Plays On Word Radio
An in-depth look at the Word of God, the Plays On Word community, and the Plays - with original music - we perform, that are based on the Word of God. New episodes drop Fridays at 7AM EST! To find out how Plays On Word Theater can perform 'LIVE on YOUR STAGE' and to support this missionary & podcast visit: https://playsonword.org/
Plays On Word Radio
Ep 139: Prayer Warriors - Riding the Wave of Intercession
"What happens when you ditch your phone and truly focus on prayer? Today, we look at the transformative power of undistracted communion with God in this compelling episode of Plays on Word Radio."
Pastor Teddy shares about the upcoming Genesis 'JOE' play tour in the Northeast & reflects on the power of prayer as the foundation for effective ministry. He emphasizes the importance of focused, intentional prayer without distractions, comparing it to meeting with someone of great importance.
• Genesis 'JOE' tour coming to the Northeast US in October including New York, New Jersey, & Virginia/DC area
• Prayer is essential for ministry — riding "a wave of prayer" versus ministering in your own strength
• Avoid bringing your phone into prayer time — prevents distractions & maintains focus
• Pray both defensively (asking for help) & offensively (interceding for others)
• Scripture instructs us to "pray without ceasing" (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18)
• Peter's miraculous prison escape in Acts 12 demonstrates the power of corporate prayer
• Speaking prayers aloud puts them "on record" with God & against enemy schemes
We have another tour coming up, so please pray that the Lord would go before us & that people would come to know Christ through our ministry. If you'd like to learn more about Plays on Word Theater or see our upcoming schedule, visit playsonword.org. Check back often for our new website coming soon! We'll be performing Genesis 'JOE' in October, along with 2 other special shows, & 'CHRISTMAS JOE' performances already booking up for the holiday season! To Help support upcoming tours financially, please visit: https://playsonword.networkforgood
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Lord, you know You're now listening to Play.
Speaker 2:It's the best. We have not been built by Intel. Okay, don't multitask. It makes you stupid, this guy. It was so, put it this way. It was so disheartening that I actually stopped. I stopped going to the dude's office. I was like I'm not even going there, man, what's the point? He's going to the doodles. I was like I'm not even going there, man, what's the point? He's going to be on his email. He's going to be reading an email while I'm trying to explain something to him. Do we do that with God? You're the only name. You're the only name.
Speaker 1:You're the only name. Hello and welcome to Plays on Word Radio, where we discuss, analyze, work and play on the Word of God. Thank you for joining us on this excursion. Today, let's join Pastor Teddy, also known as Fred David Kenny Jr, the founder of Plays on Word Theater, as he does a deep dive into the Word of God.
Speaker 2:Amen, amen. Well, welcome to all of you listening to Plays on Word Radio. That's right, this is another one for you. Oh yeah, katie Kenney first of all for that introduction, and Josh Taylor for that introduction. We're coming back up to the Northeast for our Genesis Joe play that we will be bringing to some churches and we also have something special for a couple of different fellowships, but we're going to be doing our Genesis Joe play. This is our Genesis Joe season. We're going to figure out how we're going to work the Dan play in. Where's that going to find a home? As soon as the Lord finishes it for me? Please pray for me on that. I'm finding it a challenge to just get it done. I'm enjoying the equilibrium I'm getting right now leading a fellowship down here and we are growing and we are meeting just fantastic people that are great. It's just amazing.
Speaker 2:We've had so many visitors come out to Calvary, southport. How do I explain this? Those of you that would know Southport reminds me a little bit of Cape May, ocean Grove, lava-led, seaside-ish, but without the rides. Yeah, maybe Ocean City, is that it? So it's something like that. It's a tourist destination. In a sense, this area is a tourist destination. Oak Island and Southport carolina is where we are located. We're maybe about 45 minutes, about 55, 45 to 55 minutes north of myrtle beach, south carolina, which is that is like seaside on steroids. It's more, that's more like atlantic city actually.
