The Prayer Culture Podcast
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The Prayer Culture Podcast
The 💥WAR💥 on Para-Church Prayer Ministries - Is it Justified?
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We're trying to replace your church. We're not trying to replace your church. And this calling is not replacing your church. Yeah. This just pleases the Lord, and it's a unifying thing for us to come together and do this. This is the Prayer Culture Podcast. What is it, Bruce Springsteen? Or some kind of hippie, you know, in the background, introing him or something.
SPEAKER_08In the background, like a little thing.
SPEAKER_06I think Bruce Springsteen fans would be really offended that you called him a hippie just now. Oh, I don't know. He was like rocker guy.
SPEAKER_11Yeah. Okay, whoever a famous hippie musician was, I don't know.
SPEAKER_06Like the doors or something. Okay, there you go.
SPEAKER_11I don't know enough about it. I mean, I guess, I guess the Beatles were basically hippie musicians, but I'm thinking like not rock, hippie rock. I mean like hippie hippie. Like the guitar on the side of the road, you know. Right. That kind of thing. Hitchhiker.
SPEAKER_06Where are you headed, brother?
SPEAKER_11Cool, man. Peace and love. Yeah.
SPEAKER_08Make love, not war. Yeah. All right. So we're we did we were recording all that. That was a really good part of the conversation. Now I have that's the thing that I love, I think, the best is when I record early and just don't tell anyone. We always catch the best things. Are you guys ready? You're ready. Okay. Hey everyone, welcome to the prayer culture podcast. Hey, it's me, John Brown, in this chair, which is kind of weird. I'm usually over here, like on the end. Yeah.
SPEAKER_06You stole the throne.
SPEAKER_08Yes. I uh I stole the throne, and now I get to sit here and talk about how just great Michael is. You know, Michael the the incredible, the bearded with the beanie. I didn't bring any notes. Well, it's because Michael, he every time he always comes up with all the all the great things about about me. So I thought I would just give some feedback, you know, over there. That's pretty good. Right.
SPEAKER_11The influential JB.
SPEAKER_08Oh my new one for you. Well, I I don't know about that. Sometimes it's one of those things where I feel like I'm not as cool as I think I am because when I'm with my kid, but then again, that's your kids, right? Like your kids are.
SPEAKER_11Your kids are not allowed to think you're cool. It's kind of a rule. Yeah.
SPEAKER_06Well, once they reach a certain age. At a certain age, yeah. When they're really little, you're just the hero. The hero, yeah.
SPEAKER_11Yeah.
SPEAKER_06Yeah. And then you become dad.
SPEAKER_11My kids are basically kind of like my teenager at this point is kind of like, you're about as cool as parents can come to being cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I can't still can't like, and my friends think you're cool. That's why I'm kind of maybe allowed to think you're cool. It's just well, it's I still can't like go all the way. You're cool, you know. Yeah.
SPEAKER_08Which is so funny because it's like, yeah, you're a cool dad, but you're still a dad. You're still my dad. Yeah, you're just right. My dad. Yeah. Somebody else might think that you're cooler, but you know, whatever. The uh, and actually, you know, it's funny we were talking about kids, you know, with their parents and thinking that their parents are cool. And this might have something to do with the topic today, which we're talking about para-church ministries. You know, you have people in churches, maybe there's something that's going on in their church they feel like the church needs um that they're not getting. So they have these other ministries. And I believe that's kind of what we mean. I guess that'll be the first question up top that I have for y'all is how would you define what a parachurch ministry is?
SPEAKER_11A parachurch ministry is a organization that is developed to meet a need um largely in the church that's not being met.
SPEAKER_06Not being met by the church.
SPEAKER_11Not being met by the church specifically. Okay.
SPEAKER_06So um Usually like a single issue ministry.
SPEAKER_11Yeah, it's an issue, it's a it's a ministry that has a very singular focus. It's kind of like in the judges. Um, you in the book of judges, you have judges who come to address an issue and they come to bring um just passion and fire to this thing in judgment. So this is not the old covenants, the new covenant. So I wouldn't say judgment. But um the point is I think that the parachurch ministry is not it shouldn't be designed to just do this thing by itself. It's actually should be a call to the church to do this thing well and like be there with the church doing this thing together. Um that's what I think a parachurch ministry should be. Um, and and many church parachurch ministries are that.
SPEAKER_06So yeah. Yeah. So I mean, just for definition's sake, it sounds like we're saying a ministry that operates outside of the church, so not under the authority of a church, and typically is kind of a single issue thing, like we are a prayer ministry or we feed the poor, or we're a missions agency, or something like that. You know, yeah.
SPEAKER_08So I guess the important points being that these are typically specialized ministries, yeah. Um, and they are not part of a particular church, or usually not part of a particular church.
SPEAKER_06Maybe associated with a church, maybe associated, yeah, but not operating under the authority of a church leadership. Yeah.
SPEAKER_08Because a lot of these ministries I feel like probably come out of churches. Yeah. Like maybe somebody that was a part of a church was like, hey, had heart for a certain thing. And then they were like, okay, hey, you know, for I guess various reasons that we'll probably get into. They're like, hey, we're just gonna make this ministry its own thing, and then it then grows into be its own thing. I think actually one organization that I um do some work with, uh Love Fosters Hope, I think they I think that's kind of similar to how they started. I think they were part they were part of a ministry at Wood's Edge, and they um, and I think it started out as just like a fostering ministry, but then it grew so much. I think this is probably like I guess a more positive outcome for them is that it was just the fact they grew so much and then they became what Love Foster's hope is now. Yeah. Um, which is like kind of its own thing. Um, so in that sense, that was kind of a good way. I know that there's probably examples where somebody makes a ministry out of a church and it probably doesn't have such a positive outcome.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, I mean, sometimes I think para-church ministries start because people are frustrated that the church isn't accomplishing a certain type of ministry and it's their heart and their passion. So they just step outside of the church and begin their own ministry. And I mean, sometimes there's valid frustration with the church. I mean, sometimes we're not very organized or we're not very good or not very gifted at something. And uh so yeah, so sometimes these ministries are birthed out of frustration or just the desire to focus on one issue that they feel like their church or a church isn't doing a good job at.
SPEAKER_08Yeah. So I guess that then leads to, I guess I, you know, even as we kind of move on, do you think that there might be some kind of interesting dynamics um between maybe these ministries and churches? And do you think that might involve certain misconceptions um between the two?
SPEAKER_11Well, here's why we're having this conversation. I see a trend, yeah, especially among Bible-centric spaces, or even um word and spirit movement people, people that I largely theologically agree with, um, a lot of reform guys, a lot of um uh even like third wave charismatics, just a lot of people in a space that just dearly loves the Bible and everything. I see this trend of what I'd call church purity, like basically like a church-only mindset, local church only mindset. Um and and a lot of this also is with a move to a lot more high church mindset too than people. Um higher view of the church, higher view of the church, like a lot of tradition and you know the organization of the church, more of the organization. And so this move away from like we're no parachurch organizations. Um, and except except maybe missions and trafficking ministry, you know. Okay.
