God-Sized Prayer for the Community

The truth is I have repeatedly asked God to send more people to our church.  This year we have experienced more departures than the normal attrition our church cycles through.  In any given year, we see a dozen or more people move whether it is because of graduation or moving to a new town.  Or, people leave the church for other reasons.  As that happens, new people join us.  Families move to the area.  People already living here decide they want to give our church a try.  In over decade, we have not had significant numeric growth or decline – until this year. 

            This year, our new arrivals are not keeping pace with our departures.  As the lead pastor of the church, this has troubled me and I have prayed fervently for God to do something about it.  However, recently as I walked through the neighborhood near our church property, I experienced a paradigm-rattling thought.  I may have been praying the wrong prayer.

            Does God want people to attend HillSong?  Maybe.  But more than filling the seats in our building with bodies on Sunday mornings, God wants people turning to Him in faith.  God wants the hearts of people turned to him for salvation. 

            There’s a middle school a block from our church campus.  There are hundreds of homes within a one-mile radius of our location.  I walked across that campus praying for the kids who would be taking year-end testing.  I prayed for cafeteria workers, teachers’ classroom aides, the school nurse, the janitors, and the resource officer.  I prayed for office staff, the principal, and assistant principals.  And of course, I prayed for the teachers.  From the school, I walked up and down residential streets praying, asking God to send a wave of revival through this community. 

            Our church is not influencing or affecting this community in which God has placed us.  A few families are core members of our church family, but for the most part, the community is indifferent to the church.  I know.  I live in the community. I talk to my neighbors every day.  As I walked and pray, it hit like a thunderclap.  I need – we all need – to be praying for something much more important than increased attendance at our church.  We need to pray for a bigger impact in our community. 

            The second entry for “impact” in the Merriam-Webster online dictionary reads that this is a noun which means “the force or impression of one thing on another.”  What Gospel force is our church exerting in this community?  What Godly impression are we making?

          People in our town don’t know how much they need Jesus.  They don’t realize they are lost without him.  I know.  I live here.  One of the nicest men I know decide Sunday morning was the perfect time an amusement park.  He’s a great dad and I love it when my kids play at his house because I know they’re safe, they’re having fun, and they don’t spend the time staring at screens. 

I love my neighbor.  But, it never occurred to him that Sunday morning is a time for the church to gather and worship God.  It just isn’t in his mind that his children need to be formed in the image of Christ and part of that formation is the teaching that comes in Sunday School, in extended session, and in worship services.  I hope my friendship with him is a witness.  He knows who I am and what I do.  But whatever effect our friendship has, in our half a dozen years of acquaintance, his family has been to our church exactly 1 time.  And they’re not missing our church to worship elsewhere.  In his life, Sunday morning is time for taking kids places or for working out.  He is but one example of the people around us – our church’s mission field.

We not called to encourage people to be nice.  We are called to help people become disciples of Jesus.  One of the most important and maybe one of the most overlooked passages to inform our calling is Luke 19:41-44.  Jesus has arrived in Jerusalem and knows he will soon be arrested and executed.  He knows this is coming, but he also knows he will have a week where he is able to teach in the temple’s outer court.  It is his last chance to give his vision for life in God’s kingdom before he goes to the cross.

As he approaches the city from the outlying village where he spends his nights, Luke writes he weeps. He weeps for Jerusalem.  His tears do not fall because he desperately wants to see better temple attendance for Sabbath day worship services.  He’s crying because he says of the people of the city, “If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace!  Because now they are hidden from your eyes.  … You did not recognize the time of your visitation from God.”

Jesus was God-in-the-flesh and too many people in the city could not see it and totally missed it.  This broke God’s heart.  We are nearly 2000 years removed from Jesus’ time in Jerusalem, from the crucifixion and resurrection.  Today, we live in the age of the church.  The Holy Spirit has come (Acts 2) to empower the church to draw people to Jesus.  We are the witnesses to what God has done and is doing – saving men and women from sin and from an eternity apart from Him.  Our testimony is meant to convince people to render a verdict: they are guilty and their only hope of rescue from judgment is Jesus. 

Would I love it if our church got bigger (had more people)?  Most definitely!  That’s why I have continuously asked God to send more people to us.  God responded to that prayer by challenging me to pray something much bigger and more important.  God wants the hearts of the people in this community.  We as a church need to pray that we would have a God-sized influence and a resurrection-persuasion.  We need to impact this community for Christ. 

That’s why I am urging you to make salvation prayer a crucial part of your daily prayer life (and if you don’t prayer daily, then start.  Now!).  Pray for the salvation of the people in our community who don’t know Jesus.  Pray for our church to be an effective witness.  Have your heart burn for people like many of my neighbors.  These are wonderful, upstanding folks, but without a sense of how much they need Jesus.  Pray that God will work through our church to help people find their way to Jesus.  If it means many end up attending our church, that’s great.  But that’s not the prayer.  The prayer is that people’s hearts would turn to God through faith in Jesus Christ.  Let this burn in you.