Dallas Prayer Room Director, Brad Stroup, Pt 1, Ep 10

Director of The Prayer Room in Dallas, Texas for more than 20 years, Brad Stroup has extensive knowledge of prayer rooms across America and the world.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Hey guys, welcome to the Latvia Prayer Room Podcast, where we discuss growing in God through prayer, worship, and the word in the context of a prayer room. Anyone who likes Jesus is welcome to join us at any time. Today our guest is Brad String from Dallas, Texas. He is the director of the prayer room in Orlington, Texas. So, Brad, welcome to the podcast. We're so excited to have you. So, Brad, you are married. You have three kids. You are a director of a prayer room. You are a pastor of a church, as well as part of some other groups of prayer rooms. So Brad has been one of our prayer room's biggest cheerleaders. He has poured hours into us, giving us practical wisdom on small prayer rooms. And so he really is a friend of our prayer room. So, Brad, tell us a little bit about your journey into prayer.

SPEAKER_01 1:00

Yeah, I'll do it, but I gotta brag on y'all first. I'm just so grateful for you, your leadership, the Lafayette prayer room. Uh, when I first uh encountered you, I was like, who is this gal? I want to be her friend. Uh just love the way that you have just so diligently built and studied the scriptures and led your people and stayed so faithful in the place of prayer. There's a lot of houses of prayer out there. It's pretty awesome to see yours and and the way that you guys have just stayed so steadfast. So to get to pour into you, are you kidding me? This is a dream come true to get to uh be friends. I'm just so grateful. So I just want to dote on you. Uh Trista, thank you for your leadership. Your team is outstanding. Um, grateful to have been able to spend some time with you guys. Uh it's just a real joy. So to come on your podcast today, this is a real pleasure. So, okay, you did ask a question. I'll I guess I'll get to it. So, you know, when I came into the kingdom, I was an atheist in my high school years, and I came to know the Lord at the end of my senior year. And when I did, I came in on fire. I mean, ready, ready to go. Um I prayed, but prayer wasn't my main life in God. My main life in God was the word. Uh, I was just devouring the scriptures, um, you know, multiple hours a day, every day for a few years, um, just devouring the word. But in that, I was starting to learn how to pray. And mostly what my prayer life looked like on the early days was a prayer list, and I hadn't yet learned how to hear God's voice, so it was pretty dry, if I can be honest. Um, I would be on my face, I just remember I'd be on my face on my bed, I'd tuck my head down on my bed as I was on my knees, and I'd pray, and I'd try to pray for like maybe an hour or 30 minutes, and it just felt so dry. I was just talking to the air, it felt like it was a bronze ceiling, but I knew prayer was good. I don't know that I really believed prayer could be more than just talking to the air, but I had enough, I don't know, Baptist grit in me uh from my early roots that it was just like, well, this is just what you're supposed to do, so I'm gonna do it. So I was praying, but I don't know that I'd really call it much of a prayer life. Um, because it wasn't two-way communication at that point. It was just me, you know, saying, Oh, God, help me with this, I'd do this, help these people, bring revival. I was praying for a lot of stuff. But it felt uh real dry, and I didn't look forward to it, but I was doing it diligently. And truthfully, I think the Lord responds to that sort of just reach. I mean, what kind of knucklehead just keeps doing the same broken thing over and over and over for years? I feel like the Lord was eventually like, let's just, I feel sorry for let's let's give them a little sauce. Uh so it was a part of my life, but it it just looked very different, and it wasn't anything I would highly advertise as enjoyable prayer.

SPEAKER_00 3:50

So you start there, tell us how you get from there to wanting to start a prayer room.

