Lausanne World Pulse – LAUSANNE REPORTS – Prayer in Evangelism

By Glenda Weldon

“Thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.” These words from the prayer Jesus taught his disciples express God’s plan and purpose in this world. They bring together in the simplest and most powerful way “prayer in evangelism.” The compelling vision of the Kingdom of God fully realised on earth draws us into a deeper commitment to Jesus as Lord of our lives. It calls us to truly repent, turn from our own agenda and fully embrace his. We are challenged to open our hearts to the renewing and empowering of his Holy Spirit, to be transformed into his likeness and to be equipped to go into the world and make disciples.

This prayer is a declaration of our sure and certain hope that the day is coming when the kingdom of the world will become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and that he will reign for ever and ever. When we truly pray this prayer, God gives us his eyes to see the need of the world from his perspective and he begins to birth in us the strategies to reach them.

In the “Prayer and Evangelism” 2004 Lausanne Forum for World Evangelization Issue Group we explored many different ways in which God uses prayer in the task of making disciples of all nations. We looked at not only the biblical and theological perspective, but also the practical information that would help us better engage in prayer in evangelism.

The paper this group produced was written with the local church in mind and seeks to provide material to inspire, encourage and educate Christians in the why and how of prayer in evangelism. Each section includes stories and illustrations from around the world.

This is a very significant time to be examining the whole question of prayer in evangelism. God is calling people to prayer at every level of church life—in local churches, across cities and nations and as a global community. The “Prayer in Evangelism” Lausanne Occasional Paper (LOP) provides an excellent opportunity to understand more of why and how we can pray as we seek to engage “the whole Church in taking the whole gospel to the whole world.”

There were forty-four participants from twenty-five countries in the Prayer in Evangelism Issue Group. They represented every continent and are involved in a wide range of ministries. We benefited from an exciting and diverse pool of experiences, cultures and theological backgrounds as we sought God for his strategies and action steps to share with the Church around the world.

The issue of prayer and evangelism is extremely important for the Church today. If the two do not work together, the Church will not see the full fruits of ushering souls into the kingdom.

Evangelism Without Prayer
The Church has long sought to engage in evangelism. However, it has not always integrated evangelism with prayer in the way God intended. This oversight may account for much of the failure of many well-intentioned evangelistic efforts. Attempts to be involved in evangelism with little or no prayer have been discouraging and have yielded limited fruit. Without prayer, God’s people often lack the compassion and the conviction to be effective.  If God does not take the initiative in the life of the unbeliever (as he promises to do in response to our prayers), we are limited to human resources and human understanding. It takes the supernatural power of God to release those who are in Satan’s grip (Matthew 17:21) and to open the eyes of those blinded to the light of the gospel (2 Corinthians 4:4). God will act in response to our specific prayers.

Glenda Weldon is chair of the Lausanne Intercession Working Group. She is also an evangelist and prayer leader with the Christian and Missionary Alliance in Australia and is a member of the national board of that denomination.