SPEAKER_06I mean, I've I understand what you're saying. The the movement, the thinking away from parachurch, and more like, why isn't the church just taking responsibility for all these ministries? Why do we have to move these ministries outside of the church? Um, and I mean, I've even, you know, in the missions and church planting space, I've heard a lot of like, why do we have all these different church planting organizations? Why isn't that just the church is planting churches? So I've even experienced this in the missions and church planting space.
SPEAKER_11Yeah. Yeah. And even with podcasts, I respect, I just see this movement like, and a lot of this is there's a lot of animus though, directed specifically towards ministries that traditionally are done by the church, and then maybe there's parachurch organizations that are trying to spur a new movement of it on or something. And so I think nothing's gotten more scrutiny than prayer and worship recently. Yeah. And um, the reason, a lot of the reason is because of scandal and things that have happened that have discredited prayer and worship ministries, and none more relevant than what happened with the International House of Prayer in Kansas City. Um and I the reason we talk about it is um if if you don't know about what happened with IHOP, essentially IHOP is 24-7 prayer and worship. Um and they had a whole mission around that. And that was a situation where the church was birthed more out of the parachurch ministry, yeah. Um, which can be very dangerous, I admit. And I I don't think that's the best model for sure. Um, I think the the model really should be the reverse, really. Um but what I'm hearing now is people saying, well, that sh there should not be any such parachurch ministry. That's right, it's wrong to have that. Um and and what happened there was basically it came out that there was um some sexual abuse issues with the leadership with Mike Bickle who started it. And then outside of that, in terms of the way that the organization worked, there was prophetic abuse and there was um authoritarian style leadership that was also um harmed people.
SPEAKER_06When you say prophetic abuse, you're talking about using prophecy to manipulate people. Yes, using prophets, using so-called prophecy to manipulate people.
SPEAKER_11So um and and I have to to say, like, um I was part of a group, I I've never been to Kansas City, but I was part of an offshoot of the House of Prayer in Atlanta and part of a mission that had a house of prayer. Um and the reality that from what I experienced, um I when I went there, um I actually learned a lot and gleaned a lot of good things. And a lot of it was because I went from a very reformed context where um all charismatic things were tied to health and wealth prosperity gospel and word of faith. And so I thought that's all charismatics. And I go and see this thing where it's like, oh, they're actually not that at all. Not they don't agree with any of that. They're not word of faith, they're not uh health, wealth, prosperity, gospel, and they want 24-7 prayer, which is clearly a good biblical principle. It's a good thing. Um and not a mandate, I don't think, of scripture that you have to do it this way or do this thing. Sure. Uh, and I didn't agree with all the theology or the theological points that they used, but I believe their conclusion was a very biblical sound conclusion. 24-7 prayer um unto Jesus return, which also we should be have a large focus on Jesus' return. So I was really blessed by that. Um I think a lot of their issues came in. Well, let me go to like the question though that has kind of shapes this conversation. Um does that mean because they fell, because it's it's the the way the ministry won wasn't good, does that mean that it was a people problem? Was it a system problem? Was it a model problem? And um I personally believe there was a people problem, clearly, yeah, and there was a system problem. And while certain parts of the model I think were problematic, generally a lot of the model was very good. And I'm not willing, like a lot of these guys are wanting to throw everything out now. Like none of that.
SPEAKER_06Yeah. Yeah. If it looks anything like that, it's gotta be wrong.
SPEAKER_11That's wrong because you know, because it's skirting local church authority, and that should just be a ministry of church and all that stuff.
SPEAKER_08And which then brings up kind of the thing that I I was even just asking, like maybe that's like part of the misconception of it, right? Like me, I think you even just said like one thing there where you're like, oh, this is just trying to get around church authority.
SPEAKER_11Well, and that's what I was taught when I was being discipled up originally in my my first church I really was discipled in. I was taught parachurch ministries are largely a way to skirt authority. You need to be in a church, you need to do all your ministries in church. The real ministry is church planting. Um but except when the church isn't doing it and then it's right. Well, that and what a lot of these guys who are getting into what I would think feel like is kind of a cage stage with this don't understand is when you even if you don't believe kind of the extreme version of this, all the young people you're telling this to will take this to the extreme. All the people who, you know, they're gonna take that and go, Oh, we can't do any of that. And what happens is it becomes local church, my local church only. And you have a very narrow view of the worldwide church, you don't see it at all. And it's just us, it's it's all about us and our little local church. Um, and that's the belief system that I had for when what I was discipled up in um on the opposite side of that. Yeah. And that's that's also dangerous. It's an unhealthy idea.
SPEAKER_06So yeah, you can, you know, you can we're so good at we're so good at ruining things.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're just yeah, we will just people, people do this is why we can't have nice things.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, exactly. This is why we can't have this is why we can't we can't even pray anymore. You know, we can't even pray anymore. What is happening? It feels like you can definitely uh I like I want to say that if somebody says to me, hey, parachurch stuff is weird, right? Because it feels like Jesus established his church, and um that was his design, his plan for shining his light, establishing his kingdom in the world. So why do we need something outside of that? If you just say that on its face, you're like, right, yeah, that that makes a lot of sense. You know, I get it.
SPEAKER_08But I think I know where you're going with this because I'm I might be thinking the same thing.
SPEAKER_06You go ahead Oh man, I don't if you are, then this is miraculous. Totally. I'm actually thinking of an example in the Bible where there was basically a single issue group started, uh, and that would be Samuel and his school of prophets. Samuel had a school of prophecy where there was literally just a group of prophets together and they prophesied. And I mean there must have been some like some training, some schooling going on, and Samuel as the leader. And uh, you know, that wasn't happening like in the tabernacle as the ministry that the Lord gave as the ministry of the tabernacle, you know. It was like this was outside of that, and it was just about prophecy. So to me, it's like okay, so the Lord can uh be pleased with and work through powerfully even ministries that are happening that are kind of single issue outside of the primary, you know, temple ministry or church ministry. I know that we're getting into some gray area there, but yeah, um but I can see I I I it's an understandable perspective to go, man, it should just be the church only. It should be. Yeah, I can I feel that it should be. But where we struggle with things or where we want to partic particularly focus on something and be strong in something with ignorance callings to, I don't think it's really wrong or unbiblical to have a community around one issue that's a good biblical issue, you know?
