Prayer as mobilization

What do you think of when you hear the word “mobilization”? I’m guessing “prayer” is not the first word that comes to mind. Yet prayer is truly the foundation of all our work, including mobilization. I believe there are two main aspects to this: our private prayer life, where we deepen our relationship with God, and intercessory prayer life, where we join with Jesus in lifting up the needs of others. It is through prayer that people are mobilized by the Holy Spirit to go out and share the good news in all its fullness with their neighbors.

Private prayer

How is your prayer life? This is a question I think we could talk about more in the local church. Asking ourselves this question is a good opportunity to reflect on our own prayer practice and to remind ourselves of some core truths. Why do we pray? How do we pray? To whom are we praying? What can we learn from different styles of prayer?

For example, I’ve noticed I often pray differently in Japanese than I do in English, and I don’t just mean the sudden increase in grammar mistakes. In Japanese, I can spend a lot of time reflecting on and verbalizing some of God’s amazing attributes and glorious names because of the more formal structure of Japanese prayer. This has greatly encouraged my own faith and reminded me of the importance of simply proclaiming the truth of who God is.

As we spend unhurried time with Jesus in prayer, we find that our hearts and wills are changed to be more and more like His. We may find that our hearts are softened and made larger, even before we get to intercessory prayer. This will lead us to care more about the things that Jesus cares about, including loving our neighbor. To put this in the context of mobilization, many Christians may feel duty bound to share the gospel with their non-believing family, friends, and colleagues. How much more beautiful is it when we naturally share the love and truth of Jesus—the gospel in all its fullness—because we are just caring about the things that Jesus cares about? This moves evangelism from something we have to do to something we find impossible not to do.

Intercessory prayer

A key part of being mobilized by the Holy Spirit is being mobilized into intercessory prayer. This includes so many aspects of life, from praying about our own relationships and people we know to praying for people we have never met. As we pray, we are joining in the prayers that Jesus is offering right now for these very same people (Rom. 8:34).

One way to pray regularly and deeply for others is to prayer walk. This can be a weekly walk around your neighborhood or church, a monthly walk in a strategic part of your community (such as a local shrine, red-light district, hospital, or university campus), a daily walk through a park, or on your way to the grocery store. The possibilities are endless. Prayer walking can be a wonderful addition to our own private time with Jesus, but it can also be a time of focused intercessory prayer, in which we intentionally pray for people who are living, visiting, or working in the area we are walking through.

Why go on a prayer walk when we can pray perfectly well in our own living room or church? Prayer walking isn’t magic—it isn’t better or more effective than praying in other places—but it does have some unique blessings. As we walk, we are proclaiming who God is and worshiping Him in that specific geographic area, something very spiritually significant (Eph. 6:12). As we walk, what we see, hear, and smell can inform our prayers, leading us to pray in ways we might not have had we stayed at home. Setting aside time to prayer walk a specific area can help us intentionally pray for that area and remain focused as we pray. Finally, as we walk outside, we become available to actually talk with our neighbors. God may bring people into our path and give us a chance to greet them and have a conversation, something that wouldn’t happen if we had prayed at home.

Over my years in Japan, the few Japanese believers I’ve met who have heard of prayer walking tended to think it was something wild and crazy, like someone walking around the neighborhood waving their hands and shouting, “Hallelujah!” To demystify prayer walking and make it more accessible to local believers, I designed a workshop for use in churches. This introduces the basic what, why, and how of prayer walking and gives people a chance to try it out. If you’re interested in having me run a workshop at your church, please contact me. As one local friend told me after her first prayer walk, “I’ve lived in this neighborhood for over 20 years, but today is the first time I’ve ever prayed for my neighbors.” Prayer walking became a key component to this friend’s mobilization.

Some concrete ideas to try out

Here are more ideas to mobilize yourself and others to pray.

Personal prayer:

• The next time you’re with a Christian friend, ask them, “How is your prayer life?” Then spend some time sharing, learning from, and encouraging each other.
• Meet regularly with a friend for extended, personal times of prayer. This could be combined with sharing about your current Bible reading. Then tell others in the church that you’re doing it. It may encourage them to start their own prayer partnering.
• Prayer walk! Try doing it regularly. Invite your family or a friend to join you. Journey to different areas of your city, town, or prefecture. Do a little research on the history, economy, or main issues of these different areas and “pray on site with insight.”¹

Corporate prayer:

• In your church or small group, reflect together: “What are we praying for, and how are we praying for this?” You may be surprised to find that you often pray the big prayers (“Please save this person”) but rarely pray concrete, specific prayers. Rosalind Rinker compares this to trying to reach the top of a staircase by jumping up in one leap, rather than climbing one step at a time.² So instead of only praying blanket salvation prayers, you might encourage one another to pray for something specific and “faith-sized.” Here’s an example: “Give me one opportunity this week to talk with this person about Jesus.”
• Do you have a regular prayer meeting at your church? If so, consider rotating leaders for this. People who have never led a prayer meeting before may want help with different ways to facilitate prayer, but they (and you) may be surprised by how the Lord leads them to bring something new to the table.
• For group prayer meetings, send prayer requests ahead of time so that when you are gathered, there is less need to share and more time for prayer.

Learning about prayer:

• Read a book or listen to a podcast about prayer. Better still, do it with a friend and discuss what you’re learning or trying. Try new rhythms or ways of praying.
• Do a Bible study about prayer. What kinds of prayer do you find in the Bible? What things did people pray for, how did they pray, and what kinds of physical postures and words did they use? Again, do this with a friend and see what you can learn!
• Discuss specific challenges to having a rich, deep prayer life with a friend, small group, or whole church community. Consider different types of people and the challenges they face (e.g., parents with young children; full-time workers in stressful, long-hour jobs; people living with non-Christian family members). By sharing challenges and possible solutions, the whole church may be encouraged and strengthened in their ability to pray.

As we—foreign and local believers together—grow in our prayer lives, we may be surprised at how God opens doors of opportunity for us to share His love and truth in concrete ways. In other words, we may find ourselves mobilized off our couches and into the neighborhood! Let’s pray and see what God will do.

1. Steve Hawthorne and Graham Kendrick, Prayer Walking: Praying On Site with Insight (Lake Mary, FL: Charisma House, 1996).
2. Rosalind Rinker, Prayer: How to Have a Conversation with God (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2016), p. 105, chap. 10, Kindle.