SPEAKER_01 3:55

I didn't want to start a prayer room. That was a hijacking of the Lord. I I'll answer that question, but it's not how you asked it. Uh so I was in the mission field for a season and I came back, and by that point I was filled with the Spirit. I was hearing God's voice, I knew his leadership, and prayer looked uh different on an individual level, but I wasn't a prayer room guy. Uh I had visited IHOP in Kansas City a couple of times for conferences. I don't even really know that I knew they had a 24-7 House of Prayer. I just knew they were a cool teaching ministry and had great worship. So the point is, House of Prayer wasn't on my radar. Um But uh after coming off the mission field and being back in America uh for a season, I was sitting on my couch one day, uh reading a book on my day off, and uh it was Henry Nowin's Way of the Heart. Um, and I was reading that book, and all of a sudden, in one of the most I mean, the most powerful moment I've ever had with the Lord, and one of the only moments I'd had where the Lord had ever done anything like this before, reading this book, and all of a sudden I feel the presence of the Lord thick in the room. And I am on my face on the floor in a way that I I know God's in the room, something's about to happen, I've got the fear of the Lord on me. And um about the time that my head hit the floor, face hit the floor, I heard the Lord speak the clearest words I've ever heard him say. And we're talking this was over 20 years ago. I can say it's still the clearest words I've ever heard him say. He said, start a daily prayer meeting tomorrow morning at 5 a.m. and don't stop until I come back. It's like, are you kidding me? I'm not a prayer guy, I'm a missionary. Like, this was the most out-of-left field thing I could have heard. It was not anything that I wanted, anything I had dreamt about, anything I'd ever considered. This was I was adverse to this plan, but I also knew it was the Lord. He was speaking so clearly. It was the gift of God. I think had he spoken less clearly, there might have been some wiggle room in my flesh, unfortunately, if I could be honest, to have not done that. But it was so clear this was not an option. It was like, you're gonna do this, buddy. And you know, as someone that loves God, wants God's will, I was excited that he was speaking. I was excited about unassignment from God, about having something to do for him. And it was clear, it was like, this is a daily thing with a specific time. It's no ambiguity, like do it at some point of the day. It was 5 a.m. and start tomorrow with no prep. So I was thankful for the suddenly, um, but I was not excited about what it is I was supposed to do. I was like, daily prayer at 5 a.m. I'm a night owl. Even to this day, I am. So I still don't like getting up at 4 a.m. I take a nap every day. It's the only way I know how to do the thing. I go to bed at about 11 every night. I get up at 4, and then I after my prayer meeting, I go home and take a nap, because I just Anyway, there was so much about it that was not my MO. But I can also say this, and I don't know if I'm still in a future question from you, but I can say this. It was the kindest thing the Lord ever did to me. And while at the time I didn't appreciate it, I didn't know what it was. Being hemmed in to a daily corporate prayer meeting for the last 20 years of my life. Thank you, Jesus, you know what you're doing. I mean, it it's transformed me. It's given me everything. I I could not be more thankful. So while I didn't start off thinking, you know what, I think we should start a house of prayer, I'm now on the other end of it going, oh my gosh, 25-year-old Brad doesn't know anything. This is the greatest gift of God. Like, this is incredible. So uh I guess that's how I got involved in it. It wasn't my choice.

SPEAKER_00 7:42

Yeah, just to bounce off of you a little bit, I'm so grateful for the call to be in a prayer room and to take it as we're we're at 18 hours right now, shooting for 24-7. But just learning that there was such a reality as a 24-7 prayer room, it just gave me um for me, it was permission because he had developed me as an intercessor before I even knew there was prayer rooms. Uh, so it kind of like, here's your space. Like I made you for this, and here's your space. And I loved how you say it hemmed you in because there is the rigor of it. There is the uh some days you just don't feel like it. Some days it's drier than others, but even in those days, you're gaining ground whether you think you are or not. But there are so many other really sweet moments. There are other moments of had I not sat that long, I wouldn't have been able to dig that much. So it's been a gift. And I know I remember the first time I was singing in a set and we were singing about the 24-7 prayer room reality. And I remember saying, Thank you, you saved me. I saw it not as um, oh now I have to do this burdensome thing, but like you saved me from just normal. There is life on the inside of it. And I remember as I was singing it, you saved me like a brand snatched from the fire, you saved me and called me into this reality. To me, it was like salvation, like it was so big in me. You saved me by calling me into this. So I love that he hedged me in. I love that. It was a gift for sure, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 9:28

And I love that even on that point, it was a gift for me coming from one end of the spectrum, and the same gift to you coming from the other end of the spectrum. And I mean that covers everybody in between. Like this whole life of prayer thing, it's good for everybody. It is it is a hundred percent applicable, it's a universal principle uh that we're all better for.

SPEAKER_00 9:47

Yes, agreed, agreed. So, how many did you start when you started that 5 a.m. prayer meeting? Who'd you start with?