SPEAKER_08Well, and for me, and we weren't thinking of the same thing, so that's unfortunate. But but what what I will say is the one thing that came to my mind is because we're always saying, oh, it should be in the church only. I think to me, what this brings, and what made me think about this even more was when you had mentioned church planting. And it was how do you define like the church and how the paraministry, how the para-church ministry actually is involved with the church? Are you meaning, like you said, are we just talking about the local church? Are we actually talking about the church at large? Because to me, I feel like a lot of these parachurch ministries really it's more about serving the church at large and not a particular body. And so I think what you have with leaders is that, okay, I see there's the one end where you're trying to protect your particular congregation, right? And that might be like, I don't know, a reason why they might have like pushback with parachurch ministries or when they're talking about authority, like what you're talking about. To me, I see that as like, well, that's only an issue if you think that your local congregation is the only thing that matters and that your authority over what they're doing is the is the primary thing that matters. If you're thinking about the church at large and there's a ministry coming in and they're saying, hey, here's something that, or even if you have somebody that's in your church saying, Hey, here's something that I feel like our the church uh our locally church here isn't doing or a weakness that we have, which every church has a weakness somewhere, maybe either A, we can do like what people were saying, and we can come up with a way to figure out how we can bolster this internally. Well, I can I can already tell you there's probably a million reasons why either if you're leadership like at a small church where maybe you have limited resources, maybe you have limited people, like volunteer-wise, where you're like, okay, maybe this isn't something that we can facilitate. It just seems ridiculous to be like, oh yeah, but we're not gonna have somebody come in and actually help us do this that can then provide those volunteers, that can provide those resources, that can do all this stuff that this thing that the church needs, but we're not kind of able to do on our own. This is a ministry that can then help us do that. To me, it just like, you know, I I I um I'm thinking, okay, and and the reason I brought up the church planning thing is because whenever anyone talks about church planning, that's when we're thinking big picture. Oh yeah, this is to expand and edify the church, big church. But then when it comes to a parachurch ministry that's talking about a specific thing, that's when we're all of a sudden like, oh, well, we just got to think about what's going on here, that right here. And it's like, you know, but like especially when it's something that comes to prayer. Like, as as flawed as IHOP was, I see that as like that was a ministry that was trying to serve the greater body of the church. Just like in church planning, you're serving the greater body where you're going out. And when you plant that church, sure it might be coming out of another church, and there might be some kind of you know, association. I mean, you have more experience with church planning, so you probably understand this process better, where there's a little bit of the leadership from the old church, but then at some point that church then becomes its own thing. Yeah. Um, you know, and I but I I think that to me, I don't I don't see why those two things can't be viewed the same.
SPEAKER_11Yeah. Well, and I'd say if I had to identify, having gone through the IHOP internship and everything, if I had to identify certain things that I think were very destructive, and then some things that were very good, I'd say some things that were destructive to that ministry was their ministry was built on a prophetic experience of a person currently, instead of built on just a scriptural mandate and then have things like um the prophetic utterance support just the scriptural mandate. Right. Um, that I that was not good. That's you don't want your ministry built on the vision or prophetic utterance of a per single person.
SPEAKER_06Right. Because then in rather than everything having to be controlled by the truth of scripture, which is which cannot be wrong, instead, everything is measured against and controlled by how it serves that person's prophetic experience or their you know, prophetic revelation, which they could have not actually received, they could have received but misunderstood, they could have received but delivered badly, you know. Yeah, yeah. There's so many variables there with so yeah, you're right. That's a very dangerous place to start. Yeah.
SPEAKER_11Yeah, you should never start there. Um uh and what that leads into is all the teaching and all the theology is based around that one thing. Uh and if your church is formed from that, then they're all Only talking about the one thing. They're not talking about anything else that we're supposed to do or mandated to do. Um and then I think maybe the other uh I'd say maybe one of the other issues was um I'm sorry, I've got some notes here.
SPEAKER_08No, it's not good. Um one of the one of the things I'm thinking of while Michael's looking for that, one of the things I'm thinking of too is uh I guess the thing that comes to my mind is do you think, and I guess Pat Patrick, I I um because one like while we're waiting for Michael, the do you think that there is maybe something that can be improved with the relationship between church, churches, church leadership and these parachurch ministries that can because one thing that I guess is a big thing that we're talking about, we're talking about these ministries being more based off scripture, more being grounded in like those things. Do you think there's something that can be done to kind of you know help improve the confidence that maybe churches can have in these ministries?
SPEAKER_11I've got can I answer this? Oh, you go ahead. Okay. So um another issue that um I identified was this issue of this is the place where it's really happening. You have to come here. Right. There's an exclusive kind of that's oh, I gotcha. And even at churches, I see this where it's like, man, the real power is here. Right. And this is a real danger for churches that exercise spiritual gifts, a very big danger with with churches in that, because um a move of the spirit will happen, and then it's like, oh, the power is here. No, no, the temple, we worship in spirit and truth, not on the mountain, not in Jerusalem. Yeah, but we worship in spirit and truth. And it's really important to maintain that new covenant, my my uh spirit we poured out on all flesh. Uh, it's in the it biblically in the new covenant, it is not in one geographic spot. It is not in one building, it's not in one prayer room. Um, and so that's something else that I saw was was problematic. But some of the really beautiful things that I experienced were there too. A dedication, like a belief in the power of prayer, like God calls us to pray day and night in Luke 18, right? Um, the beauty of like, hey, we're gonna this space is dedicated for this only. And when I go here, this is what I'm doing. Um, for me, it provided a lot of accountability. Like I'm going to do this thing. Um, and that's what I'm expected to do when I'm there. That really encouraged me. Um, when I led worship for some prayer sets, it actually freed me because I was kind of I was really burnt out. I was a worship leader at a church before, and I was really burnt out on it, on all the process and everything. And I went and got to lead worship sets where it wasn't about me performing for anybody, and I didn't actually have to lead other people in this instance. I got to just talk to the Lord with it. And um I needed that. It was really edifying for me in the terms of worship space. Um fasting, regular fasting, and saying, hey, this is part of our culture. We do this because he says that's part of his return. And even the focus on his return, that's something that's gotten a lot of scrutiny with iHop, like, oh man, people abandon their lives or put their lives on hold because Jesus is coming back now and stuff. While I admit there can be a danger of the over-emphasis, like, don't live your real life, that's bad. Yeah. Uh yeah. Um, the good part is I learned like, hey, we should have, we should really strongly desire the return of the Lord and be praying about that and asking for it. And that should be a key part of our lives and our thinking is Jesus will return. And we want that. What are we doing to bring that about? Are we fulfilling the great the what's the purpose of fulfilling the great commission? So Jesus will return. That's the purpose. Um, what's the making disciples and and you know, doing the Great Commission? That's what our call is as a church. Is Jesus return? Are we praying for that? Are we pressing in with the Lord for it? Is it something we think about? So things like that um are things that came out of that para-church ministry. And I know many people who I know some people who were hurt by that ministry, but who are also acknowledged the things that were such a blessing and and things they grew in. So all that to say, we're not endorsing, we're not endorsing IHOP.
SPEAKER_08What I'm saying is But you're talking about how the fallout of that has then affected the perception of just para-church ministry and general.
