The first thing God put in place when I surrendered this ministry to Him was the value of prayer.
As I shared in a previous blog, we came in very early each Sunday, sat around a child-sized table and surrendered to Him before we received children. It was the most important thing we did on Sunday mornings.
It still is.
It is a nonnegotiable. God has made it clear that He wants us to make prayer a priority. To not do this would be disobedience.
Today, if you walk our halls on Sundays before the service begins, you will see dozens of Prayer Leaders and teams with heads bowed all across Kids Community. Even beyond Kids Community — from the parking team to the café team — our servers pray. We pray for what happens in the Big Room (auditorium) during the worship service and for every single ministry.
It's the most important thing we do on Sunday morning.
A Divine Appointment
We take this very seriously; in fact, we see it as a divine appointment with our Creator. Our prayer leaders prepare all week long for what God would have them share. We seek God's heart for our ministry, and God pours that through us in prayer.
We surrender ourselves to Him. God meets us there and provides what we need because He knows just what we will need.
He equips.
He convicts.
He comforts.
We are changed by Him in our Sunday morning prayers. He reminds us of why we're there. He reminds us that we are serving Him.
One Heart
No one just attends prayer. We get to know each other in a different way in these prayers. As we come together and He is the point of our prayer, we become united — to belong to one another — because our hearts are united in Christ.
We each bring our relationships with God into that prayer time, so it’s essential that we are prayed up all through the week. There's that connection that we have with one another. I think about in Scripture, when His body came together, when His children bowed together before Him, the place shook.
This is the same God. Our prayers are an offering to Him.
When it starts to slip, we see people begin to come in late, or missing it or stopping for coffee. So we stop and we talk about it. We remind one another that this is obedience. This is what God put in place, and everything is built on Him. We remind one another of the spiritual warfare that's happening.
Armed for Battle
Do we believe in spiritual warfare? We know it is all through Scripture. Do we think it might be happening in our church building on Sunday morning? You bet it is. If we believed this, we wouldn't be hitting snooze. We'd be jumping out of bed Sunday mornings. As a matter of fact, if we could actually see the warfare that was happening around us we would be running to prayer. We would be out of chairs on our faces asking God to protect us, to equip us so that we could stand back up and serve Him.
Are we believing this? Are we remembering what is really going on each Sunday morning; the battle that is raging all around us? We need to remember — there is so much at stake.
We have an enemy who is very threatened by our prayers. There is power unleashed as Christ's body comes together and bows before Him. Our enemy is very aware of this. He needs to do all that he knows to do to keep us out of that prayer. Out of all of the values, we find that our prayer value is the one that we see the most resistance.
Our enemy is not threatened by hundreds of people helping out in our church building…he is threatened by prayer.
Prayer stories
Each week, those who serve take home name tags for each of the children to pray for them and their families. We see how God has moved in this again and again.
I once interviewed a couple who wanted to get baptized. They said their move toward God was prompted by their children. The mom said she brought her children to our church because she thought it was the “right” thing to do, but then all she heard all week long was “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.” Praise God for that! Now, these children have parents who also believe in the power of Jesus’ name.
Another mom told us that she had almost given up on coming to church because her son had such separation anxiety. One Sunday, as the family got into their van to drive to church, the child repeatedly said, “I don’t want to go to church!” Over and over and over. Then, about five minutes from church, the boy grew quiet. As Blue Ridge came into sight, he said, “I do want to go to church.” He walked right in. The teacher said, “We were just praying for him!”
Another Sunday, as the children began to come, the 3s room leader realized she did not have the Buzz Lightyear toy that always stayed in that room. This was vitally important because it is the one thing that made one little boy feel right at home. As families began coming down the hall, she did a search of both 3s rooms, but no Buzz.
When the little boy, Luke, came into our room, his first question was, “Where’s Buzz?” The room leader knew they didn’t have him, so she said, “I guess he’s gone on a mission, can we find another toy for you?” But Luke was diligent and kept looking.
Cindy, one of the other teachers, said, “Luke, let’s ask Jesus to help us find Buzz.” The room leader felt defeated in that moment. She knew she didn’t have Buzz and this little boy was now going to also be disappointed that Jesus didn’t come through for him.
As they were praying, one of our 4s teachers came down the hall. The room leader called her over and asked if she knew where the toy was. She said, “I do remember someone playing with Buzz during the week.” She looked in a nearby room and brought Buzz over just minutes after Luke finished praying with Cindy.
Tears filled their eyes as they brought Buzz over to the little boy who had just got up off his knees. Luke hugged that toy like a long-lost friend.
Jesus had answered this little boy’s prayer so directly! During small group time, when Cindy asked the children if they had talked to Jesus this week, Luke said, “Yes, I did! And Jesus found Buzz for me!”
Yes, prayer is the most important thing we do! In my next post, we'll look at the importance of unity.