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Monday, December 8, 2008

Prayer Changes the World

There is much to learn and apply from Frank Laubach’s fervent call to prayer. He longs for pastors and their people to be sure that:

“Every prayer we utter from the heart begins to change history at once. Most prayers of intercession one hears in church are tragic disappointments, meager, vague, half-hearted, powerless, small. People seldom pray as if they realized that prayer changes the world.

“Evangelical Christianity is lost unless it discovers that the center and power of its divine service is prayer, not sermons; God, not the preacher. This does not mean that more time must be spent in preparing written prayers, it does mean that minister and people need to spend more time preparing themselves for the service by prayer at home” (Prayer, The Mightiest Force in the World, Fleming H. Revell Company, Westwood, New Jersey, 1946, page 49).

Frank Laubach's writings suggest specific ways that we can grow in prayer--by praying with the conviction that prayer can change people, events, even world history. He modeled this conviction, and challenges us to pray experimentally--to record our prayers and the ways God answers.