Speaker 2:Um, I'm trying, I'm giving selfish. We have listeners all over the world and they're probably scratching their head going. I don't know what he's talking about, but the folks in New Jersey are going, oh, and some people in New York and even in the Philly area are going. Oh, okay, I see what you're talking about. Well, we've had a lot of visitors come and repeat visitors so that when they come back to the area they come back to church. We're their church, which is really cool and the local yokels are starting to come out. It's a real blessing to have native folks coming out and we're just going through scripture, we just go through the word, and it's been a a little bit of a balance, a little challenge to do plays on word and the fellowship. But god is faithful and he is giving us strength and ability to do what we need to do. So we're going to be heading back up to the Northeast in October. We're going to be in New York State again, it will be in. I want to say we're going to be in New Jersey. I think we're going to Virginia DC area. So, yeah, we've got some stuff lined up. We're really looking forward to coming back up and hopefully seeing some of you. Some of you can make it out, if not, some of you Some of you can make it out. If not, we will try to make at least one of them available. I don't know if Katie's going to put it on her Facebook or we'll try to stream it or something or parts of it. Make that available for you guys to check it out.
Speaker 2:Genesis Joe was the first play that the Lord gave me, first one we started doing and we've seen a lot of fruit from that. I've often talked about the time we did Genesis Joe in a jail and the response was it was actually overwhelming. It took me a minute to process more than a minute. It was actually overwhelming. It took me a minute to process more than a minute. It took me days. Whoa, wow.
Speaker 2:Because the story is powerful. First of all, it's, you know, the word of God is powerful, it's alive, it's active, sharper than any kind of two-edged sword. And the word of God, just left alone by itself, doesn't need anything. It's like a really good ribeye, a really good steak. Now, those of you that are vegetarians, please don't send me hate mail, but there's nothing quite like a really good ribeye, oh man, cooked right, you know. And if it's a good cut of me, it doesn't need anything. It needs nothing just grill it, man, get a knife and fork and you can eat it as is and it's good. That's the word of god. Word of god is better than that, actually.
Speaker 2:And um, so, yeah, we're looking forward to that, we're looking forward to coming, we're looking forward to coming up and please be in prayer for this tour, because the Lord does work and people do pray to receive Christ and the kingdom, enter the kingdom of God and to have their sins forgiven and become part of the family of God. And that happens because we ride a wave of prayer. It's not like there's anything special about me or my formula, that I say the right things or anything. No, it's the Spirit of God going before us, around us, and he's the real star. So please just be in prayer. You guys can be part of the work that God.
Speaker 2:Actually, I'm not even really asking. It's more of a what is the word. How about that? We really need your prayer. You're never going to hear me, god willing. You're never going to hear me come on here and say, oh, if we don't get a donation in the next five minutes, we won't be able to feed the poor children. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. You know what I'm going to ask for. I'm asking for prayer, man. That's what I need. I'm not here trying to shake the trees for money or anything. I'm here shaking y'all for prayer. Please pray, a tidal wave of a move of God that we can serve. Okay, so I'm making that request to you now.
Speaker 2:Now, what do you mean, pastor? Why is prayer so important? Katie hates it when I use that voice too. She hates it when I do that, but that's my. I've got to come up with a name for that character, but that's the character that is just in opposition and always has the yeah but yeah, but Maybe I could put that in reverse and make the guy's name. What do you mean, pastor? What are you talking about? Why is prayer so important? I think his last name is going to be unbeliever too, something unbeliever, yeah, but unbeliever, yeah, but yeah, but Sounds Jamaican. Yeah, but yeah, but unbeliever man Me can't believe this thing. You're telling me, anyway, prayer. What's the deal with it? Why is this guy shaking the trees for prayer, instead of money and other things that these TV evangelists do?