SPEAKER_11And especially prayer and worship. It's the prayer and worship parachurch ministry scene. Um it feels kind of toxic right now. Like people, people don't want to touch it because it's all, oh, well, that should just be a church ministry. I d I think that's a overcorrection. Yeah. I think it's an over and I've experienced the other side of that overcorrection. Um, and it's also very unhealthy if you go, if you overcorrect too far.
SPEAKER_08So maybe we should talk about, um, I guess, uh, you know, as we're as we're going through this, what are the what are the benefits of a parachurch ministry? Because the conversation that we're talking about is, okay, this is a trend that we're seeing that people are kind of going away from that. But so what is it that we can say this is like, hey, this is what can be gained from these ministries from your guys' perspective?
SPEAKER_06It feels to me like what a parachurch, this is just my perception, but it feels like what a parachurch ministry is trying to accomplish is where one local church may have a hard time gathering all the resources and people in order to really spotlight something that's important to the Lord. Uh, you can you could create a ministry and then lots of churches, people from different churches from different parts of the world, could all gather together under the umbrella of putting a spotlight on this one thing that's important to the Lord. I think that's the heart. I think that's what parishurch ministries are trying to do, whether it's prayer or orphan care or whatever, you know? Yeah. It's like my local church, this is important to my local church, but my local church doesn't have the resources. But if we create an organization where people from a lot of churches that the Lord's really put that on their heart, they can come and invest in this issue, then it's like, okay, I get that. But I guess the pushback to that would be well, but if every local church is just doing what they can, using the resources the Lord's given them, the gifts that the Lord's given them, then the collective effort of all these local churches being who God's created them to be will have the effect that God wants it to have, you know. I understand it from both perspectives, you know.
SPEAKER_11I yeah, but that's but no, but the thing is, um, church is not designed to be single issue. No. That's the point. Like they're not they're not supposed to be. They're supposed to be a body that's well rounded. So they can't pour in everything unless the church, unless it's you know, a huge church that has insane resources, there's no way for them to really affect change and and and do this thing really well.
SPEAKER_06Well, not not on a massive scale that's outside the realm of that local church's influence.
SPEAKER_08I guess that's what I'm saying is Yeah, like you're saying, like within like within within a reason that a church would then give to a particular issue if everyone did their part. I guess for me, I see it as the parachurch ministry's function then in that scenario would be if all these churches are kind of like, you know, doing their thing and then collectively, I think the parachurch ministry is probably where that then probably gets better managed because it's not just like because when you're talking about a bunch of different churches that are then working together, um, there's obviously dynamics there that you kind of have to navigate. And typically if you have like a ministry that's in the middle managing all that, that typically is what makes it a little bit easier. Like, for instance, would you consider, and this might be kind of like I don't, I don't, once again, this might just be my my ignorance. Would you consider something like HCPN, a para-church ministry? It's really it's a bunch of different churches that are all coming together. It's a thing where it's collects all these resources and then it assists in this ministry of church planning. Yeah. Like if we see that as like a pair that like that's an example of uh, oh yeah, that actually is a huge help and something that a lot of the churches that are involved with that network probably needs.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, so just for viewers, HCPN is Houston Church Planting Network, which is a network of churches who are all passionate about planting new churches to see the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, like for instance, like uh My Church Vertical Life, we are part of the GCC, which is pretty much pretty similar to HCPN, where it's basically fellowship of churches where a lot of it is uh where it revolves around church planning and um uh alloc uh uh um accumulating and allocating resources to help with planning churches. Yeah. Um, and so that like to me, that so, but then again, like you said, usually this gets more sensitive when it comes to prayer and worship. So, in that sense, what do you think is sort of the shift in perspective when it comes then to the prayer and worship side of it versus like the church planning side of it, which I mean seems to be, like I said, it seems to be easier thing for people to grasp.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, there's very few people saying that something like HCPN, oh, all these churches getting together and collecting their resources in order to plant churches. Very few people are being like, ah, I hate these parachurch ministries.
SPEAKER_11Missions, missions, trafficking ministry, orphan care. Yeah, those are easy cells. Nob nobody hates that. Easy cells. Um so I'm not totally unbiased. We're not because we do have a parachurch prayer organization. We do oh yeah. Oh, oh we've advertised it two or more. So yeah. Uh so my experience in in trying to help people understand the vision of two or more and why it exists, um, is that there's kind of a stigma, especially in the churches we're trying to help Bible-centric churches. This, like, why would we get an outside person to do prayer with? We could do this on our own. And because it seems like the church. The truth is um the reason that two or more exist is because prayer, corporate prayer, and real investment in it is a low priority, to be honest. If I'm being completely honest, it's it's it's a priority because everyone in a Bible-centric space will acknowledge prayer is biblical, but it's a low priority. And what is a high priority are the action items and the things with more tangible results.
SPEAKER_06Is that what you mean?
SPEAKER_11The things with more tangible results, the things that um Dwayne Deep prayer is not on like the heavy discipleship list. Like the heavy discipleship list is teach somebody to go fish, do evangelism, um, which many of these churches don't really do that either. Um, but they know they should at least. Yeah. Or like an internal ministry. Or yeah, and it's all internal. And um, so what I would say is so like I think a healthy para-church organization is supporting local church, not supplanting it, not trying to be its own thing, not growing a church out of it, but it's actually supporting local church.
SPEAKER_08It's the the one analogy that I was thinking of, uh, my my wife's a fitness trainer, she works for Orange Theory. Like, to me, I'm thinking of prayer and worship is like exercise. It's like the fitness. And like the average person isn't sitting around saying, Oh, I need to make sure I'm getting exercise in. Oh, I'm making sure that I'm getting like the right calories, that my diet is right, that all this stuff. But then over time, you see the signs of them not taking care of their body. And like, and but what a fitness trainer does is they say, Okay, look, you're the one doing these workouts, you can do these things. But the fitness trainer is the one that's actually helping you and pushing you to continue to do it well. It's showing you how you can do it well. Like if you have terrible form and you're about to break your bones because you're doing a workout the wrong way, a fitness trainer is gonna help you do that. If you're trying to figure out what's something that you can do to improve a certain aspect of your health, usually like a trainer, a nutritionist, somebody like that helps you with that. In the same way, like I feel like, like you said, it's not the trainer saying, Oh, I'm gonna do this workout for you, oh, I'm trying to like do this whole thing. But it's like, no, I'm supporting you and I'm helping you, and I'm being uh another voice that's then pushing you to recognize that this is an important thing that you need to keep up. And if you don't keep it up, it's actually going to affect your health in the long run. And I think that's kind of the thing.
SPEAKER_11And it'll affect all those other things you want to do.
SPEAKER_08It'll affect all the, yeah, it'll affect all the other stuff that you're trying to do.
SPEAKER_11It's like your job. Let's say your job requires you to work out, you know. Um, I I have a job that's heavy labor and I need to work. It's like a terrible job. Okay, you have a great desk job. They fire me. Okay, you have an amazing desk job, and you have to study for that desk job really hard to be able to keep up with the things that you need to know, right? Yeah. So you don't study, you just do the job. That's the action items, right? The evangelism, the traffic ministry, all that stuff that's really good and valuable and important to the Lord.
