Ways To Pray For Missions and the Unreached
Prayer is very strategic because missions is on the front line in the spiritual warfare.
1. Look for prayer partners. Some people can pray alone, but most of us can benefit from praying with others. You might want to invite a friend for coffee once a week followed by a time of prayer. Alternatively, you could arrange a regular time to pray by telephone. Skype allows you to see the person you are talking to. You can even arrange conference calls. Download it free. Click here then click on “Learn”
2. Be prayerfully selective. Don’t try to follow every one of the following suggestions. You can’t pray for everything. It’s better to pray intelligently for two or three missionaries than to simply say, “God bless all the missionaries everywhere.”
3. Use Operation World. Here are some suggestions from page xxv.
(a) In Private:
- Pray using the running calendar, perhaps taking only one or two items the Holy Spirit lays on your heart. Mark items covered in prayer and later make note of God’s answers? Those of special, strategic significance are indicated by an outline around the blue number.
- Keep the book near your television, radio, newspaper or computer. When news comes of major events in a far-off land, find out the spiritual dimensions and turn secular news into spiritual dynamite.
- Use it together with prayer letters, mission magazines and websites. The wider context is missing from these valuable resources. This book will give depth and perspective.
(b) In the Family:
- Read a small section at family time (devotions, meals, while traveling), and pray for the country of the day.
- Mark each country on the Operation World prayer map while you pray during your nightly, family devotionals. Let your kids see where the country is on the map while you read each section from the Operation World book and maybe even mark it with a pin or some other indicator as you pray for each country throughout the year.
- Use it as a source of informative fun and quiz games.
For more information from Operation World, click here
4. Get prayer information from your local church. Some churches have prayer cards with pictures of their missionaries and specific prayer points. If not, you can make your own. Rotate them and pray for one each day.
5. Consider the Peoples Prayer Project. This is a service of Global Recordings Network (GRN). Prayer partners take on a language group for 12 months. There are no Christians who speak that language. The Bible has not been translated for them, and there are no missionaries working among them. Click here for more information.
6. Subscribe to Global Prayer Digest. GPD is a unique monthly devotional booklet that gives daily glimpses of what God is doing around the world. It contains missionary stories, biblical challenges, urgent reports, and exciting portraits of unreached groups that will enrich your times of prayer for the world and help you cultivate a heart for the unreached. To receive a complimentary copy, click here
7. Get on a missions mailing list. We found out about mission agencies in Session #5. There are many opportunities to get on a mailing list.
8. Use resources from Joshua Project.
- Prayer Cards. For printable cards with unreached people groups available in eight languages, click here.
- Prayer Ideas. Creative ideas of how individuals, organizations and churches are praying for the unreached, click here.
- Prayer Calendars. For prayer calendars for various countries and regions of the world, click here.
- Prayer Guides. For prayer resources to guide individual and group prayer for the unreached, click here.
- Prayer Videos. For Tribal, Hindu, Unreligious, Muslim, Buddhist (THUMB) peoples prayer videos, click here.
9. Pray for the persecuted church
- The Voice of the Martyrs. A non-profit, interdenominational organization with a vision for aiding Christians around the world who are being persecuted for their faith in Christ. Click here.
10. Books on Missions Related Prayer