SPEAKER_01 9:53

Yeah, so uh at the time um had a little house church in my living room um that uh I had just started to pastor some maybe three months before or something like that. Maybe four. And uh small group of young adults, and I just made phone calls to all of them and I said, Look, this is what God said to do. My life's over. Would your life be over too? Come join me at 5 a.m. tomorrow morning. And so to my shock, because when I got this word, it was probably four or five o'clock in the afternoon the day before. So I've got 12 hours to put a prayer meeting together, is my point. I sent out some emails and made some phone calls, and to my shock, there were 11 20-year-olds that showed up at my door the next morning at 4 45. We're here, we're ready to pray. So we started strong. It didn't go that way for long, but it was we started strong. There were 11 of us uh at that first prayer meeting, or maybe 12, 11 plus me. Um it was shocking, and they were ready to go, and we had a fiery prayer meeting, had no idea what we were doing, had no idea how to keep it sustainable. Uh, but for an hour we prayed, and then at six o'clock we just shut it down and everybody went home, and I said, come back tomorrow.

SPEAKER_00 11:10

So, what are your current days and hours? Where are you now? You started there, where are you now?

SPEAKER_01 11:15

Yeah, so 20 years, not long into the journey, mostly what we were praying in those prayer meetings, because we didn't we weren't a house of prayer with a background in house of prayer. We're just a group of 20-year-olds that love Jesus. So our prayers were very simple. They were mostly, God, why are we here? Uh give us, send us more people and make this not boring. I mean, those were kind of our baseline prayers, you know, save the lost and whatever else came to mind. But the constant prayers were, Lord, what what is this unto? Why? Why are we doing daily prayer meetings? And we were praying that every day, and the Lord started speaking. So by I would say, I don't know, three or four months in, we had already gotten clear leadership from the Holy Spirit and some fun little prophetic uh um uh encouragements that we were supposed to be a 24-7 house of prayer and that that's where this was actually headed, which was equally as shocking to me. We were doing daily prayer meeting in my living room. I had no thought this was gonna turn into something. I just thought, I don't know, we're gonna do prayer meetings in the morning. Um and so the the reason I share that is because where we are today is a direct result of what we were getting in the spirit in month two, three, four, five, uh, that we were gonna be a 24-7 house of prayer. So we've been building for the last 20 years like that was true. So what we did was some months in, I don't know, maybe five months later or something, we added a second daily prayer meeting. Now we had one every morning at 5 a.m. and every night, seven days a week at 7 p.m. So we'd go 7 to 8 p.m. too. So that meant 14 corporate prayer meetings a week, uh every week in my living room. This is an aggressive building strategy. Um and we just decided, well, if we're gonna be 24-7, let's never add one prayer meeting, let's only ever add seven. So one a day. So if we're ever gonna add, if it's ever like it's time to add, we got a lot of steps before we're gonna get to 24-7. Let's only add seven days a week. And so over the years, we've just methodically, carefully, prayerfully, I mean, stared at the numbers, prayed, Holy Spirit, give us a sense, talk to the community, where are they at? We've very carefully built for 20 years and have added sets seven days a week. So we went to three a day, and then four a day, and five and six. And so now here we are, 20 years in, a little over 20. And we're 22 hours a day, seven days a week with live worship. And it is shocking to me. I get to experience it every day, and every day I'm thankful and go, how is this happening? 22 hours a day. So we're not 24-7 yet. We're still having hit that marker, like we'll get there. But a big piece for me has been I knew what the calling of the Lord was, but I also knew we've got to do this with real people, with real lives, with real bandwidth. And we can't take steps that we can't sustain. So let's let's never add a set, and when we say set, I mean seven. Let's never add a set unless we know we can sustain it indefinitely. And so by God's grace, we've never gone backwards. But what that's also meant is we have to be real careful and sober-minded when we take a step forward because we're committing to the Lord, not going back. So we're not 24-7 because we can't be 24-7. We can be 22-7, and for for a few years it was 27. And for six or seven years, it was 18-7. That was the longest that we were at the same amount of time. And what that meant was no night hours. Eight, you can do 18 hours a day and not do any night watch. But as soon as you go past 18 hours a day, now you're talking night watch hours, and that's where it starts to get really airy. Um, so we're 22 hours a day, seven days a week.