SPEAKER_08Yeah.
SPEAKER_11Um, but you're not doing the study part. And so you become less and less able to do it well because you're not, you're not exercising. You're not exercising the muscle you need to.
SPEAKER_06Yeah. So it sounds like what we're saying is when parachurch ministry is done well, yeah, it really is serving and nourishing and building the body of Christ because it's members of the body of Christ gifted and specializing in a certain aspect of, you know, something that's really important to the Lord, um, they're they're stepping outside and saying, Hey, anybody else who really needs this, I'm here to strengthen, I'm here to build up, I'm here to shine a light on it. Because honestly, it feels like if we are gonna say uh that stepping outside of the authority of local church in order to accomplish ministry, then we all need we need to shut down all the seminaries. There's a nice big one. We need to shut down the seminaries because they're not operating under the authority of a local church. Yeah. Uh so get rid of those. Uh all the orphan care ministries and feed the hungry ministries, admissions organizations all have to be shut down. I'm not sure everybody's ready. Maybe I mean, maybe somebody's watching right now and they're like, amen, brother.
SPEAKER_08But maybe probably not. I think like Michael Michael was saying before, that might be something that's easy to say if you go to like a mega church where you guys have all those resources. Where it feels like a whole city, yeah, and it's like, okay, yeah, no problem. We can just do that. But it's like that's not actually what the average church looks like.
SPEAKER_06It it just feels to me like I I understand the logic of the local church is the vehicle of you know, the the ministries, the the spirit gifted, empowered ministries that Jesus gave us to do. Yeah, yeah. He entrusted to us, and the the local church should be carrying out all the things that are important to God. Yes. Yeah. Uh who's disagreeing with that? You know, no one. No. Nobody disagrees with that. We want every church to be completely healthy and equipped and and operating under the Spirit's wisdom and power, of course. Uh, but it also if you kind of back up a little bit and you go, well, what if a Christian steps outside and other Christians get together on one issue like prophecy or like prayer or like feeding the hungry or like taking care of orphans, yeah, or like planting churches in a hard place where, you know. It feels like why why of course that can go badly, but is it a bad idea? I don't think it's a bad idea. It's a unifying idea. It's actually people from multiple churches coming together.
SPEAKER_08I think what it comes down to, like I was saying, when I'm talking about like big church or like not even just like big church. I think what what what to me what it seems like is why would I as a local church think that like if I know the Lord's work is being done in a way that my church, you know, either can't, because we like I said, we don't have the resources, we haven't gotten around to doing it for whatever reason.
SPEAKER_06Like they haven't gotten around to it.
SPEAKER_08Sometimes that I was like like beyond it, like sometimes that's kind of that's like kind of a part of it, but I think it's just kind of like, you know, um if the Lord's work is being done, that is more important than being able to say, oh, we have full control over this, we have a full grasp of what's going on here, oh, we have like this is this is something that's under our authority.
SPEAKER_06Our church is good at everything.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, and I think that like to for me, it like what it comes down to is I think that you have to respect the plight that the leaders have in wanting to make sure that, okay, hey, I want to make sure that if we're involved with something, that is something that is something that the Lord wants, that is something that's gonna be productive, you know, for the community and for our congregation. But at the same time, I think it does take a degree of humility to say, oh, this is something that we can't do that somebody else is helping us with. That actually would be a really good idea to support and be a part of. And I think that um, you know, um, it is tricky because even the example that you're using there, it's like, oh, somebody that steps out that have a certain has a certain heart for something, and then they go and co like uh commune with maybe people from other different churches that then create this ministry. To me, like I don't I don't know. To me, that's just the body of Christ at work. Like that's just one organ, that's one, that's one of the organs doing its thing. And it's like, I don't like that shouldn't be stifled. I think that should be like something that where it's like, okay, yeah, let's let's let's work with that and to whatever fear there might be, yeah, like you know, put it under whatever necessary scrutiny it needs to be. Make sure they're doing stuff based off of scripture, yeah. Make sure they're doing things like you know, properly. Like, I think that's fair, you know, because you don't want anybody developing anything that's like cult-like, you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_06Well, yeah, but and honestly, if this if these are Christians from churches coming together and and trying to operate in biblical ways to serve the Lord under the Spirit's guidance and power, uh, then if it's wrong, if it's unbiblical, if uh if it's clearly a different spirit at work, if there's some kind of error involved, then the church can all all the Christians can look at it and go, no, yeah, that's not good. Yeah. And we don't participate in it. Yeah. You know, and it dies because it should.
SPEAKER_11Which happens all the time.
SPEAKER_06Which yeah, which happens. Yeah. But then it's also true and unfortunate that people start parachurch ministries from in some spirit that is not holy. Exactly. And to serve themselves and to serve an unbiblical goal, and then it's not discerned and recognized, and people get deceived.
SPEAKER_08I think to your point, and hurt. I think a big sign is that if you feel like you're starting something out of spite, yeah, it's probably not the best idea. Just in general. Well, yeah.
SPEAKER_11Yeah. And that that leads to like some important things that you need, I think, when you're starting a para church ministry, and even when you're doing prayer, you should have the covering of your church. Yeah, your church should be glad you're there. They should be glad and they should be involved. Yeah. Um, so two or more is um Patrick is the pastor of our church, and he's on the board and he's involved, and he blesses that ministry. Um, people in our church get involved in the ministry. John's involved in the ministry. Um, so I that's one thing you really need. But to talk to the people who are not wanting to get a para-church repair ministry involved, um isolationism is not helping your people. It's not. Being all about your one thing is not helping your people. I I know you think it is, but it's not. It's not helping them. It's developing a spirit of superiority and self righteousness and your attempts that are beautiful to pastor and protect them uh when you're walling them in and acting like they don't have any spirit of discernment at all whatsoever in them, um and really honestly starting to. take more of an authoritarian position in their life, that's not helping them. You are hurting them if you're not going to let them touch or see or hear anything. And if they don't have a bigger if that they need to have a community view, but they also have to have a big church view because God's church is big. It's not just your community only.
SPEAKER_08Yeah.
SPEAKER_11Um and there are parachurch organizations that can help you. They can help you do that. Um I think what you look for in a healthy parachurch organization, once again I'm going to be biased, but I'll I'll I'll use two or more as an example here of some things that we've done that I think are good. One, um, our prayer ministry is not a come place like, hey, come to this building and do this and be part of our ministry. We've always been about hey we want to help you build prayer culture in your church. We want to see it come about there. How can we do that with you?
SPEAKER_08Yeah. Like the fitness trainer.
SPEAKER_06Yeah. Like yeah, you'll you'll know this is working because your church is getting healthier. Yeah. Not because our ministry is getting more money or more, you know, notoriety or something. No, it's because your local church is being blessed and encouraged and built up.
