Why We Pray As We Do (and How!)

The ministry that I coordinate, The REAP Team, has just begun its 22^nd year of presenting retreats.   Our longevity can be attributed to the fact that we haven’t given up on teenagers, and any success we might have in reaching teens for Christ can be attributed only to God’s grace.  I am absolutely convinced, though, that one big reason that God’s grace flows so freely through our efforts to His kids is that we are rooted in prayer.

I want to share with you why we pray as we do, and how.  But before I go there, I want to let you know that a lot of people pray for us.  We have both an email list and a texting list of “prayer warriors” with whom we regularly communicate our needs.  If your program does not have a group of prayer warriors, I encourage you to develop this invaluable resource.

All of us on staff, and all of our volunteers, are people of prayer.  This is a non-negotiable requirement to serve on the REAP Team.  No offense, but if you are not a person of prayer, you should not be in ministry – nor should your volunteers be in ministry if they are not people of prayer.

Before every retreat, we pray together as a team, since prayer unifies us and empowers us.  There is a specific prayer that we pray out loud, and I think that the Lord wants us to share it with you.  It is attached as a PDF file called the “Armor Prayer for REAP 2010”.  Feel free to use it any time, and feel free to modify it to your own situations; we have modified it many times and will continue to do so as the Lord leads us.  We always pray this particular prayer because it is so thorough, so full of Scripture, and because it binds the enemy; as you should know, when we are trying to reach teens for Christ, the evil one is not pleased - so we need to put on our armor and ask the Lord to protect us from his wiles.  By the way, this is not only a great communal prayer, but it is excellent for individuals to pray on a daily basis, and especially when going through difficult times.

After this prayer, we open it up for team members to pray more spontaneously for various components of our retreats, including the students, adult leaders, talks, small groups, dramas, etc…

So, there you go.  That’s why we pray, and how, in this ministry of the REAP Team.

We hope that in some way the "Armor Prayer for REAP 2010", in particular, will prove to be a valuable resource for you.  I think the evil one is ticked off that I have shared it, but, oh well…he’s not my boss.