Archive for Sunday School – Page 3

Fostering a ‘Praying for the Lost’ Culture in Your Group

By Clint Calvert · Comments (0)
Thursday, April 9th, 2020

How can I make praying for the lost a cultural value for the group I lead? My friend, Jack Bell, has given me a sure-fire way to get people to turn a behavior into a habit. Jack says, “Tell them why, show them how, get them started, and keep them going.” These four steps can get your group praying for the lost so regularly that it becomes a cultural value for your group.

‘Tell them why’ means reviewing for your group the scriptures’ admonition to pray for lost people. ‘Show them how’ means demonstrating to your group how to pray for the lost with a specific list of people. ‘Get them started’ entails having your group members create their own lists of lost people to pray for. ‘Keep them going’ requires raising the issue of praying for the lost and the answers to those prayers in every meeting the group experiences.

Dwayne McCrary suggests keeping a list of specific lost people you are praying for as a leader. He then encourages you to get people in your group to keep and pray for a list. Finally, he envisions your group praying regularly for lost people as a part of each group meeting you conduct.

If you are not yet praying for specific lost people daily, this practice needs to become a habit in your life that your group members will follow. A good place to get started is a website named blesseveryhome.com. Once you create a free account, this site will prompt you to pray with a daily email listing five neighbors from your neighborhood. The site gives you a place to indicate when you have prayed for them, when you have shared Christ with them and whether they have indicated that they are a Christ follower.

Blesseveryhome.com could also be the beginning of the prayer lists your group members will create. Ask members of your group to pray for the lost specifically by name. Group members can visualize the impact of their prayers and gospel sharing in their own neighborhood. Sharing about prayers and answers to prayers becomes an agenda item every time the group meets. Once this happens for several weeks, this practice is on its way to becoming a cultural value of the group.

Clint Calvert is Church Leadership Catalyst for the Minnesota-Wisconsin Baptist Convention.

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The Importance of Praying for Lost People Daily

By Sean Keith · Comments (0)
Monday, April 6th, 2020

The first question we often ask is, why should I pray for lost people? Maybe a better question is, why don’t I? God created, loves and cares for every human being. His desire is to reconcile unto Himself every person who will accept His gift of forgiveness and eternal life. God puts people into our lives that are lost without Christ so that we can have the chance to be a part of bringing people from death in sin to life in Christ. We have been given a precious opportunity to be a part of Almighty God’s life changing work through salvation.

The Holy Spirit is constantly working in our heart and life to place lost people in our path. At the same time, He is working in the hearts and lives of those who are lost preparing them for an encounter with God—through us. He chooses to use us to be a part of His life transforming act of salvation.

At the center of that is our prayer life. As we pray, God brings to our heart and mind those who are lost. God then prepares us for these encounters. At the same time, He prepares the hearts and minds of those He has placed in our path. Prayer is how we talk with God and ask for His guidance and strength so that we would be ready and willing when the divine appointment happens.

We MUST pray daily that God would prepare us and those He has placed in our hearts and minds so that we would not miss the privilege of being a part of God’s life changing work of salvation. Just remember, somewhere back there, someone was praying for you. God placed your name on someone’s heart. They prayed, The Spirit of God moved and you were saved.

The reason we pray for our lost family members, neighbors, co-workers, friends and strangers, is because God desires to use us in the miracle working process of seeing people receive forgiveness of their sins and eternal life with God. What greater gift could you ever give someone that eternal life. And to think, God chose to use you to be a part of that. That’s reason enough for me.

Who are you praying for today?

Sean Keith is the Sunday School/Discipleship Strategist for the Louisiana Baptist Convention

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PRAYING Together for lost Friends

By Paul Johnson · Comments (0)
Saturday, April 4th, 2020

I do Breath Prayer weekends with those concerned about unsaved family and friends. We exchange prayers by texting during the day. Here’s the format. 

SATURDAY: DESPERATE PRAYER

Talking Points to influence our prayer are based on the story from SyroPhoenician mother who won’t go away. (Mark 7:24-30; Matthew 15:21-28) Her prayer was based on these points:

  • Her compelling need: a daughter’s torment
  • Her helplessness: can’t fix this herself
  • Her disqualification from getting an audience (pagan, woman, foreigner, Jesus’ “Do not Disturb” sign)
  • Her shamelessness: I’ll do anything for my child
  • Her acknowledgement: the Messiah, “Son of David”
  • Her humility: kneeling, worshipping. “Lord… Lord… Lord”
  • Her persistence: The disciples beg Jesus to send her away, she ignores them
  • Her passion: “shouting out,” “pleading”
  • A bewildering silence and seeming insult, “dogs” [doggies]
  • Her fixation on, “First…” (v 27); “Then I’ll be next!”
  • Her respectful, creative, desperate prayer: “Give me what I don’t deserve because of your goodness – and I need it now.” (Tim Keller)
  • Her anticipation, “Granted!”
  • Her honor: one of only two Jesus commended, “Your faith is great!”

Breath prayer: Lord Jesus, Son of God, hear our cry for mercy and choose, call and reveal Jesus to [our friend] (Galatians 1.15-16)

SUNDAY: TEAM PRAYER

Talking Points to influence our prayer are based on the story of Four men partnering to save their friend (Mark 2.1-12).