SPEAKER_11Yeah. And that's all we want out of it. We want to see abiding prayer culture in in all churches. And we we target Bible centric churches because we know the Lord's called us to help them with this specifically. So I think that's a really healthy indicator. I think another one is church covering like I said you you should have the blessing of your church and and we've we've made sure that we operate in that. And then I'd say having if your parachurch organization doesn't have a high or a a view of the value of church also that's really important for you to have. So an example um Gatherhouse is a ministry that's starting a prayer ministry that is going to be at one location. Right now they meet at several different churches and have worship leaders from different churches come in. They're still going to have different churches involved but they are making a space that's going to be 246 not 247. Why I've talked to Ryan King he says I want people going to church.
SPEAKER_10Yeah.
SPEAKER_11Yeah. And I want them involved in their church and I want that space to be able to you be used for a church. So we're going to do 24-6 prayer but we're not going to do and worship we're not going to do 24-7.
SPEAKER_08I love that yeah yeah because it is about bolstering the culture of the church. It's not about just a ministry trying to take over like we want to bolster the culture of the church and I think that like the the thing that can came to my mind here is that you know it might seem like this is just hour long ad for two or more. It's not what this is is actually just us being like hey when it comes to these parachurchies when it comes to these parachurch ministries I think what we've seen at least you know to my view in recent history is that the broader culture of the church specifically like the American church in both good ways and bad ways have been affected by these parachurch ministries because you know local churches that isolate like you said I mean what happens happens to them. But when we're talking about how all these churches are then interacting with each other, when we're talking about how people's um theologies and the way that they're interpreting scripture and the way they're actually practicing things properly, these are being affected by the parachurch ministries that are actually interacting across the broader church. So I think that when we're talking about wanting to you know what the thing that would be the best case scenario is not just us sitting around here saying oh look at how great two or more is and how we're doing but we can say wow look at how the prayer culture has has been been like increased and enhanced across churches. Yeah. Wow let's look and see how these missions have been going with all these different churches look and see how like how worship has been bolstered like across these different churches that's what we want to be able to say we you know and so you know not all parachurch ministries are good. Get rid of the bad ones like fight against those like seriously but if there's one coming around and it's like hey we're trying to help and and like you said I think that's a good signifier. If it's a ministry that's saying oh we're doing all this stuff and you just let us do that and you come to our place versus a hey this is us trying to help you guys do something in your church that's a good sign. If it's something that's saying we're coming to help you so that you guys can be healthy and do things well then I think that that's not something to to pass on.
SPEAKER_06Yeah. I I feel like um you brought up HCPN earlier and I I feel like that's such a great model yeah that that I think maybe if that kind of model became more popular not just about church planting but about like prayer and worship about orphan care about traffic and ministry or whatever you know take that model of all these churches are coming together to collectively invest in this and participate in this so that you don't have some individuals coming and highlighting an issue but you have churches coming and highlighting an issue and then it becomes like what I've been thinking as I've listened to you guys talk is you know like in you read in the Bible and it's like take for example like the book of Revelation Jesus says to the church in Ephesus Yeah well there would have been a lot of local churches you know more than one you know local church gathering probably several homes filled with people and um or or even public places. So the church in Ephesus means the collective church all the believers in that place you know and maybe that's the idea we need to have about parachurch ministry is like these are people coming from different congregations but coming together in order to serve God's vision. And if we can do that together and not make it something other than the mission of the church but it's just this is all these churches sending representatives to come and serve churches and serve the mission maybe there's a different mindset there instead of just oh it's a nonprofit organization and it's got its own bylaws and boards and these kinds of things and it's completely independent from the life of the church. It's not about the church. It's about this issue or it's about this person's vision or about fulfilling this person's prophetic word. What if it just became this is obviously important to Jesus and to his church so churches should invest in it and do it citywide or region wide or globally or on whatever scale yeah I I like that um I do think you do have to recognize it has to start somewhere like it goes in seasons.
SPEAKER_11So like I started two or more it's I didn't really have maybe one church that believed in me which was you know Patrick and open doors which were we even around yeah I guess we were around but we're just kind of just starting and uh so but then Genesis did and you know allowed me to have a prayer meeting there. Um but it it was man I have tried to talk so many pastors into this vision and fell in totally flat. People I love and respect still love and respect. But like they just don't a parachurch prayer ministry like why? Um but over time even though you know it's it's taking time okay one church is they're kind of starting to get it okay the pastors started coming to this prayer meeting sometimes it takes a while and it does take some some vision of one or a few people to get it going. Like you do have to have something like that to get it going. But as long as it has a biblical foundation and the idea is to it's for loc, it's by local churches for local churches is the big idea. Yeah yeah yeah um that's what we yes ultimately we should want it to be that way instead of being this ministry that is always driven by the vision of one person. Right uh and always executed by one church or one person. I I fully agree with that. Totally so and I and that's why I mean I am a local church guy 100% and the church is supposed to fulfill all the ministries um that are listed in the Bible.
SPEAKER_08It's supposed to be a full well-rounded body um but the universal church can also mean the the big sea church the the whole church of God in the earth uh can help each other and we should help each other is literally what Jesus said that we should all be that we should all be one in the sense that we we always have to keep in mind that every single person that is a believer that's a follower of Christ we're all working together. Like and we have to find ways to do that. Yeah and I don't think that like that you know that and that's that's what Christ wants.
SPEAKER_11Yeah and I think a church that is isolationist and our vision only is just as bad as a parachurch ministry that's that way. To be honest is just as bad. Once again usually it's extremely well intentioned it's a pastor who you know or an organization who has this person who um who wants to protect yeah the people and the vision.
SPEAKER_08They want to I say that's a probably eighty eighty to ninety percent of the time that's the case.
SPEAKER_11That's what they want but that protectionism and isolation creates a barrier and creates a superiority mindset.
SPEAKER_06I promise you it does because I've experienced it and I was discipled in it and um I I was discipled in a context where I learned so many beautiful valuable things and I still love those people but I have to tell you that one aspect I it took me time to accept that other believers had some good ideas too you know outside of you know a couple of prescribed ones you know I've been rebuked by people I've been rebu rebuked by a pastor for having a podcast while in the same conversation being told how proud they are that their kids listen to MacArthur and and that's just one of those things I love them dearly I love them so much I've made peace with them even about that and I told them hey I listen I respect this you know um but at the same time like understand that doesn't make any sense that's hypocritical to be honest to take that position yeah I I really just think it this issue the whole issue of like is parachurch ministry legitimate is it biblical is it worth you know investing in or whatever um I think it comes down to it's the same issue that everything is what is the heart? Yeah what's what's the spirit of it you know like you can do you can take a good thing and make it bad um so it's like like people Christians gathering together around a very biblical issue that's important to God and focusing a lot of attention and energy on that you just on its face you just can't say that's bad. You know it's like oh but are they all members of the same church? No. Oh now it's bad then you can't do that. Yeah but but it is possible for that to be done badly yeah you know like for the for for issues for reasons that we've brought up in you know in the last however long it's been since we started talking about this it can go badly so like if it's based on someone's prophetic vision and everything has to become obedient to that prophetic vision that's not a good start if it's in rebellion or in in some kind of like bitterness against the church I'm sick of the church the church is too full of bureaucracy or there's too many we need to get more efficient. Let's start a parachurch ministry. No, that's a bad start you know don't right that's not good thinking you know um this kind of stuff like we we need to just do good things for good reasons. Right. I know that's not like the most revolutionary I know it doesn't but the thing is that's pretty revolutionary. Like you could revolutionize ministry yeah if it was just do good things for good reasons not self-serving reasons not self-aggrandizing reasons. You know what I mean no savior complexes.
