Monday Morning Reality Check
Inform! Remind! Persuade! 1.1 billion people have yet to hear the Good News.

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Intercession: united, yet fractured
by Justin D. Long

Global prayer networks22
Involved in full-time prayer20 million
Involved in weekly prayer groups10 million
Praying daily for world mission170 million
Societies for religious life centered on prayer2,100
Monasteries, convents, etc.7,000

Background

The majority of churches today have a core of intercessors attached to them. There is a large-scale "renewal of prayer" occurring in the 1990s. The catalysts are a wide ranging number of prayer activities-prayerwalking, concerts of prayer, prayer rooms, intercession networks, the March for Jesus, solemn assemblies, all-night vigils, and monasteries where souls devote their lives to prayer, among many others. Nevertheless, at the very root, today there still remains not a single global plan or strategy for uniting the various prayer networks and cross-pollinating prayer requests, prayer priorities and needs, particularly related to the Great Commission. It's just another example of fractured unity: everyone doing the same thing, but few doing it together.

Three times Christ prayed for unity in the church. Even if we can't immediately draw the church back together, shouldn't at least intercessors be praying for each other, and for the needs of the whole body?

Steps to take

  1. Do you have a prayer network? Take time to seek out prayer requests from other mission networks and publicize them to your intercessory teams.
  2. Do you have a core of intercessors in your church? Can you organize a cooperative prayer event between several churches in your area?
  3. Request the publications of intercession networks in order to increaseyour knowledge of prayer priorities, mission activities, and matters that prayer warriors can focus on.