Every year we throw a Christmas Party for our local community. We invite our friends, family and neighbours to come along to an evening of fun, food, and fellowship. The big finale is our carols service. Every musician in our church is on board, we have a guitar, bass, drums, keys, saxophone violin, and flute and three singers. We decorate the hall with tinsel and coloured lights. We have amazing visuals on our screen. We sing all the classic carols and rock them up to the max. We have a kids’ section where we hand our glow sticks. And finally we proclaim the Good News about Jesus Christ. It’s awesome, even if I have to say so myself.

But unless God uses it, it’s a complete waste of time. The truth is coloured lights don’t change people’s hearts. Amazing music might make people tap their feet, or sing along, but it won’t make them feel the weight of their sin. A dynamic message, delivered in a winsome way, won’t make people believe in Jesus. Only God can change people’s hearts!

The Apostle Paul writes, ‘I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. (1 Cor 3:6)’ That doesn’t mean we don’t do our best, or that we don’t try different things, rather it means that first and foremost we have to pray.

When Billy Graham was asked about the most important steps in preparing for an evangelistic outreach, he always answered that there were three things that mattered most: Prayer, prayer and prayer. What made Billy Graham so effective had more to do with his complete reliance of God to change people’s hearts than on his preaching style, it had more to do with his dependence on prayer than on how well he proclaimed the gospel.

One of my favourite proverbs is ‘The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps. (Prov 16:9)’ It’s important to plan, it’s important to prepare, it’s important to have programs, but even more important is prayer. For people’s hearts to be changed, for the church to be effective, for the Kingdom to grow we need God, we need the Lord to establish our steps.

Billy Graham said, “Jesus prayed briefly when He was in a crowd; He prayed a little longer when He was with His disciples; and He prayed all night when He was alone.” And he made the observation that “Today, many in the ministry tend to reverse that process.” If we want to see a spiritual revival in our churches, in our local community, and across our nation, it will begin with prayer. Prayer is crucial to outreach. I want to encourage you to grow in your practice of prayer as a church through these three simple ideas.

1. Create a prayer list. List all the people in your life, your family, friends, neighbours and acquaintances, who don’t yet know Jesus as their Saviour, and pray through those names everyday. Ask the Holy Spirit to soften their hearts. Ask God for opportunities to love and serve them and tell them about Jesus. Ask God that by his grace you might be able to tick them off your list when they give their lives to Jesus. You can get everyone in your church to do this.
2. Prayer walk. Not only is walking a great way to stay in shape, it’s also a great opportunity to pray for your community. You can even do this in pairs and pray out loud (it will look like you’re having a conversation together, they just won’t see the third person in your conversation).
3. Group prayers. Whenever you have small group, or a ministry or leadership meeting, don’t just pray for each other, or your ministry, pray for outreach. Allow time to talk about who you are praying for and opportunities you’ve had to share the gospel with them. If you’re a part of the kids or youth ministry pray for the young people in your care, as well as their friends and family members who don’t know Jesus.