SPEAKER_08And I think the one thing as an encouragement to churches that get involved and I think this is like the thing about when I talk about the relationship between these parachurch ministries and the churches to me it's like okay a lot of parachurch ministries are people doing good things for good reasons. And then over time you see the evolution of it because you know by some way they end up getting corrupted by whatever it could be. Yeah. I think that's why the involvement of each church is so important and why the leader and why the involvement of the leaders in these churches are important too because like it's not like we want to protect the good thing for the good reason that we did that we're doing the good thing. Right. And you know even and like even if you say okay this ministry is being run and that's why like the decentralized idea is is actually really great because now what you're doing is you're getting you're you're allowing each church to influence the ministry in a way to where it's like okay hey this ministry is like guiding us but then at the same time if we if we notice something that is really whacked out we can identify it and address it and then that become like a oh yeah we don't want to be doing that.
SPEAKER_11Yeah.
SPEAKER_08You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_11Well and tourmore is in a process of decentralizing a lot of the work from me to have different people in different things and different prominence space things in it and stuff because I don't want it to be about me. I really really don't want it to be about me. Neither does anyone else exactly well no Michael actually you guys are funny. But the crazy thing is actually in truth people do want it to be about a king people do love a celebrity they love a king do like a king and isn't that funny part of it is I I don't even fully understand this part of our nature but the fact that we just want a king so badly um well we do need a king we need the right king we need the right we need the right king the the actual king the only one actual king.
SPEAKER_06Yeah but it but human nature is to elevate a person that you can see and hear and hug. Yeah you know and try the things that you should be receiving from Jesus yeah you want to be able to receive from someone more tangible. Yeah and you know have their cell phone number or whatever sit in their seminar.
SPEAKER_11Well we're dropping another subject for another day now there.
SPEAKER_08No let's do it spiritual spiritual mothers and fathers and that idea that that's that's got to be another episode that's another can of words that's a whole nother episode but that might even be like when we're talking about people wanting something tangible I think that's a lot of the motivation for people as like we I think we talked about it way early in the podcast people having like more of like a high church high organization mindset because the organization is tangible right so it's like we can trust in the organization and we can even justify how the organization might be better than even just one person because if the organization has this structure everybody can fall on that and discern things like from the organization you know but then like once again it becomes okay at what point then are we relying more on the organization than we are actually on scripture and what and what Jesus wants?
SPEAKER_06I I really feel like if um the the issue of unhealthy or unbiblical parachurch ministries that are hurting instead of helping and who and organizations that breed sin where sin can run rampant without being recognized or called out or held accountable and and people with bad motives who are self-serving can rise to very high influential positions. The I think I feel like the antidote to that is Christians being members of local churches that care about them and are are partnering with them to discern what's good and what's from God. So when they say hey hey my elders there's this parachurch ministry that's focused on this issue that really matters to me and I'm thinking about becoming a part of this or serving this organization and the elders go well we love you and care about you and want to discern if this is good so let's partner together to discern this let's let's interview them let's inspect this let's let's judge it together.
SPEAKER_11Let me ask you this though when you're in a context either you're in a huge church where you can't even touch the elders because there's just too many people which is a problem or you're in a church where they won't listen to you. They won't they don't have time to meet with you even if it's not a huge church but it's just like we're that's not a priority for us right now we're doing XYZ so that's really discouraging. What do you do? Like what what are you supposed to do? What do you think? You guys you guys want me to say it you're a pastor so I I yeah you you know better than us.
SPEAKER_06I think it's a we're just worship pastors we're just worship pastors you just want me to say it you want me to say the thing I don't know what's the answer I'm sorry what's the name of the show right well what it feels like is if you're part of a church where the elders are untouchable unreachable and have no time for you you probably need to find a church where the elders have time for you and are reachable and know you and care about you.
SPEAKER_08Because that might be that's it wait John think and say that say it's it's just the best it's it's perfect. Mine's not there yet Yeah but I think um yeah it's like it's like one of those things where um and uh what I was even going to say is is like when finding a church where you have leadership that has time for you that's probably a huge thing. One thing that I thought too is is that I think that you know if you can't talk to your leaders and you're trying to discern well you're where's your leader going to go your leader's going to go to scripture. So that's why I like hopefully yeah hopefully so even if you can't talk to your leader immediately for you know whatever reason they don't have time all this different stuff then we have access to scripture you know we have act and like we can discern like okay hey what this ministry is doing you know whatever passages they're referencing whatever kind of theology that they have oh like if I go to scripture is that something that I actually can see and identify like really within the context of uh of scripture and then of course like we said you you pray about it you let the Holy Spirit inform you in that way too that's if that's that's to me that's what you can do if you truly are on your own and you have nowhere to go like then what you have is you have scripture and you have the Holy Spirit in you. You know you have you you you have your um communion with the Lord in prayer. Well we talked a lot about parachurch but prayer ministries specifically let's say prayer rooms you think prayer rooms are dead I hope not I I mean yeah I I I would hope not I mean I think there's I always think there's gonna be some need for them you know and I think that there are going to be people that are going to want to have them you know like I think the only way that we could say that they're dead is if people are just totally not interested anymore and nobody's looking for it. But I think there's always going to be people But you do think that prayer room ministry can be a win.
SPEAKER_06So I think your your question is have has has prayer ministries prayer room ministry that kind of stuff kind of jumped a shark and now it's like it's got there's such a bad taste in everyone's mouth that it's like nobody wants to do that anymore.
SPEAKER_08What I will say prayer rooms I think may not be dead as much as they are probably going to end up just getting absorbed within like the local churches probably so maybe dead in the sense of them being parachurch ministries maybe but I feel like what you're probably gonna have is a lot of churches that take the idea of a prayer room and they just kind of you know they just kind of take it in for themselves I think would be the more likely outcome. So what'll happen is is that the only way that you really get to experience a prayer room is when you join a church. That would be you know join a church. Wow well that would be that would be that would that would be my guess.
SPEAKER_11I would say a healthy outworking has been so we have a friend and a partner with two or more who does something called Houston praise 247.
SPEAKER_08I was just about to say we were talking about this before I was like, shout out to Lorenz. Yeah.