  • Their compulsion to see a friend get healthy
  • Their decision: get him to Jesus, then we’re done
  • Their teamwork; can’t do it alone
  • Their “impossible… difficult… done” spirit (Hudson Taylor)
  • Their creativity
  • Their work maneuvering him upstairs, opening the roof
  • The crowd’s irritation with dust and distraction; but not Jesus
  • Their teamwork: Jesus sees their faith and responds
  • Our Lord’s affectionate, “Son…”
  • The bewildering surprise: spiritual healing first
  • Then physical healing, eliciting the man’s faith to respond
  • Our desire: creative, persistent, team faith

Breath prayer: See our faith, Lord Jesus, and forgive and heal [our friend] spiritually.

(Bonus: FRIDAY: PERSONAL PERSISTENCE)

Talking points to influence our prayer are based on The widow seeking justice (Luke 18.1-8), the man needing bread at midnight (Lk 11.5-8).

Breath prayer:  Jesus, I persist in prayer, expecting a response. You asked, “Will I find faith when I return?” Yes, in me! Save [my friend]!

Written by Paul Johnson, Canadian National Baptist Convention Team Leader, Church Strengthening

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It ALL Began with Flake!

By Mark Miller · Comments (0)
Friday, April 3rd, 2020
Arthur Flake

The church has been praying for years…so it didn’t all began with Arthur Flake.  But for Southern Baptists Sunday School work, it all began with Flake.  Arthur Flake wrote several books in the early 20th century that formed the foundations of a Sunday School movement in churches that resulted in people being saved, baptized and taught the Word of God. 

Imagine the impact if every Christian in North America—starting with your church—had one person they prayed for regularly and were sharing the gospel with.  That is the aim of the Who’s Your One emphasis launch by Southern Baptists Churches in 2019. Have you identified your one! 

I am thankful for this movement of evangelism and prayer in our churches!  But identifying your one, interceding for your one, and being intentional with your one didn’t begin with our current SBC president, J. D. Grear.  Dwayne McCrary, author of the book It Begins with Prayer, shared that when he looked at Flake’s Journal, “Flake specified that “Every teacher should have a prayer list of all lost for whom his class is responsible.”  It ALL began with Flake!

If Flake were alive today, he would be exhorting every Sunday School teacher, every group leader, and every member of a group, to identify their one.  To have a prayer list that is dominated by the names of people who have yet to become followers of Christ.  It ALL Began with Flake!

I am thankful for movements like Who’s Your One because it is calling us back to the understanding that every one of us need to have a prayer list that is dominated by the names of people who are lost. 

In the midst of the crisis that our world is facing, I can’t imagine not having the peace that passes all understanding and the hope that comes from my faith and trust in Jesus. 

McCrary goes on to say that in his journal notes, Flake “also called for each teacher to share his or her prayer list with other teachers.”  And I believe we should ask the members of our group to carry a list and to share their lists with the group.  Together we pray for our one! 

Reaching begins with prayer and it all began with Flake!

By Mark Miller, Baptism-Discipleship Team Leader, Tennessee Baptist Mission Board

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It Begins with Prayer

By Dwayne McCrary · Comments (0)
Wednesday, April 1st, 2020

It Begins with Prayer  Why the call to prayer is important today

If you had to define the basics of ongoing Bible study groups (most commonly called Sunday School), what would you include? Obviously, Bible study would be included, but what else? The past few weeks of social distancing, “safer at home” initiatives, and groups of less than 10 may have revealed those basics. We are not so worried about who will bring the donuts as we are focused on sharing our experiences, encouraging and being encouraged by other believers, and praying for neighbors who are more open to a wave and a conversation (even if it is shouting across the street). We are praying for lost neighbors, building community through prayer with each other, and serving each other through prayer all while doing some type of Bible study together…even if that is not at the same time or in the same way.

Leaders may be encouraging some of these actions, but these actions are coming from within the group as well. The things the group is asking for tell us what they value and why they are a part of an ongoing Bible study in the first place. Getting to the basics is not a bad thing. In fact, it should be welcomed because it brings attention to the more important things.

In It Begins with Prayer, we find a call to pray daily for lost people by name, to build community through intentional prayer partnerships, and to make disciples through serving with prayer as the starting point. While prayer is the unifying element, each supports the reaching, teaching, and serving work of an ongoing Bible study group. All of these actions can still take place in a “shelter in place” world, pointing to the necessity of each.

These actions will be just as important in the days ahead. Nothing keeps us from praying for lost people, praying with another believer, or serving others through prayer…nothing. Shouldn’t that tell us something about what the future of our ongoing Bible study groups might look like?

The ideas in It Begins with Prayer came from the notes of Arthur Flake, a leader in Sunday School development. Writing in 1920, he faced a time of unprecedented change. World War I ended in 1918. The Spanish flu pandemic ended in 1919, killing 3 to 6 percent of the world population (estimates vary). Flake proposed a simple plan for reaching people for Bible study. That plan was built around prayer. Could it be that God is preparing us to learn from the past? I’m not a prophet, but I do know that prayer changes things, and it may be time for us to rediscover that basic truth.

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Dwayne McCrary – team leader of adult ongoing Bible study resources at LifeWay Christian Resources, husband, father, GDaddy, Bible study teacher to both empty nesters and 3 year olds, adjunct professor (MBTS), reader of history books, and road bicyclist. Copies of It Begins with Prayer can be purchased or downloaded (PDF and audio) at LifeWay.com/TrainingResources.

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