SPEAKER_00 15:08

Wow, over 20 years. That's huge. Oh, what a gift to the Lord that y'all have poured your lives out before him. I love that. And it's so encouraging for a prayer room who's at 18 hours, you know, just longing to go more hours and more days to see another small prayer room have done it ahead of us. Because we we've known big prayer rooms, which that's almost it's it's too pie in the sky, you know, it's too far off. So to see the smaller ones. And and through you, let me just throw this in too. You have been such a connect point that has shown us so many other small prayer rooms that we didn't have access to before, that we weren't rubbing shoulders with before. Um, so you introduced us to so many more that look all different, all have different hours and days, and how they do it and they make it work, and what works for them doesn't work for these. So you have just opened up a world of small prayer rooms for us that we are so appreciative of that we did not have before launching. We just kind of knew one or two, and we thought we're way smaller than that. We may never get to that. You know, what are we supposed to look like? And when when the Lord connected us with you and you connected us with so many others, I'm part of a group with you, and we have, you know, we meet for a Zoom call once a month, a two-hour Zoom call where we get to hash out where are we struggling in our programs? What's working for you, what's working for you? So that's been such a tool to us that you have have made available. You kind you came and you, it's called a consulting trip, you which you do, you go all over the country and do this at small prayer rooms where you come and get the lay of the land, and then you just give them all your knowledge you have that may be beneficial to them. You did it with us. I've seen you do it with many others. So this has just been a world of small prayer rooms that you have opened the door to that we are so appreciative of. Uh, maybe talk a little bit about what you do on these consulting trips.

SPEAKER_01 17:22

Uh uh, I leave on Friday to go to North Carolina to do one. So yeah. Uh these trips are just it's the funnest thing in the world for me. I can't believe that I get to call this my job right now. Getting to go and hang out with folks like you, hear your world, hear what the pieces are that the Lord's given you that are specific to your city, your group of people, you as a leader, your personality. Because each of those factors and a handful of others are gonna make the prayer room look different under your leadership than the prayer room under somebody else's in a different city. So when I do these consulting trips, my goal isn't to try to make them mini TPR, you know, mini the prayer room, our our thing. I want to hear like what is alert smoking to you? What are the directions, the specifics, DNA points? In five years, if this was a full-grown thing, what would it look like? I want to hear the vision of the leadership to then be able to help strategize and give encouragement and uh building plans uh or at least ideas that are filtered through what's the agenda of God for you guys specifically. And it's been fun. Uh at this point, I've gotten to go do this trip uh 55 months in a row. Uh so I've been in a different city for 55 months. That's just the coolest thing to say. And I've gotten to see a lot of different expressions and hear a lot of different viewpoints. A lot of things are similar, some things are unique, and there's always uniquenesses. Um, but so on these trips, I'll do a conference uh that's really to rally the troops and say, hey, build nine-day prayer. And so that's what the conference is about. But then in addition to the conference, the consulting is probably another eight or ten hours just meeting with the leader, like you know, what I got to do with you guys, and their the leader or their leadership team or both, and talk and shop, you know, nuances. Where's your staff at right now? What are the struggles you guys are having? Um, and so it's fun for me because having had enough experience in this, I don't feel like it's hard for me. I feel like it's easy, it just flows to be able to help people with their specific, you know, environments and the aches and the goals that they're trying to hit, the metrics they're after, and just to brainstorm with a new friend and go, let's help you figure out how to get there. I just think it's the funnest thing ever. And so um, with that, uh it's hardly work. You know, I get to go and do this, and uh, it's just such a joy. And then what happens is you fall in love. You know, you just you build such deep friendships with people, and then that makes that um all the more exciting. You were mentioning, you know, Zoom call stuff. Uh, we do this monthly prayer room coach Zoom call, and uh it's a time for anybody that's building a house of prayer, they're in leadership of a house of prayer to you know get it part of that Zoom call. We do it, you know, the third Thursday of every month. For those that are in that space to be able to come and connect to each other. Uh, I'll normally pour out some sort of leadership nugget, uh, have some dialogue around about it. Um, but I'm just committed to trying to take what we've learned from the last 20 years and now what we've learned from a hundred houses of prayer, and take whatever that is, and then hopefully be useful uh to others as they're on their journey. And it's the funnest thing. I honestly I'm a bit selfish about it because I think about I wish somebody would have come and done this for us. Somebody that knew what they were talking about, or at least pretended to, that would come and spend a weekend just pouring in and like, and so to then get to turn around and be that, it's it's super fun.

