By a member of SEND’s Diaspora | North America team — As I contemplate all that goes in to starting a new team to share the gospel with an unreached people group, one element rises to the top: the need for prayer. So, often we spend a lot of time talking about prayer, or reading books about prayer, or even listening to sermons or going to entire conferences about prayer. But how much time do we spend praying? 

I would offer that we spend far less time than is needed in order to see God move. I offer a couple of anecdotal stories that illustrate our general weakness in the area of prayer: 

• One pastor I talked with lamented that the prayer meeting is the least-attended meeting or event in the life of his church.

• Another pastor said that his church had abandoned the prayer meeting in favor of a prayer chain, which was based on the honor system. 

• I attended a prayer meeting organized to pray for the unreached peoples of the world. We spent 18 minutes of the three-hour event actually praying. I suspect this isn't the exception but the rule. 

So what guidance on prayer does the Bible give? 

• We are to always pray and never grow faint. (Luke 18:1)

• Jesus commands us to ask the Lord of the Harvest to send out workers, for the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. (Luke 10:2)

• We are to pray without ceasing and give thanks always, for this is God’s will for us in Christ Jesus. (1 Thessalonians 5:17-18)

In the Gospels, we see over and over again that before, during, and after ministry, Jesus prays. If God the Son, being fully man, was dependent on prayer in such a fashion, then we too should be always in conversation with our Father and seeking to have our hearts becoming more connected with his. 

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