Speaker 2:Prayer. I know what it's like to ride a wave of prayer. I know what it's like to ride a wave of prayer. I know what it's like to look around and say, yo man, what is going on here? I had nothing to do with this, but the Lord is moving. Some of y'all that are in ministry understand that. Understand what I'm talking about. Like you end up scratching your head saying whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. God is doing something way beyond what I expected here. Man, whoa, you're seeing hearts change, minds change. So prayer is. I know what it's like to ride a wave of prayer. I know what it's like to. I know what. How do I say this? I know what it's like to go out and minister without properly seeking God and without properly asking for that wave of prayer. And so I know what it's like to do ministry in my own strength. Man, I'm still tired from that doing that. It's that exhausting when you do ministry in your own strength for absolute exhaustion. So I really try not to do that as best I can. I don't actually even want to do ministry If the Lord doesn't go before what we're doing, I want nothing to do with it. Man, I'm not trying to be part of that. Ain't nobody got time for that?
Speaker 2:The Scripture talks about prayer for us and it gives us a whole bunch of examples. I'm not going to go through them all, I'm just going to share a couple with you just to encourage us in what the Lord is calling us to do. One of them is and notice these scriptures. They have an admonition to pray and but there's always thanksgiving thrown in there. And every time I approach the Lord, I think every time I say thank you, thank you, lord, thank you, thank you God. My brother, mike Morgan, says Lord, I thank you, I thank you Lord, I thank you. It's thanksgiving. We enter his courts with thanksgiving. You know and praise it's Thanksgiving. We enter His courts with Thanksgiving. You know and praise it's Thanksgiving because that thanks part is a recognition of who he is. He says Paul says in Colossians 4, he says continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it, with thanksgiving.
Speaker 2:So continue with prayer. This idea of praying and steadfastly, kind of like not being moved, being determined. I mean, if the Spirit moves you away from a prayer, that's fine. But you know, one thing we have to do when we pray I've found to be successful in prayer is to be intentional.
Speaker 2:So don't go into prayer with your cell phone. There's two reasons actually for that. The first is the distractions that are going to come. You're going to get people texting you, calling you yeah, pastor, what do you mean? No, what are you talking about? I pray at four o'clock in the morning. There's that guy again. I pray at four o'clock in the morning. Yeah, okay, you might pray at four o'clock in the morning, but if you bring your phone in there with you, you better put it on airplane mode because out of nowhere, you're going to start getting alerts and stuff coming across, news flashes and all these stuff, and somebody might just text you. You never know. You might get something from one of your YouTube subscriptions. Can I get an amen? Somebody out there? I'm the only guy that's got a bazillion YouTube subscriptions and out of nowhere I'll just get the boom. If I'm going to pray, all of a sudden I'll see a video that I would really like to see pray. All of a sudden I'll see a video that I would really like to see Now.
Speaker 2:My prayer is all subdivided and distracted. Don't bring your phone with you if you're going to pray. Be intentional. I tell you what if you were meeting with whoever the president of the United States is? Just don't get wrapped up in politics. That's the last thing I want to do. The president of the United States If you meet with the president of the United States, you're not trying to be distracted.
Speaker 2:First of all, it's rude. You're sitting there talking to him, he's talking to you and all of a sudden you get a text and you start looking down at your phone. Let me tell you something. I had this dude, this guy that I worked with. He was my manager many years ago. He was my manager. I went in to talk to him and, as I'm talking to him, he's typing every single time. I went to talk to the guy and I didn't talk to him a lot, but when I needed to talk to the guy and get him up to speed, he's sitting there typing to the guy and get him up to speed. He's sitting there typing like an email to somebody else. He's reading emails as he's talking to me and I'm like yo man.
Speaker 2:You realize that, uh, multitasking makes you stupid. First of all, newsflash it does. It makes you stupid. Multitasking is, it's not, smart. We are not, um, we have not been built by Intel. Okay, don't multitask, it makes you stupid.
