Ministry During the Disruption

[7] Prayer as a Foundation for Ministry - Natalie Abdo

April 08, 2020 InterVarsity Christian Fellowship
Ministry During the Disruption
[7] Prayer as a Foundation for Ministry - Natalie Abdo
Show Notes Transcript Chapter Markers

How does prayer shape your ministry when it's the foundation of your faith journey? Listen as Steve talks with University of South Florida (USF) student, Natalie, about how she came to faith at an InterVarsity conference and how God impressed upon the student leaders in her chapter to start something new during the disruption - a Daily Zoom Prayer Meeting. This episode also provides an example of what a Daily Zoom Prayer Meeting could look like for you, your chapter, your small group or church.

LINKS
Find our guide to leading a Zoom prayer gathering here.

We've created a website (updated daily) full of resources to help you with Ministering Digitally Through COVID-19: intervarsity.org/online

Steve Tamayo:   0:00
With the disruption that's happened on campus, people are continuing to find innovative ways to do ministry. One of the questions some of us have been asking is, What is prayer look like in this context? Sure, we can pray when we're by ourselves. But how do we gather together for prayer? On today's episode we're going to tell you a story about just that. Welcome back to the podcast, everybody. My name is Steve Tamayo and you are listening to Ministry During the Disruption. Our guest today is a student at University of South Florida in Tampa. She's been at USF since the summer of 2016. She's wrapping up her time there. She studies Environmental Science and Policy. Is that right?

Natalie Abdo:   0:54
Yeah, yeah.

Steve Tamayo:   0:56
Yes. She is a student leader in the InterVarsity chapter. A follower of Jesus and is a barista. Even during the disruption is a barista at Starbucks. Welcome to the podcast, Natalie Abdo.

Natalie Abdo:   1:09
Hey. Hi, Steve. Thank you for having me.

Steve Tamayo:   1:11
Thanks so much for being here. So talk to me a little bit. Let's just do one beat on Starbucks. Can we give a little free advertising to our favorite coffee shop? Like what, what changes are happening around your Starbucks store these days.

Natalie Abdo:   1:25
Yeah, I think one of the biggest ones is connecting with people who come to our store. And still interacting with them despite not being able to maybe talk to them for a long time. So we're trying to make as much of a human connection through, ah, moment in a window or at the talk box. When you're at the drive through.

Steve Tamayo:   1:46
It has a huge impact. Actually, my local Starbucks, I tend to go there several times a week in normal times, in ordinary time. And I see these people who go in every day, and it's like they're social hub. It was, so that's changed not only for Starbucks, but has changed for college campuses. So USF has been out of classes. People have been off campus. You've still been in class, but off campus for how long at this point?

Natalie Abdo:   2:11
I think we're going on about two weeks, three if you consider spring break. So our last time we were on campus was like March 12th, maybe. And then we went on spring break and in the middle of spring break found out we wouldn't be coming back to USF for the rest of spring semester, we would all be online. It was a little bit of a curve ball. It was originally just gonna be two weeks, and now it's the remainder of the semester. So about two weeks right now, we've been in our home doing virtual classes, virtual campus. 

Steve Tamayo:   0:00
Virtual classes, virtual campus, but not virtual ministry. We're trying not to call it virtual ministry because that sounds like it's virtually ministry like it's almost ministry.

Natalie Abdo:   0:00
Yeah.

Steve Tamayo:   2:55
But you've been doing some real ministry during this time.

Natalie Abdo:   2:58
Yeah, we really have been at USF. One of the biggest blessings has honestly been figuring out ways to connect despite not being able to meet in person. And we've tried to be as creative as possible. I think we've, um whether it's via, phone calls or Snapchat even or Instagram Live, um, we've tried to still create community and create moments where we interact with each other in this virtual world that we're living in right now.

Steve Tamayo:   3:33
Universities all over the country are using Zoom calls to teach classes. People are doing online Bible studies through Zoom hosting online common ground, large group gatherings through Zoom. But what are you particularly doing on Zoom?

Natalie Abdo:   3:46
Me and about three other leaders are doing a daily prayer time at various times in a day.  

Steve Tamayo:   3:53
Daily. 