SPEAKER_00 21:08

Yeah, and I think for me, watching the the bigger co-op that you are part of of programs that are uh y'all are in a category a little bit bigger than a lot of us that are y'all are pouring into, but hearing from you guys about we did this and this was terrible. We should have never done that, you know, or we did this and this really worked, and not that it's the same for everybody, but it is like you said, I wish we would have had somebody. We have y'all, so it's so helpful. It is so cool because typically a program in most cities is the only one. There's a few places like Dallas that you have more, but you kind of feel like you're on an island because it's not a typical ministry that usually people around you are gonna have the vision for or the understanding of the ends. Out of it. So to have people to talk shop with who have gone ahead, who have tripped and failed and got back up a million times ahead of us is huge to us. We are so appreciative and we know it is the Lord that has brought y'all to us. And your podcast, the program coaching stuff, I am loving. And I'm gonna put a link on the podcast so that anybody who's interested can get to it. I am loving the nuggets. Some of them I've heard you say in our discussions, others I've never heard you say. So it's so helpful. And even the ones I've heard before, we need repetition. Like it's encouraging to hear it again. So anybody in any kind of prayer ministry, not only a prayer room, can steal gleam from a lot of what y'all are saying.

SPEAKER_01 22:48

There's content we put on the Instagram page that we never cover uh in the uh Zoom calls. So there that's a great resource. And it of course is a good reminder. Oh, yeah, Zoom calls coming up because we post that kind of stuff on Instagram. Uh just called prayer room coach, I think is the Instagram handle.

SPEAKER_00 23:06

So give us an idea of the vision for TPR, for the prayer room, your prayer room in Arlington. Uh just kind of a feel for you guys' DNA. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:17

