How to start a movement using Luke 10:2b
Here’s Felicity:
Any church planting movement must be preceded and then surrounded by a prayer movement. Prayer is essential to any move of God. We need many prayer warriors who will spend hours on their faces before God crying out to Him that He move across our land. In Korea, which has seen a remarkable movement of God over the past 100 years, prayer has been the key. Dr. David Yonggi Cho, perhaps the best known leader there, says that when he first started his church, he needed to pray for four to five hours a day in order to see God move. Now that so much has happened, he has been able to cut down to three hours a day!
But prayer is not just for a few who have the time and the gifting to pray. Everyone needs to be involved.
Back in 2002, two friends, Kenny and John, were discussing how to see a church planting movement start across their state. They realized that Jesus had given the key in Luke 10:2—“The harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few. Pray the Lord of the harvest that He will send out laborers into His harvest.” They settled on an experiment. Each day they would this prayer together for a few minutes.
As their praying continued, they realized they didn’t know how to pray the prayer day after day, so they asked the Lord to teach them. He showed them from the story in the Bible of the widow and the unjust judge that they needed to be persistent in their praying. He also led them to be very specific in what they asked for.
Things started to happen. Kenny is responsible for church planting for his church group in his state. Before they started praying, about one person in a month contacted him about church planting. It has now become a daily occurrence. And over the last eight months, he has seen over 120 churches start as a direct result of this praying.
“Praying like this is now my only strategy for church planting,” he says.
Kenny and John call this prayer the 10:2b virus (Luke chapter 10 verse 2 and the second part of the verse.) Just like a virus spreads rapidly, they want to see people everywhere praying this prayer. They are seeking to infect everyone they come across. Across the world, people are partnering up to pray the 10:2b prayer daily, and everywhere they are seeing remarkable answers to prayer.
I put this to the test in a part of my home City where God led me to go and pray. For a number of months I regularly prayer walked this area, crying out to God to raise up laborers for this harvest field, praying God’s blessing down on each home, family and business. I knew of only two believers in the whole area when I started.
There are now 12 households of believers all committed to reaching others in the area and starting home churches.