Natalie Abdo:   3:54
Daily. Monday through Thursday we are in a virtual Zoom prayer time where we're just like calling on the spirit to come and dwell in our houses, in our dorm rooms, in some people's bathrooms even, across the state and also across the country.

Steve Tamayo:   4:13
Okay, so you're not just praying for each other. You're praying more broadly. Missional prayers.

Natalie Abdo:   4:18
Yeah, absolutely. We're praying for our chapter, for our campus, for our state, for our for even, like an InterVarsity/USA as a whole. Um, and even some IFES movements we've been connected with and praying with as well. Um, yeah. So it's led by four leaders, um, myself and three other servant leaders so.

Steve Tamayo:   4:42
And those would be leaders who are students, who are under grad students at the University of South Florida.

Natalie Abdo:   4:47
Yeah, older students who have been in InterVarsity for a little bit longer, who, have a, like I guess you can say, more spiritual authority over the chapter and were just leading it in whatever way we feel led by the spirit.  

Steve Tamayo:   5:01
Take me in close to that. What was that conversation like between the four of you? To decide to host an online daily prayer meeting.

Natalie Abdo:   5:09
For sure halfway through spring break, we realized we're not going back to campus. There's a need to continue to have Jesus meet us as individual followers as people who are trying to figure out what it's like to follow Jesus in a college context. Yet we're not gonna be on a college campus anymore.

Steve Tamayo:   5:32
Right? So So did one of you initiate it? Or did you all just kind of have this moment where you just knew we need to do something and that something needs to be prayer? Like, did you text somebody or somebody text you like how that happened?

Natalie Abdo:   5:44
We were actually in prayer, trying to figure out what to do for our campus. We should do this. We should, we're doing this on Zoom already. Why don't we do this with the rest of our campus? Yeah, personally, like, prayer has been an extremely important part of my walk with Jesus. It has been at the beginning of it. And it will continue to be like the center of my relationship with Jesus. Yeah.

Steve Tamayo:   6:05
Is that something you grew up with?

Natalie Abdo:   6:07
No, not at all. I was a Christmas/Easter Christian. I really did not, um, want anything to do with the church when I was growing up. I played soccer and Sundays were meant for travel soccer, not for church.

Steve Tamayo:   6:23
So did you start praying? You get to college and you're, you said your environmental science and policy. So are you sitting in a class and you're like,"Oh, I am so in trouble right now," and you start praying> Or how did prayer get started in your life?  

Natalie Abdo:   6:37
Honestly, like, I prayed for like, I think I would associate God as a genie. And I'd be like, "Okay," I used to be a pre med major originally, and I was like, "God gave me this A." And then what actually ended up happening was my uncle passed away fall semester of my freshman year. So fall of 2016, and I came back to campus, and I was like, "There's got to be more to life than this idea of partying, doing drugs, drinking ,like this whole college idea." And I started searching for what was actually true in life. Like what actually mattered. So I tried every religion you could possibly imagine. I did everything from like Buddhism to, like, praying with, like, rocks. So and then I kind of like, was like, I didn't try Christianity. Like, let me try this thing. And I randomly met Adri at a church.

Steve Tamayo:   7:33
Adri is university staff worker at USF?

Natalie Abdo:   7:36
Yeah, Adrianna on my staff worker. I randomly met her at a church, and, um, couple days later she invited me to lunch and within, like, 20 minutes of the lunch that we had together, which is super random, she invited me to a conference. I knew nothing about her or InterVarsity. And I said, um, I guess I'll go to this conference. And at the conference I gave my life to Jesus. I heard the Gospel for the first time, said in a way that was tangible for me. And I remember, like through the conference, there was this moment where the staff of the conference, they called on only spirit and..

Steve Tamayo:   8:14
And they invited you to engage God directly.

Natalie Abdo:   8:17
Yeah, and it was the first time, I think, I just remember this moment of like my body, like, kind of like my arms opened up and my head went up and it was just this radical moment. And I started praying in that time, and from then on I just kind of gave my life to Jesus. And it has been nothing but prayer that has gotten me to the point that I'm at right now, and from that moment on, I just searched how to follow Jesus. Um, and I remember meeting some leaders who told me like pray, like listen to the voice of God. How do I do that in prayer? And it became the foundation of, like my walk with Jesus.