Um, so you know, the Lord said we were gonna be a 24-7 house of prayer. He also told us we were gonna be an equipping center. And it was kind of funny when we're like at month three, there's like eight of us, and I am so convinced. I mean, a holy, you know, grabbing hold of me. We're gonna be a 24-7 house of prayer, and we're gonna be an equipping center. We're gonna help houses of prayer all over the place. It felt so presumptuous and weird, and like I just, I mean, I still laugh. I'm like, I'm glad I said it because I needed to plumb line myself and the crew, but it just looked like this is a pie in the sky belief. Like, how in the world could this ever happen? But again, it was uh it was building instructions for us, and so from the very beginning, we were thinking this is gonna be bigger, and and it's gonna be impacting, and it's gonna have more hours, and it's gonna need full-time staff, and it's I mean, we were thinking about those kinds of things really early, and we weren't thinking about them uh lightly, we were thinking about them like what are the strategies to execute these things, because this is our future, so how do we partner with God with the future that He's spoken over us? Um so from the very beginning, uh I have been very I was a youth minister for a season of about three, three and a half years before I went into the mission field, and I just have community, fun relationship. I'm a goof. I mean, I am such a goof. Like I just I feel sorry for some people because they're like if they think they're gonna get some polished leader, I'm like the last thing for polished. Um but part of that is I just love to be with people, I love fun, I love to enjoy each other, I love community, and so a huge piece of our DNA as a house of prayer that is a bit unusual is how community-building, relational, fun, light-hearted uh things are in our prayer room. I mean, I'll walk into the prayer room, and if I know the worship leader on stage, I'll just go hug them right while they're worship leading. You know, they're like they're in the middle of like, and I'm just giving them a hug and like nuzzle them, you know? And it's like, I don't, I don't care. I'm not trying to win any awards. I want that person to know I love them. And I don't want to wait for the two hours for them to be done. I just want to give them a hug. So there's that aspect that makes our prayer room, I think, a little lighter, lighthearted, uh, in a way that whether people want it or not, they're stuck with it because that's who we are. But also, we are driven. And it's a fun, I've heard people describe us before as the most unusual combination of friendly and driven that they've ever seen. Because as friendly and fun and game nights and you know, we do an annual Catan tournament where we play a board game. I mean, just we got all the fun stuff. As fun as we are, we're so driven, and like you can't be late to your prayer meeting. In fact, you gotta be 10 minutes early or you're counted late. And that's because we want to make sure people are in the building. Because we want to make sure we can do the handoff of the shift. These people are supposed to leave at the hour. How do we know they can really leave? Because we don't let the fire go out on the altar. They can't leave if the people don't show up for the next set. So that's like, oh my gosh, that's so intense, right? So there's this interesting I'm a goof, we're fun, we like to eat and hang out and joke around, and also we're so serious about this calling. And I don't think we'd be where we are without both aspects. Uh, the the meticulous attention to detail, organization, the never let the fire drop. So I'll just tell you this: like in 20 years, we have never missed a prayer meeting. We've been late five times. And all five times we publicly repented to the Lord and to the community. And when I say late, I mean a minute, five minutes. I don't mean an hour. And we've just taken it that seriously, and I don't put that on anybody else. That's what the Lord gave us. We know who we are, we know what we're supposed to do. But if you're asking, who are we? I mean, I can't shy away from the fact that like we're pretty ridiculous when it comes to being hardcore about the commitment to the assignment. Like, we've never missed a Christmas. Whenever the snow starts falling in Dallas, all of us are just like, okay, buckle down because we know the range are gonna be closed and we've got to strategize. How do we not let the fire go on the altar? When COVID hit, it was crazy around. We came up with the wildest ways to keep it going. So I would say we are really committed to the assignment, but we're also really committed to relationally connecting, uh, connecting with visitors, and so I think there's a there's an interesting balance on those two things that kind of paint the picture of who we are. And so then fast forward into here we are year 20 or I guess year 21 now, you know, we're equipping other houses of prayer. We've done a lot of different internships and part-time schools and trainings, and we've got, I don't know, a few thousand teaching resources now. Uh, because I've been teaching every Saturday night for 19 years, uh, plus special events and this and that. So we've given a lot of attention to the end times. It's something I know you guys are really hitting hard there in Lafayette, which is one of the reasons I just love you. Um, but uh we've we've got a strong teaching ministry, we've got fun community, we're really focused on the house of prayer, and then over the last number of years, our leadership team has really done a lot to free me up to be able to go out more to help other houses of prayer. So our leadership team is really the ones running the prayer room these days. Uh I I'm in the room every morning at 5 a.m. if I'm in town and not sick, but I'm not leading it. They're the ones leading it now. But that was intentional. I spent a lot of years investing in them, getting them ready to lead, so that then I could go be more of the go-out and equip others. And so we've got this beautiful blend right now of the focus on the local mission and then the focus on the mission out as well.

SPEAKER_00 29:46

Yeah, and yeah, you guys have been such a springboard for other uh prayer rooms, and your leadership team is impressive. I've met them all uh to watch them work, to be at events they have done to you see the fruit of their all of their labor. Uh, how did you spot Diamonds in the Rough to bring this leadership team together?