Speaker 2:This guy it was. It was so put it this way. It was so disheartening it was so put it this way it was so disheartening that I actually stopped. I stopped going to the dude's office. I was like I'm not even going there, man, what's the point? He's going to be on his email. He's going to be reading an email while I'm trying to explain something to him. Do we do that with God? I hope not. I don't want to be that guy, but I have.
Speaker 2:I brought my phone in a couple times to pray and next thing, you know, blip, here comes a text from somebody and I end up looking at the text while I'm right in the middle of a conversation with God. Don't do that to him. We need to recognize who this is. We are in front of Somebody way more important than the President of the United States. He's way more important than the most important person on the planet. So it says well.
Speaker 2:Let me tell you the other reason? The first reason is that it's a distraction. The second reason now I'm going to put on my tinfoil hat, the conspiracy guy kicks in. You guys know I love a good conspiracy. Now, hey, why is it that if I have my phone with me and just randomly I say you know, I'd like to visit Iceland I say that to my wife just in passing and conversation why is it? The next time I go on the Internet I'm getting advertisements for trips to Iceland, tours and cruises to Iceland and discount travel agents.
Speaker 2:I'm like wait, what the heck man who's listening to me here? Hey, it's not even like I asked Alexa or Siri anything. I didn't ask them, but they're definitely listening. So you know, hey, if you're praying and really praying and interceding for folks, you know it's bad enough. The enemy is listening. Okay, bad enough. The opposite team is listening.
Speaker 2:I pray out. See, the thing is, I pray out loud. I pray out loud. I speak things into this world when I speak. Not that words are magical in any kind of way, but I pray and I go on record with the Lord and I would encourage you to pray, speak out loud. Yes, he knows your heart as well. You could sit there and pray completely with your lips closed, silent, and the Lord will understand your heart. But, lord, that you would break the teeth of the enemy what he's doing in any of their lives and make all of his schemes completely fall apart right now. In the name of Jesus, hey, amen, I'm on record right. That's a prayer that's on the Lord's desk right now, and it's not only in the Lord's desks. The enemy is scrambling right now. You know why? Because the plans of the enemy were just attacked.
Speaker 2:That's offensive prayer. We can pray on defense and that's fine. You know, basketball is the same way, football, soccer. You have offense and defense. Unfortunately, many Christians spend all their time on defense. Oh Lord, please help me. Oh Lord, I'm sick, this person's sick, we need your help. Okay, that's fine, I'm not knocking that. That's important, don't neglect that. But what about the offense? What about taking it to the enemy? Praying over your neighbors, praying over your school, praying over your co-workers, calling out their name to the King of creation? It's going on record, interceding for them If they're not saved, that the Lord would engineer circumstances in their life so that they would come to know Him, that the Lord would send people to Him. If it's not you yourself. You can be involved in it. You can pray and ask the Lord to bring someone to share the gospel. Have them by accident somehow turn on Christian radio. Have them turn on Christian. Well, I was going to say Christian TV, but a good Christian TV program. So much bad stuff on TV. Now you're on offense, you're on offense. Defense Prayer is important. You're on offense, prayer is important, and offense and defense is important for the Christian.
Speaker 2:In Thessalonians, paul says you know, he says chapter 5, 16 through 18, he says rejoice always. These are like some of the shortest verses in the Bible together Rejoice always, together Rejoice always. Verse 17 is pray without ceasing, meaning being tethered to him in a continual state of prayer, don't hang up the phone. And verse 18 says give thanks there it is again in all circumstances. For this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Look at that, check that out right there. The will of God is that you rejoice always, you pray without ceasing and give thanks in all circumstances. For this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Now I kind of extended it a little bit. Some people might just say well, it's just his will is that you give thanks in all circumstances. I would submit. He also wants you to pray without ceasing, and his will is that you would rejoice always. Can I get an amen, amen. So pray without ceasing, don't hang up the phone Now.