SPEAKER_11Yeah. So Houston Praise 24-7 is doing 24-7 prayer, but it's doing it via live stream and it's pulling it in from all different churches, yeah, prayer meetings and prayer rooms and stuff. So it's unifying, not around you come here and be part of our ministry. It's going, hey, all these churches are doing these prayer ministries. You want to check it out? Be a part online, or come then they can see it online. And that's the art of two or more too is have prayer meetings where you can go to and get involved or get an idea of what it can look like at your church. And then take that to your church. That's the best thing. Our our ideal outcome at Two or More is you come to an overnight. We do overnight prayer meetings. You should come, check it out on our website, two or more.org. And you experience the power of the Lord, the Holy Spirit, you experience a abiding prayer you've never experienced before, and it's just really powerful. And then you go, hey, I want to do this at our church. And we have material that can help you like have some practical ways to start a prayer meeting and just start doing. That's all that we want out of this. We don't want people like we don't want our it's not about our overnights growing to 500,000 people and it being on all over the internet and on television and everything. It's about um people taking it back and doing that at their church. That's all we want is for you to do it there.
SPEAKER_08We're not trying to construct a Mecca, we're building a kingdom. That's a good word. I just thought of that just now. What's a Mecca? A Mecca? Oh, that's like uh Mecca is like it's Islam. Like if you say it that way, it's like the place to go to. The Mecca, because Mecca is a place that in Islam they pilgrimage to that's the holy thing is to go to the holy place. It's the place technology.
SPEAKER_11Oh Two or more is not the place to go. In fact, we don't have a building. We do have a podcast studio, but we are the building. Um try to crowd a bunch of people in this little room here. But I think even a centralized building like the gather house idea, when you're pulling a bunch of churches into it, and then you're also saying, hey, we're still dedicated to you being with your local church. We're not trying to replace your church. We're not trying to replace your church. And this calling is not replacing your church. Yeah. This is not the higher vision, the higher calling, the whatever. Yeah. This just pleases the Lord, and it's a unifying thing for us to come together and do this.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, it's meant to strengthen your church.
SPEAKER_11Yeah. Yeah. I think that even the centralized place can be an asset to the kingdom of the Lord. Yeah. Because it still is about helping local churches and and the kingdom expand through church.
SPEAKER_06Right. And and it just needs to uh every parachurch ministry should be uh really uh doing everything they can to just be savagely Christ-centered.
SPEAKER_08Yeah.
SPEAKER_06Not leader-centered, not man-centered, not even results-centered, or miss it's Christ-centered. It's all about him, for him, but you know, I think if that's a really primary stated objective, then when it when it gets off those rails, it becomes very obvious. And everybody in the organization can go, and all the churches can go, and that's a good thing because it's gotten off.
SPEAKER_11Yeah. I heard um one of the remnant radio guys say it the other day. He said, Um you want the deeper knowledge. We already have all the deeper knowledge we need. We have the gospel, we have Jesus. Like we don't that that's it.
SPEAKER_10Yeah.
SPEAKER_11We've got it. Yeah, we got the deepest thing. We got it. We got the deepest thing. That's what First Corinthians essentially first Corinthians 2 talks about when Jesus says or when Paul says have the mind of Christ and all those things, it talks about the deeper things of God. Um, and I think God reveals things to us about him. He reveals more about the gospel, he shows us more on the emotional, spiritual, mental level than we could ever fathom as we go deeper with him. But it's just more about that. It's not some new thing, but it's just more about that. Right. And um and how we we live our lives in incongruence with that. That's what we want. That's what we want to do. So thanks for tuning in. Sorry. I was discipled up in a wonderful church that was very Bible-centric, which just means, you know, they love the Bible, love studying the Bible, and there was a great emphasis on evangelism, but we didn't have much emphasis on corporate prayer. And so I I just didn't really understand how to approach God.
SPEAKER_03A lot of people are in the same boat that I'm in, where we value prayer, we know it's important, we value gifts of the Spirit, but we just don't know how.
SPEAKER_07I can recall when we had uh just two minutes of silence at our church just to stop everything and focus on God and how unsettling that was just to be still for two minutes.
SPEAKER_06Prayer is like this suitcase that's filled with a lot of things. These things can be daunting, hard to measure, hard to control. It can feel less like a suitcase and more like Pandora's box for a lot of churches, you know? Like what if we really press in here, what's gonna happen?
SPEAKER_09What kind of church are we gonna become? I mean, God's throne of grace is not just this simple thing that we just go into like a like a store. I mean, we are talking about a holy, majestic, wonderful God, but he welcomes his children with open arms.
SPEAKER_11One day in Africa I was praying, and I felt like the Lord was encouraging me that I would be part of a prayer movement among Bible-centric churches like the one I came out of. The Lord brought that word back to me with Matthew 18, 20, where two or three are gathered in my name, there I'm among them. Two or more can actually come alongside and help give people a framework for prayer that's biblical, a framework for relationship with God that is biblical, and just help people go, hey, let's actually make space for the Spirit of God to do things he did in the Bible.
SPEAKER_00When you're praying with two or more, there's an agreement there with God's word and with God Himself, and there's power in that.
SPEAKER_04First of all, he tells us we need to pray. It's all on him, and that is a double blessing, a double glory to God. Unless God truly does move, nothing will happen. You know, Jesus says, apart from me, you can do nothing. That is very true, you know.
SPEAKER_06Whether a church is already a praying church or struggling to become a praying church, and I don't mean there's a prayer meeting every so often, but there's a culture of prayer, of dependence on the Lord, of expectancy. Two or more is just so helpful, so practical. Just through the leadership of the scriptures, really, bringing what the scriptures say all together with faith and with obedience to just kind of break through a bit and get us into a different place where we really know we're sitting at the feet of Jesus and He's listening closely and He's speaking.
SPEAKER_05It is a good tool for encouraging the practice of prayer among the members of your church, giving them an outlet, giving them a tool to reach out and connect with other believers on a regular basis to pray together.
SPEAKER_01Group of men that pray together come from multiple different churches when you really begin to pray. Full heartfelt prayers. I think there's just a fellowship of the Holy Spirit that happens in that place that really brings a unity.
SPEAKER_11So we have a number of ways to get involved. If it's like, hey, you're in a Bible-centric church, you hear this, and you're like, oh, we need that. We need more prayer in our church, I want to try this. Get connected with me and we'd love to start a prayer meeting at your church.
SPEAKER_07Is there anything more valuable that your congregation could be doing than praying? You know, if we've got if we've got time for Sunday school, and if we have time for youth group, and if we have time for all the other ancillary activities that take place in a local congregation, we ought to have time, a dedicated time for prayer.
SPEAKER_06The God who created everything listens to us. Jesus died for us so that we could be cleansed and made righteous, and we could approach the throne of grace with confidence to find mercy in our time of need. He wants to partner with us. And do we want to partner with him? Is the question.