Showing posts with label Prayer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Prayer. Show all posts

1040 Ways to get started

SIX WAYS TO GET STARTED

Ways to Get Started.

If you’ve made a commitment to missions, the chances are you still don’t know how, where or when you can help. You may even have some why questions. Hang in there. It will come in God’s time.

The best way to get started at anything is – wait for it – to get started. This is not double talk. How many people do you know who have talked for years about writing a book, but they’ve never sat down at the keyboard. Or what about those who want to see the world, but have never obtained a passport. I was telling someone about my website and their response was, “I wouldn’t know how to do that.” Well, I didn’t know either – until I got started.

Here are a number of steps that worked for me.

1. Pray first: 

This may sound trite, but I can’t emphasize it enough. Start with prayer. Some people put in all the work, and as an afterthought ask God to bless their plan. That’s doing it backwards. First ask the Lord, “Do you really want me to do this?”

2. Trust God: 
If you feel that God is saying, “Go ahead,” you need to trust Him to lead you through all the other steps.

3. Get help: 
When you have prayed and trusted God, he will lead you to the right source of help. In my case, for starting my website, I found a video of Michael Hyatt’s that gave step-by-step directions on how to get the site and the blog started. Then I read his book Platform that treats the whole subject systematically

4. Start small, think big: 
I remember watching the shadowy figure of Neil Armstrong as he stepped on the moon. I’ll never forget those memorable words, “that’s one small step for a man, and one giant leap for mankind.” Who knows the consequences of your first small step. We’ve all seen proud parents boasting about their toddler’s first wobbly steps. You can’t tell them that it’s insignificant. They can already see him or her winning the marathon at the Olympic Games.

5. Prepare a master plan: 
In other words, know where you are going. That is the second part of Neil Armstrong’s classic statement – “One giant leap…” You don’t have to know all the mechanics and the details at this point. Matter of fact, if you did, you might give up. As I worked through Michael Hyatt’s book, I had to ask myself a lot of questions, like “Why am I doing this? Who do I want to reach? What subjects will I blog about? This helped me focus my thoughts and actions.

6. Don’t be overwhelmed by the size of the task. 
If you have followed the first steps, God will take you further. A number of years ago, I felt led to take a team down to Mexico to place recordings in the hands of migrant laborers. I didn’t have the right vehicle, I didn’t have the equipment or supplies, I didn’t have the finances, I didn’t know how I would do it after I got there, and I couldn’t speak Spanish. Throughout the planning process, God supplied each of those elements one by one, and the people to do what I couldn’t. We had a successful trip.

Read this blog from Michael Hyatt: 

1060 Ways to Pray

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