Building a Connected Prayer Army
During this crisis that forces isolation, we must make sure to look beyond our quasi-connection with millions of people. Let’s make a real effort to foster a few strong individual connections. May God lead to safely help others without contributing to the transmission of the disease. Instead we want to let God lead us to contribute to the transmission of the Love of God!
Jim Brenneman
Two Together
We are part of an innumerable company!
We have come to Mount Zion, and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable multitudes of angels, to the Assembly of the Firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of righteous people made perfect, AND to Jesus, the Mediator of the New Covenant. (Heb. 12:22-24 JLB)
We are a host and we are not alone. The LORD of Hosts is with us. Yet a vast multitude cannot necessarily multiply. And a large number has no power if it merely unattached individuals. We must be two by two, side by side.
You, yes you, can build a prayer army by starting with TWO. Every minister should have two key people to support him in prayer: to hold up his hands, as Aaron and Hur supported Moses (Exodus 17:10-13).
So, each of you needs to start here. I have had, for many years, two key people who are my personal intercessors. Who are your two prayer warriors? Stop Now. Before moving on, ask yourself – Who are my two prayer warriors?
Now who will you contact? Who will you ask? Write down the names of four individuals right here on this page, or text yourself their names. Contact them and see if two of them will become your prayer warriors. Will you do it?
Compassion Conspiracy
And meanwhile during this crisis that forces isolation, we must make sure that we look beyond our quasi-connection with millions of people. We must make a real and intentional effort to foster a few strong individual connections.
I did this remotely with a group of young people in Africa a couple of years ago. We started a small group on-line with the intent of supporting one other in acts of service in our world. We wanted to help each other to show the love of Christ to people we met day by day. Starting with only two individuals, in just a short period of time there were 50 or more saints prayerfully giving one bottle of water to a new stranger each day (Matt. 10:42)
In this crisis we need to seek God’s leading in how we can safely help others without contributing to the transmission of the disease – but instead we want to let God lead us in ways we can contribute to the transmission of the Love of God! May this spread more rapidly and more lastingly that the virus ever could!
Here is the reason I just mentioned the group of young people in Africa – we did this by starting with two – a person I was counseling was troubled with despair, depression, and loneliness. I encouraged her to connect with one other person to conspire together do one significant act of compassion that day.
Later in the evening she was so excited, she asked me if she could do it again. As if she needed my permission . . . so I said, “Yes, but only if each of you finds one other person to do the same thing.” So then there were four young people conspiring together to do acts of compassion. Friends in Africa heard this story, and they said, “Can we do the ‘Give-a-Drink’ Adventure?” This then led to a group of them joining together in Give a Drink adventure for several weeks.
The point is this – God used me to do this remotely, from a distance, through an internet connection. I believe that every one of us could do this, and we should be doing it. Every day we should be connecting with people to help them connect with each other and cooperate in showing the love of God.
An Army of Praying People
YOU CAN DO THIS. HERE IS HOW:
1. You get just four people to connect with each other in a little team – it will be a team of TWO pairs (remembering the strength of pairs). I emphasize the need for two to stand together because this was the definition of defeat in Israel:
[The armies of Israel defeated their enemies], and the ones who remained were scattered, so that no two of them were left standing together [two of them were not left together]. 1 Samuel 11:11
Interesting reminder from the number of this reference: 1 ** 11:11 – all ones – Lots of ones, but only ones! We can be a billion individuals in the world, but if we are not connected we will not be a force. Jesus said wherever any two of you together are agreed – that you will be unstoppable in prayer. So a group of four is two pairs of prayers – and this will be the starting group of Four (a God-Quad).
2. Next, the four should be directed to pray for each other once each day. Ask them to commit to pray daily for one entire week! They should also send each other a short text of 2 or 3 lines of what they each prayed, at the beginning of the day. So four people will each know that three others are praying for them. And they will each read three very encouraging personal prayers from three trusted friends. Wow! How powerful is that? And my guess is that in most cases they will be happy to continue on after the first week.
And then later in the day, or at the end of the day, they also send each other one Praise or Promise – a testimony about God’s hand or a promise from the Bible about God’s hand. All four of them will be blessed.
3. Then each of these four in the God-Quad will start another team of four. You can wait a day, or can see if each one is interested in starting a new Quad immediately. It is possible that it could take off like a tsunami of prayer! Suddenly you have four new Quad Squads on the same day – 20 people seriously praying!
Everyone has time to do this. It only takes about Five Minutes to think of four people and send them a text message of a prayer. As a test, I will do it now. . . .
Done – yep it took five minutes – I sent a prayer to a brother in California who is from Asia, another brother in East Asia, and another brother in India, and also a co-worker from my office. Five minutes.
And it will only take five more minutes to encourage them to do the same thing. This is how our response to the Crisis in the World can spread! Imagine if each one us could infect 20 people with the commitment to pray! And unlike COVID-19, this can be transmitted over the Internet – and people will become Symptomatic immediately – the love of God oozing out of us and spreading to others the overwhelming, never-ending reckless love of God!
If it takes five minutes to go from one individual to 4 others (you spawning to 4), and then 10 minutes more it spreads to 16 more (4 + 16 = 20 total), and another 10 minutes to multiply to 60 (20 + 64). Think of it: a Unit of almost 80 warriors in 15 or 20 minutes!
And then, if these 16 new God-Quads (64 warriors) each recruit a new Quad (64 x 4 = 256) and add to that the 80 already on board – now you have 345 prayer warriors connecting with each other (in 20 minutes) now one more time (256 x 4 = 1,024) + previous 346. Now it’s a legion of 1,370 prayer warriors in a half hour.
ONE MORE THING THOUGH: Remember that this should be done with a partner: in pairs and not alone. Each partnership should encourage one another to start spreading the cure. And if two people embark on this adventure as partners – a then by the end of half an hour, it will be an army of 2,740 prayer warriors. Wow!
All of these warriors will be partnered up. They will not be alone, but rather, they will be linked together: in pairs, in Quad Squads, in Cohorts, in Units, in Legions, and in Battalions and in Armies. This is just off the top of my head, but wow.
Honestly though, you probably can’t get it done in five minutes. More than likely it would require 4 or 5 hours for you to find four people who will commit themselves to pray. So if we did the math all over again on the basis of 4-5 hours, instead of minutes – the result would be 2,740 warriors in less than a day, in less than 24 hours.
Please contact the author if you have begun to establish some prayer teams – some “Quad Squads” – warriors who are alive, and not buried in isolation. Let’s have a movement! Reply in a comment if you are joining the adventure.