SPEAKER_01 30:12

Oh my gosh. Um I'm a firm believer in the potential of human beings and the high likelihood that they will let you down big time. So I'm both a glass half full and half empty at the same time. I'm a pragmatist when it comes to people. So here's what I mean by that. Um I believe anybody can be developed into some level of leadership. I mean, just going back to the Great Commission, Jesus said to 100% of saved people, go make disciples. Meaning every human that loves Jesus can be in leadership. Now, maybe that leadership is over one person, or three, or five, or ten. There's lots of varying degrees of what a leader can look like and what they can carry. But I just totally believe that people can be developed. Anybody. Now, they have a choice in the matter. And I am fully convinced they are gonna let me down so many times. So I don't have a belief that like everybody's gonna be great, it's always gonna work. I'm like, man, they are gonna let me down, they're gonna make me mad, they are gonna do the exact opposite, they're gonna say it the exact opposite way that I want, and when they say it that way, it's gonna cause me exit. But if I'm if I've got a little patience and I know that they're gonna let me down, then when they let me down, I'm not so bummed. Now I can come alongside them and I can say, hey, here's how this went. Like, can you do it this way? Have you thought about this? Did you think about how those words impacted so-and-so? Because I think you hurt them and didn't mean to. Um and it just takes a lot of TLC. And in the process of that, you weed people out. I don't mean weed them out of the ministry. I mean you just you weed them out of like senior leadership consideration. Because you see, some people have just got some things they're stuck on. And it's like, well, maybe in a in a future season, uh, you could take some more steps forward. But right now, you're stuck on this addiction, you're stuck on this issue of pride, you're stuck on laziness, you're stuck, I mean, whatever it is. But even then, there's potential for the future, maybe. I mean, all they need is revival. I mean, all they need is to have Jesus touch them, and now maybe something could happen in a future season. So I think for me, a lot of it comes down to like believing in people, also fully not believing in people, and then recognizing that there's there's a time where you've invested enough to have learned, can I keep moving forward with this person with the thought process of leadership? So I'm big on testing people. Um, we just added a new uh gal to our leadership team because we're graduating one out into the mission field. Uh uh Christy Schimp, who's been with us for a number of years, she's an all-star. Uh, we're getting to launch her into MAPS uh global, and she's gonna be going and serving at Houses of Prayer in the 1040 window and still doing House of Prayer, but now doing it as a missionary uh in you know the persecuted nations. I'm like, that's such a win for us. But it created a gap. So it's like, okay, well, who am I gonna bring into senior leadership? Well, there's a gal who's been on our uh staff who I've been watching, and I've been given little tests over the years. I didn't tell her it was a test, but I was like, I'm gonna see if she's willing to do this thankless task and just see how she handles it. Uh, you know, I'm gonna watch to see what her responses are. I'm gonna pay attention to the little things she's doing behind the scenes, or is she doing little things behind the scenes? So when the time came and I knew, okay, I need to replace somebody on my leadership team, I didn't have a question at all of who I wanted on my leadership team. I knew I wanted it to be Catherine Sykes because I was like, that girl has got all the goods. I've been watching her, I've been paying attention. And so part of, unfortunately, part of senior leadership is if you're the senior leader, you're the only one not going anywhere for sure. You're gonna have people graduate out for good reasons and bad, and mostly good reasons. So, what are you gonna do? You're gonna wait around, are you gonna start training new ones then? Now you're behind the ball. So I've just always got my eye out for leadership. And uh, and then when the moment comes, I'm able to come to them and say, look, I've been watching you for years or a year, and I've I've noted these things about you. Well, that goes a long way for them in their ability to say yes. Because they're like, Well, this person sees me. This leader sees me as a leader. They didn't just say, hey, you want to gamble? Uh I think it might work, maybe, we'll see. Trial period. Like somebody that's been watching and paying attention, and so I think there's diamonds in the rough around us always. I think it's our job as leaders to constantly be stretching everybody a little bit. And then if they stretched a little bit and succeeded, stretch them a little more and see what see what they're made of. Stretch them a little more, stretch them a little more. Um, and even if they don't ever wind up on your senior leadership team, they could wind up in significant leadership roles in the ministry that are supportive roles. That's incredible. And honestly, if they were there for a year or two or three, what a great pool to graduate cherry pick out of for senior leadership down the road if you need it. That is great advice.

SPEAKER_00 35:34

Let me shift gears a little bit. In your prayer room, there's many different sets that focus on different things. Do you have a set that is family friendly or makes it easy for families to jump in?

