in any witnessing, literature distribution, or church planting. They simply pray for an entire year.

In the two months after they leave, the Indian mission plants 18 new house churches in this no longer resistant city! (Pray! magazine, 1996 by John F DeVries)

Maybe there is room for a missionary whose primary focus is to prepare the soil and fight the battle. Then again maybe not, do we really think individuals, mission organizations, or churches would support such an idea?

Obviously the gospel must be preached for “how can they believe in the one whom they have not heard.” (Romans 15:14) But it should be noticed that prayer was one of two focuses for the apostles, “We will turn this responsibility over to them and will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the word.” (Acts 6:3b-4)

I’ll leave you this from The Kneeling Christian, “The lady in India was cast down through the failure of her life and work. She was a devoted missionary, but somehow or other conversions never resulted from her ministry. The Holy Spirit seemed to say to her, ‘Pray more.’ But she resisted the promptings of the Spirit for some time. ‘At length,’ said she, ‘I set apart much of my time for prayer. I did it in fear and trembling lest my fellow-workers should complain that I was shirking my work. After a few weeks I began to see men and women accepting Christ as their Savior. Moreover, the whole district was soon awakened, and the work of all the other missionaries was blessed as never before. God did more in six months than I had succeeded in doing in six years.’ ‘And,’ she added, ‘no one ever accused me of shirking my duty.’”