Speaker 2:There are some stories in the Scripture that I love and I probably don't have time to go into it right now, but we'll just touch on them. I love the story about the book of Acts, in chapter 12, where Peter he is. Well, let me back up a little bit. Herod puts James, the brother of John. He puts him to death with the sword, and he found out that the Jewish folks that were opposed to the Christians, they were down with that. They loved it. They were like, wow, all right, herod, yay, they were grateful. So he was like hey, and so he had Peter arrested. All this is going to be in the second play that we're doing, which is about the second half of Peter's life, basically the book of Acts, and that's called Repeat. I hear the groans and moans. Let me continue. So, yeah, repeat that play. I don't know when we're going to launch that tour or the play, but yeah, this is part of it. And so they had him in jail.
Speaker 2:Now let me just read from verse 6. This is chapter 12 of the book of Acts. It says now, when Herod was about to bring Peter out, on that very night, peter was sleeping between two soldiers bound with two chains, and centuries before the door, herod had him guarded by like four. Let me just make sure, let me look at it Four, let's see Four squads of soldiers to guard him. Yep, in verse four it says it I knew I was right Four squads of soldiers were guarding Peter. This is not like two guards man, this is four squads. And it says back in verse six centuries before the door were guarding the prison verse seven.
Speaker 2:And behold, an centuries before the door regarding the prison verse 7,. And behold, an angel of the Lord stood next to him and a light shone in his cell. He struck Peter on the side and woke him, saying get up quickly. And the chains fell off his wrists verse 8,. And the angel said to him dress yourself, put on your sandals. And he did so. And he said to him wrap your cloak around you and follow me Verse 9,. And he went out and followed him. He didn't know that what was being done by the angel was real, but thought he was seeing a vision Verse 10. When they passed the first and second guard, they came to the iron gate leading into the city. It opened for them of its own accord. Are you following me on this? Is this not some kind of crazy movie? This is amazing. It opened for them on its own accord and they went out and went along the street and immediately the angel left him.
Speaker 2:Verse 11,. When Peter came to himself, he said now I'm sure that the Lord has sent his angel and rescued me from the hand of Herod and from all that the Jewish people were expecting. Like that's when he came to the realization that he didn't just eat some funny food and he's having a weird dream Verse 12. Then he realized. Then he realized this and went to the house of Mary, the mother of John, whose other name was Mark, where many Whoop. This is the key. This is the key. Verse 12 is key.
Speaker 2:He went to the house of Mary, the mother of John, whose other name was Mark, where many were gathered together and were what they were praying Verse 13. I'm going to come back to that in a second verse 13. When he knocked on the door of the gateway, a servant girl named rhoda came to answer verse 14. Recognizing peter's voice. In her joy, she didn't open the gate but ran and reported that peter was standing at the gate. Verse 15. They said to her you're out of your mind. But she kept insisting that it was so and they kept saying it's his angel Verse 16, but Peter continued knocking and when they opened they saw him and were amazed. Verse 17,. But motioning to them with his hand to be quiet, be silent, he described to them how the Lord had brought him out of the prison and he said tell these things to James and to the brothers. Then he departed and went to another place.
Speaker 2:Now let's go back to verse 12 for a second. Many were gathered part B, the second half. Many were gathered together and were praying While those things were happening to Peter and he didn't even realize what was going on. While it was happening, they were praying and interceding. Do not miss that man. Don't miss that, oh, pastor. Is prayer really that important? Yes, it is that important, absolutely. The prayers of the righteous are extremely valuable and the Lord, for whatever reason, allows us to participate in His work. Could he do it without prayer? Absolutely. But the fact that he mentions them here and points it out that they were in prayer while these things were happening, and some of them, they couldn't even believe it. Let's pray with a belief that God's going to answer us in Jesus name. Oh, help me, holy ghost, I'm going to keep going. I'm out of time. The Lord bless you and keep you to make us. Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.
Speaker 1:Now y'all pray for us. Come on now. This program was made possible by the Plays on Word family of supporters. To find out more, check out our website at playsonwordorg. Thank you.
