Day 29: Time To Go To Thirty

If I had suggested early in this thirty-day challenge that you should go into your neighborhood and pray for thirty homes, you might have felt overwhelmed. You might have quit the challenge right then, deeming it too difficult.

But you’re a challenge veteran now. You’ve seen how God will prepare a path for you. And you’ve learned that praying for ten homes is not only possible, it’s also pretty easy.

So now your challenge is to go to thirty more homes. It doesn’t seem as intimidating now, does it? In fact, you can probably complete this challenge in under an hour. But what an incredible difference it will make. I get excited just thinking about how God will use you.

This time, you’ll focus on a different prayer for three groups of ten homes. For the first ten, pray for receptivity to the gospel. For the second group, pray that God will give them a desire to connect to a church. For the final ten homes, ask God to give the residents an unmistakable encounter with him. All of these prayers are connected, so God may answer your prayers in all three ways for some of the residents.

For now, let’s look at the three different prayers for each group of ten homes.

RECEPTIVITY TO THE GOSPEL

In my mind’s eye, I see you going to a specific neighborhood in your car, saying a prayer for God’s Spirit to lead you, and then walking to ten homes.

For the first ten homes, your prayer is precise. You are praying that the residents in each home will be receptive to the gospel. Though you don’t know whether the residents are Christians or not, you are assuming that at least one person in each home is not a believer.

The work of salvation is the work of the Holy Spirit convicting people of sin and their need for a Savior. You are simply praying for such conviction and for the hearts of the people to be open to the work of God.

You’ve heard my story; you know how Coach Joe shared the gospel with me. But God was working in my heart before I walked into Coach Joe’s office. My meeting with him was the intersection of a receptive heart and an obedient bearer of the gospel.

You are praying for the residents of the first ten homes to have receptive hearts.

A DESIRE FOR CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY

Now you’re ready for the second group of homes. For these ten, pray that the residents will have a desire to connect with followers of Christ. Specifically, pray for a desire in their hearts for Christian community in a local church.

Once an unbeliever gets connected to a church, he or she will likely be exposed to the gospel in both word and deed—through faithful teaching and in the lives of the gathered Christians.

My team at Church Answers has done a lot of research on people who are not connected to a local congregation. They comprise a large group of people we call the unchurched. In our interviews with unchurched people who are not followers of Christ, we have been encouraged to find that a majority are receptive to visiting a church. (See my book The Unchurched Next Door for the results of a major research project we conducted several years ago.)

In that same research, we found that only 5 percent of respondents were antagonistic toward Christians or churches. The unchurched world really is an open harvest field.

Today, you are praying specifically for these residents to have a desire to connect to a local church.

ENCOUNTERING GOD

God is all-knowing, all-powerful, and present everywhere. In that sense, he is at work everywhere all the time. “God moments” are taking place all the time in people’s lives.

Your prayer for the final ten homes is that the residents will recognize a God moment in their lives. You are praying they will recognize God’s work in and around them. And you are praying that this encounter with God will result in an openness to him.

What does a God moment look like? Here are two brief stories as examples.

Marvin was not a Christian, but he was not averse to Christianity. Though his parents didn’t go to church, Marvin’s grandparents—who were faithful churchgoers—were a major influence in his life. When Marvin’s wife was pregnant with their first child, his granddad said to him three months before the child’s birth, “When this baby comes into the world, I pray you will get him into a church. It’s one of the most important things you can do.”

Marvin was with his wife when Stephen was born. As he held his new son, he was suddenly struck by his granddad’s words. Three months later, Marvin, his wife, and their son went to a church for the first time. Marvin and his wife soon became Christians.

Marvin described the birth of his son as a clear message from God. I call it a God moment.

In Dawn’s case, it took some tragic events for her to see the need for something more in her life. First, she went through a divorce. And then six weeks later, she was in a near-fatal traffic accident. Though she survived, she was in the hospital for several weeks, followed by extensive rehab. Dawn described her moments in the hospital as a wake-up call. I would call it a God moment.

Fortunately, some members of a church near Dawn’s home reached out to her while she was hospitalized. She later became a Christian and got involved in a church.

Obviously, we don’t want to pray for a tragedy in someone’s life to be a wake-up call or a God moment. But God does work in the depths of our despair and on the mountaintops of our joy.

Pray for a God moment for the residents of your third group of ten homes.

THE GREAT COMMISSION TO SIXTY HOMES

Can you believe that you have responded to the Great Commission by going to sixty homes? Would you ever have expected that you would accomplish such a mission in less than a month?

You have been obedient to the Great Commission command to go. Your goal was to pray for the residents of sixty homes, and perhaps you’ve had an opportunity to meet some of these people along the way. Maybe their encounter with you was part of their God moment. But whether it was through your prayers or through conversations, you have made a difference that can only be measured in the scope of eternity.

One more day to go! Let’s get ready to move to the final day. As you will see, I hope and pray that this ending will actually become a new beginning.