RESTORED POWER (Becoming a Praying Church One Tweak at a Time) - Jonathan Graf

Preface - Restoring the Power of God in your Midst

*5 (this book) is a practical book about what I have learned over my many years of working with churches.  I  believe it will minister to you and your leaders as you seek to make prayer more central,  more foundational to your ministry.
Restored Power is actually a sequel to Forgotten Power:  A Simple Theology  for a Praying Church  by David Butts.  if you picked up  this book before seeing that one, I encourage you to get it as well. it presents in a clear way the theology of prayer. it will help your leaders get the 'why' of prayer in your church. Restored Power will help with the 'how'.

*7 Introduction IT'S WORTH THE FIGHT

...growing prayer is probably the most difficult thing to do in any church. Why? Bill Johnson, in When Heaven Invades Earth, hit the nail on the head: 'The enemy's greatest efforts at deceiving the Church  are centered on the purpose and effect of prayer'.  there is no other aspect of church life and function that the  enemy wants to see less of than prayer. he will raise up opposition to it in every way possible. 
and so we give up.
restored power is geared to help you not to give up and to provide

*8  manageable ways to tweak prayer, stimulate prayer and motivate prayer in your church. 

while I am all for doing whatever God tells you to do in growing prayer in your church, Restored Power will not tell you to shut down all ministries for 6  months and do nothing but pray.  I won't even tell you that to be a praying church you have to have a midweek corporate prayer meeting. (Shh. Don't let my prayer leader friends know about that one!

I  believe that any church - no matter the size, theological stream,  or governing polity - can become a prayer-based  church. and I believe that it can happen over time, with some simple tweaking of attitudes and existing practices. but it will take some effort and there will definitely be opposition. Lots of it. but it is worth it. No question.
as you begin raising the bar on prayer, you will see an atmospheric change and you will begin to see transformational change in the hearts and lives of people.

A CHURCH THAT LOST ITS WAY

(describes a churches non-Biblical service content during Father's Day and Fourth of July...)

*9  This was clearly a church that had lost its way.  it did not know what it was to be about. It had become just a social club for the  30-40 people who still attended there (most, their whole lives).

having spent his life in the community, Dave had seen this once vibrant church diminish in ministry over the past few decades...
When he met with the board, Dave said that one of three things needed to happen:

1. ..shut their doors now  and sell..donating the money to another ministry.
2. ...just minister to the people who were currently there, until they were gone.
3. ...determine that they needed to change drastically. ..they could be a viable ministry again.

...they eventually chose option  three ...they started praying together a little more as leaders. they eventually called Christ, a guy  no longer pastoring a church who was working as a landscaper in the area. when  Chris came, the first thing he did was take his leaders through Dave Butts's book, The Devil Goes to Church,  which is a study on simple spiritual warfare that comes against what the enemy tries to do in a church. Most older churches that are in decline usually have sin issues in their midst that need to be dealt with,and this church was no exception.

Then Christ started shoring up the existing midweek prayer time, which had become entirely needs-based praying. He focused more on the move of god in the church  and growth issues. and God started

*10 moving. Today, this congregation of 30 to 40 aging saints is a vibrant congregation of 150 plus, with members across all age groups.
Prayer can do that for your church, too. through prayer, God will restore His power in your midst. it is worth the effort and the fight.

Chapter 1

*11 THE IMPORTANCE OF PRAYER IN ACTS.

...Jerusalem is absolutely abuzz. all of a sudden on one day, more than  3,000 people started following a new way -following Jesus Christ, a person that had been killed, but who, rumor had it, came alive again.
His followers - mostly common folk - were clearly shaking up the city. those  3000 followers of Christ probably represented  10% or so of the city's population!

...the religious leaders were absolutely incensed at this. Me Must Do Something To Stop (this)...

so later that day,  while Peter and John were teaching  to a crowd,  they sent temple police to arrest them...
the next morning they brought Peter and John in front of the high  priest and synagogue leaders. Peter and John  were threatened with their lives and commanded never to speak  of this Jesus again.  but because of the people, the leaders let them go.
(they) headed back to their group of fellow believers.

*12  they needed to pray about this threat.  But what should they pray?

That is the first story in acts where we see a specific use of prayer  in the early church. they were facing  the first significant threat to the spread of the gospel.

...if that had happened to us, Western church leadrs, what would we have prayed in that situation? ...
Get me out of this'. 
Or 'Intervene Lord, remove these evil men from office'.
or perhaps,  'Lord, change their hearts'...

But what did these guys pray? Acts  4.23-30 records their prayer:
On their release, Peter and John went back to their own people and reported all that the  chief priests and the elders had said to them. When  they heard this, they raised their voices together in prayer to God. 'Sovereign Lord',  they said, 'You  made the heavens and the earth and the sea and everything in them. You spoke by the Holy spirit through the mouth of Your servant, our father David":
'Why do the nations rage
and the peoples plot in vain?
the Kings of the earth  rise up
and the  rulers band together
against the Lord
and against His anointed one'.
...after they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the Word of God boldly.