Steve Tamayo:   9:01
And when it's the foundation of your walk with Jesus, it often becomes the foundation of your ministry with others. What, whatever are kind of foundational spiritual practices are, those are the things that we pass on to other people. And in this disruption that's happening, a lot of us are focused very strongly on the spiritual practices that help us feel close to Jesus, that always go deep with God. And I think people need to hear this story, he story of the ministry that you're doing, Natalie, because they need to know... Hey,  if you're listening this, you need to know that if prayer is a foundational spiritually practice for you, it could be a foundational part of your ministry. Even if it wasn't before the disruption. I think there are a lot of people who connect with God a lot in prayer, but when they go to ministry they think I need to lead a Bible study. I need to do proxy outreaches. I need to do evangelism. I need to do street evangelism. I need to do, you know, missions trips. But they think that prayers for them personally, they don't see prayer as ministry. And you and your team have found a way to make prayer as ministry. Did you will have, just had a curiosity, no judgment here. Did you all have a daily prayer meeting before the disruption? Or is this new?

Natalie Abdo:   10:15
Now we tried. Continuous like intentional prayer every single day is difficult. I think everyone kind of gets caught up in their own thing. So no, we didn't. If I'm being really honest. We did maybe once every month. But I think I think you're right. A lot of people don't make prayer the foundation of their ministry. Um,

Steve Tamayo:   10:35
And it's so powerful. It's so powerful.

Natalie Abdo:   10:37
It totally is. And without it, I think, I think there's parts of your ministry that lack. If you don't invite Jesus into that, if you don't invite the spirit into that. I think in the midst of this pandemic, in the midst of all the chaos and this hysteria, there was a reminder that the only thing that is actually something we can control is like, calling on the father. How do we do that? Like, how do we... we can't solve this problem. It's happening. But we can pray about it.  

Steve Tamayo:   11:07
Absolutely.  

Natalie Abdo:   11:08
Jesus can meet us in that. And he ca, he can be all the things he promises us to be, um, in our prayer.  

Steve Tamayo:   11:15
Well, show me one of these prayer gatherings.  

Natalie Abdo:   11:18
Yeah.

Steve Tamayo:   11:31
What happens? So you get on, Zoom together. Everyone kind of drops in, you know they appear like the Avengers walking through those portal things, or whatever. Everyone aperates in the Zoom room. So what happens next?

Natalie Abdo:   11:32
Yeah, everyone comes in, however they are, whether they just woke up. Um, I personally lead a morning prayer, so we have all kinds of different backgrounds I guess. You come in, one of the things that happens, at least in the ones that I lead. So you come in. You kind of just sit. "Good morning. Jesus. How are you? Thanks for coming here. Will you meet us where we are right now?" And we kind of just "Hey, my name is Natalie. I'm in Tampa, Florida right now. I'm sitting in my room." And we kind of just taken inventory of ourselves. Um,

Steve Tamayo:   12:11
Just kind of, just go around the Zoom room, and people just share a little bit.

Natalie Abdo:   12:14
Yeah, and everyone's Zoom screen looks different, so, um, the person who's leading it is usually calling out the person. "Hey, you. Where are you right now?"

Steve Tamayo:   12:23
That's a pro tip right there, actually. In online ministry if you just open the room up and say, "Does anyone want to pray?" No one's gonna pray. It helps a lot to invite people. They can say no. Just invite them.

Natalie Abdo:   12:35
I would open up the room like that and then, and each of them have been different because I've sense that there's something different that the group of people leave. So the first one led, it was more of, "How are you doing with Jesus? How are you feeling right now? What do you really frustrated with? What do you really grateful for? And how can you lay that at the feet of Jesus right now?"

Steve Tamayo:   13:01
So you have a little bit of discussion time and then, and then. So I had a friend who used to, his name's Marty. He used to joke you go to these national prayer breakfasts and there'd be no prayer, and there'd be no breakfast, and he was disappointed by that. Did you actually pray in the prayer meetings?  