SPEAKER_01 35:47

Yeah. Uh it's been super important for us to have that because we have got so many kids. Uh, you know, the funny thing about having a young adult community with a bunch of 20-year-olds is it's only a matter of time before those 20-year-olds find each other, get married, and make people. And and now you got all these little people that you're now also in charge of. And so we had to figure out uh, you know, I want to say 15 years ago was when we started the journey of really staring at what do we do with kids in the prayer room. And then that really upticked uh, you know, in between 10 and 15 years ago, it really increased. So uh we've got a prayer meeting. Well, I'll give you two answers. We've got a prayer meeting a week where it's we pray for the next generation. So that's a set that kids want to be in because they're the victims of the prayer meeting, they're the ones that are we're aiming at, you know? Um and so they're the subject matter that we're contending for. But what's fun about that set is it's led by kids. And so I'm just so excited to say this. But my 13-year-old daughter is the worship leader on that prayer meeting. But she's been in prayer meetings since she was zero. So she's grown up in the prayer room her whole life, and her little sister and one of her friends are the singers on this set with her. So a kid walks into the room and sees not only are we praying for kids, but they see kids praying for kids. And then one of the other sisters of uh of the friend is the prayer leader, and so it's it's a set of kids praying for kids. It's like this is awesome. But that's one prayer meeting a week. We've got 77. So we've got to figure out well, what do we do for the other 76 prayer meetings a week? Because that's poor representation if all we have is one prayer meeting a week, you know? So some of the things we've done is um we have put a bunch of mostly quiet toys in the back of the prayer room under the back row. Uh, little building blocks, little coloring books with Jesus in it, little things. I want to give moms as much confidence as possible. They can bring their kid that's either too young or spiritually not developed yet. They can bring that kid into the prayer room, that kid can be preoccupied while mom or dad or both are in the prayer room. Because one of the challenges is if you don't have those kinds of resources, most of the moms and dads, if they bring their kids in, they're immediately intimidated because they're like, What am I gonna do? How do I keep my kid entertained? I'm not afraid to use the word entertained because I think it's a starting point. They're in the room. You could keep a kid in a prayer room for an hour or two hours a week. That's epic. They're in an environment of prayer, it's gonna start to rub off on them. So while entertained isn't our end goal, I think it's a great starting point because it frees mom and dad up to be in the room and to try to engage. And it's giving those kids acclimation to a prayer room. Are you kidding me? Little Samuel growing up behind the veil? Like, that's incredible. And then as they grow, then they start becoming more spiritually aware. They start asking questions. Why do we sing that song? What does that mean? You know, mom, what are why are you on your face? Uh and they start going up to the prayer mic and praying during our little prayer moments where we invite people up to the mic, and it they start to learn how to pray. Like, let's entertain them, let's get them in the prayer room and get them okay to be in that prayer room, and then let's figure out how to upgrade them from pure entertainment to whatever we would consider real. But I just think the expectation of every kid that comes in our prayer room has to pretend that they're an adult. That's just crazy. So all of our prayer meetings are set up that way. And all of our uh moms and dads are told, this is a fun little side point, we tell all of our parents, if you bring your kids to the prayer room, counts as serving on the set. Just like the worship leader is serving on the set. So if I come to the prayer room and I don't bring my kids, I'm not serving on the set. I'm just in the room. But if I come to the prayer room and my kids are with me, I am now counted as serving because I know you're gonna have how many snack breaks and how many little moments of temperatantrum and how many potty breaks and how many times you gotta go out and you know give a little correction or encouragement. I mean, like mom, dad, in a two-hour prayer meeting, if you could be in that room for 25 minutes, you dig because you had all this responsibility of taking care of your kids and just I call that service. And so moms and dads in our world know that, and it just gives a lot of freedom. So we have parents bringing their kids all the time. I mean, all hours of the day. Sometimes I'll come into the prayer room at 5 a.m. and there's this one dad who's brought two or three of his kids with him that comes in the 3 to 5 a.m. set. I'm like, you guys are crazy. But he knows that they can, and those kids are in the back playing quietly with the toys.

SPEAKER_00 40:47

Yeah, we have a few in our prayer room, and we do have some resources for them, some color books and things, and we say bring their snacks, bring whatever you need, let them move. Our room is big enough to where they can be running in the back and not disturbing anything. Our music is loud enough, and we do have one who has sang before with her dad uh and is actually gonna be singing a little bit more with this. But I saw within our group one of our other prayer rooms, I think maybe Mosaic had their first kid set that I was so excited to see. We've seen that in other prayer rooms, and that's a goal for us one day. We have a few other kids, but kids are welcome in all of our sets. Yeah, that's a goal. That's a goal within the prayer room, and let them be a kid. I love how you said start out with whatever you need to to make their time not miserable because you don't want to bring them in there and they're miserable the whole time. So, whatever you need to bring to make that time be somewhat pleasant, you know. So then eventually the prayer is that they would be participating in it one day. But until then, do what you gotta do just to have them in the room, and so you can be in the room.

SPEAKER_01 41:58

It works. I mean, we've been doing it for 15 years, and we have the exact byproduct we always wanted. We have it, and so it works. This is it, it's not a gamble, like this is a true tested method.

SPEAKER_00 42:12

So, let me ask you this question: how would you encourage people who are drawn to the prayer room or they just want to grow in the Lord, um, but they are hesitant to commit?