*13  Instead of focusing prayer on changing thae situation, they chose the KINGDOM-EXPANSION APPROACH.  they prayed a different way than the modern church would have prayed.

what did the early church pray about? as I look at the role of prayer in acts and its practice in the Church, I see not only that they recognized the importance of prayer and emphasized it far more than we do, but they also focused their prayer on different things than the things on which Western churches typically focus prayer. i truly believe if we could get the focus of our prayers right, the emphasis and importance would naturally follow.

KINGDOM OVER COMFORT

In this passage from Acts, we clearly see a situation where it would have been easy  to ask for protection, escape and/or change in the situation. But these early followers didn't even hint at those outcomes. 'Now, Lord', they prayer, 'consider their threats and enable your servants to speak Your word with great boldness. Stretch out Your hand to heal and perform signs and wonders through the name of Your holy servant Jesus' (4.29-30)
they ask for more of the very thing that got them into trouble - a visible miracle. ..Give us the enablement we need to proclaim Your Word',  they asked. ...

...today in our churches, particularly in the Western world. we use prayer as a fix-it tool. Make our lives better. Something  comes along in someone's life that is uncomfortable, and the immediate way we pray is 'get them back to status quo'.
over the past 40 years or so, a huge myth  about prayer has been perpetuated over and over again in our churches. prayer is to make our life good. unless that myth  can be exposed and corrected in a congregation, it will be difficult to move forward in prayer.

SUGGESTION: an excellent resource to help leaders better understand the importance of prayer in the booklet My House Shall Be a House of Prayer (Navpress 2001).  besides presenting 5  areas in which to develop prayer,  it also contains a short Bible study on prayer in the book of Acts....(prayershop.org)

FRUIT-BEARING PRAYER:
...If we want to see our churches truly do something for the Kingdom and  grow Kingdom-minded, Kingdom-committed followers, then we need to help shift the focus of their prayers from fix-it to fruit-bearing.
...John  15 is the illustration of Christ being the Vine, God the Father as the Gardener and we are the branches. to be healthy branches,  we have to stay attached to the Vine. ...

the passage also says that our role as branches is to bear fruit.  'He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every  branch that does bear fruit He prunes so that it will be even more fruitful...Remain in Me, as I also remain in you...(v2-4)
...if a believer is truly connected  to the Vine, taking in the Word and realizing that their primary purpose as a believer is to

*15  bear fruit, what will they want?likely, instead of praying the possibly selfish fix-this-situation prayer, they will think, 'What's the fruit-bearing thing I should ask for? What does the Vine want me to pray for? What could I prayer for  - for myself, this person, my church - that would bring Kingdom results, where God would get the glory and the Kingdom would grow?

********If you can encourage this one shift in prayer  -helping people to understand that the primary purpose of prayer is not to make my life better - you will ultimately see radical changes in the Kingdom ministry of your church.

CHANGING THIS PRACTICE

It is not difficult to teach this principle. but it is important to continually encourage this type of Kingdom praying, because even if people learn the principle in their heads, their hearts will often take them right back to 'make my life better',  and it's not as if god does not want to 'give good gifts to those who ask Him'. Matthew 7.11
but beyond teaching,  one of the things we need to do is be careful that our actions do not perpetuate fix-it praying. and we often do that in several ways.

1. Stuck in default mode (encourage..minister comfort)

instead, we should seek to pray a meaningful, sensitive, Spirit-driven prayer that seks what God desires to do in the situation.

*17 Chapter 2 -SIMPLE TWEAKING CAN BRING RESULTS

...author mentions he was in a church where he saw people in small groups praying...this came about from the Pastor's encouragement that if someone you are talking with to pray right then with them..then he encouraged the assistant pastors to do this as well.

* Forgotten Power (PrayerShop, 2015, Living in the Upper Room (PrayerShop 2013) and My House Shall Be a House of Prayer (Pray! Books 2001)

PRAY MORE OFTEN WITH PEOPLE  ON-THE-SPOT...
*28  PRAY SCRIPTURE (Scripture is God's Will!)

*30 Prayer grows a personal relationship with God and releases the will of God on earth.

II Corinthians 1.8-11 - Paul talking to the Corinthian believers about their prayers for him...'We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about the troubles we experienced in the province of Asia. we were  under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself. indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death, but this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on god, who raises the dead. He has delivered us from such a deadly peril and he will deliver us again.  On Him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us, AS YOU HELP US BY  YOUR PRAYERS.  THEN MANY WILL GIVE THANKS ON OUR BEHALF FOR THE GRACIOUS FAVOR GRANTED US IN ANSWER TO THE PRAYERS OF MANY.

*31  ...Paul challenged the Roman believers to 'join me in my struggle by praying to God for me'. Romans  15.30
..(prayer) releases the will of God...an understanding of both principles (personal relationship and release of God's will) is crucial to disciple a person into effective prayer...

an understanding of both principles (personal relationship and release of God's will) is crucial  to disciple a person  into effective prayer. those two principles work together. as we grow in relationship, we get a greater

*32  desire to pray what is on God's heart, rather than what we want. the more Christlike we become, the quicker our heart - and what we pray - seeks to pray what will grow the Kingdom.