Natalie Abdo:   13:18
Yeah. We spend a good portion of time praying, but there also has to be a little bit of discussion because some people feel really awkward praying. Some people don't enjoy praying. Some people feel uncomfortable by it. And something I've done to combat that is writing out prayers. Um, so if you can't pray verbally, you could write it out.

Steve Tamayo:   13:38
Like, just in the chat right there.

Natalie Abdo:   13:40
Yeah. And even in your notebook. Like, I found that that has been something really useful, cause you can go back and see how Jesus has met you in that. And then we all kind of share about one thing we need to pray about, whether there's five people in the room or ten. And what I have done is I've called on the person, uh, who I see is next to the other person. So, "Hey, Henry, can you pray for Adri?" or "Hey, Adrie, can you pray for Josh?" And then it kind of goes like that. And if you don't feel comfortable praying out loud, you can go ahead and just mute yourself. And it's kind of like this moment of communally praying without hearing each other, which could be a little bit distracting. And when you're done, just say amen. Yeah, and then I end up closing it all out, or ask somebody to close it all out. This morning, our prayer led us to pray for people in our community who are seeing the effects of, uh, COVID-19 in their lives. Um, so we have a leader whose sister has it, and then her family has it, too, and she's a doctor. And then we've had somebody in our community whose father has passed away from it. So it's like how, even though we're not with each other, how do we pray for each other? So, "Hey, can you pray for the people who are affected in our community? Hey, can you pray for the people in Florida who are being affected? Hey, can you pray for InterVarsity internationally? I'm sorry, InterVarsity nationally. And then, Hey, can you pray for our like sister movements, IFES, who are dealing with this." So we have five people, five different prayers and one person closing it all up. And the coolest thing ever is that we're seeing people who aren't even part of our chapters come to these things.

Steve Tamayo:   15:25
Really?

Natalie Abdo:   15:27
Yeah, so...

Steve Tamayo:   15:27
How did they find out about it?

Natalie Abdo:   15:29
Word of mouth honestly. The link drops the night before, the link to the Zoom call drops the night before, and we're opening it up to anybody who wants to come. When one person experiences a moment where, like, "Wow, Jesus came and we're like, hundreds of miles away. Maybe I could invite someone else into this." Someone asked if they can invite their parents. I'm like, uh, sure. like if they want to come like, yeah absolutely!

Steve Tamayo:   15:55
Hey, if you're listening to this and you're interested in starting your own prayer meeting, I mean, prayer meetings have been a part of InterVarsity's history for decades. It actually used to be that InterVarsity would not plant a ministry on a campus unless there was already a daily prayer meeting. I wonder if this is a season for us to get back to prayer in a new, fresh, deeper, more powerful way. If you're listening to this and you're inspired by Natalie's story and you're thinking that you want to start a daily prayer meeting your student, your faculty person, your staff worker, you're thinking about it, go to intervarsity.org/online. We have resource is there to help you out. And, hey, as we finish this episode, Natalie, how could I be praying for the ministry at USF?

Natalie Abdo:   16:38
If you could just pray for our students to continue to, like, sit at the feet of Jesus in the midst of all of this, like that, that is like the prayer of, I think, yeah, our campuses heart right now. What, what we desperately need.

Steve Tamayo:   16:59
All right, let's pray. Let's pray. Jesus, you know exactly what the students at USF need. We're so grateful for the ministry that you're doing through the leaders at the University of South Florida, the students who have taken up this mantle of spiritual leadership. We ask that you would help each and every one of them to sit at your feet, Jesus, to experience your presence, to receive your grace and to pray. We ask this in your name. Amen.

Natalie Abdo:   17:28
Amen.  

Steve Tamayo:   17:30
Thanks.  

Natalie Abdo:   17:31
Yeah, Thank you.

Episode Summary & Welcome
A Barista's Ministry
University of South Florida (USF) Off Campus
Real Ministry in a Virtual World
Zoom Daily Prayer Meetings
Student Leaders Leading Prayer Gatherings
Seeking Direction for Ministry in Prayer
Natalie's Prayer & Spiritual Journey
Prayer as a Foundational Spiritual Practice & Ministry
Prayer as the Foundation to Ministry
Natalie's Example of a Zoom Prayer Gathering
Inviting Others to Join
Praying for the Ministry of USF