Shandon Baptist Church in Columbia hosted a Church Prayer Leaders Network conference June 11-13 and heard a challenge to “ask God to use us in those areas where we are strong and to enable us in the areas where we are weak.”
Jon Graf, director of Church Prayer Leaders Network, which co-sponsored Empowered 2008, addressed conference participants.Jonathan Graf, president of CPLN, was a featured speaker at the Shandon conference with 245 registered participants, but with that number growing by up to 250 at the evening sessions.
Graf called on the Columbia audience to be people of prayer as well as prayer leaders. He challenged them to be people “after God’s heart,” who possess “spiritual hunger” and who constantly pray for that hunger to increase.
He said prayer leaders and people of prayer should also “rise above circumstances” and “continue to praise God, serve him and walk with determination and trust, even when things are not good.”
Graf noted that prayer leaders and people of prayer should also be “models of faith for those around them.”
Prayer leaders and people of prayer also ought to be models of “coming under authority,” according to Graf. He said, “We need to model what it is to respect our pastor and leaders, even if we do not agree with them.” He also underscored the need for humility.
Daniel Henderson, assistant professor for prayer and renewal at Liberty University, said, “It is easy to pray and not expect anything to happen – idle words. Many focus more on the little things rather than praying for the kingdom things of God.”
Henderson, in an interview with Graf and Elmer Towns of Liberty University – who with Henderson is co-author of the book, “Churches That Pray Together” – said each of the effective churches surveyed had a senior pastor who led the way in prayer. “A church will not pray beyond the prayer life of its senior pastor,” he said.
David Butts, chairman of America’s National Prayer Committee, spoke on “bold prayer,” reminding conference participants that “when we pray, we are entering the very throne room of God. We need to be bold with our prayers.”
Butts told of the global impact of prayer by recounting “what wonderful things God is doing around the world as he calls more people to prayer.”
“We need to be a part of that movement of prayer,” he said. “I believe that our prayers will see the completion of the Great Commission and then the return of Jesus Christ.”
From left: Shandon member H.L. Allen; South Carolina pastors Tommy Huddleston and Dan Griffin; and Daniel Henderson, keynote speaker and conference leader.Jackson Senyonga, pastor of? Christian Life Ministries – a? 40,000-member church in Kampala, Uganda, which has planted more than 400 churches in four nations of Africa – spoke on “transformational prayer” and assailed the lack of “desperation toward God” in America.
“We pray very little prayers,” he said. “We solve everything with our heads and minds, and not by seeking God. We need to learn to cry out in desperation.”
He told of a revival which took place in Uganda that resulted from many years of desperate prayer. “Revival will come out of desperation or devastation. I know what it out of devastation. Believe me, you do not want that. So you better get desperate.”
Dana Olson, director of Prayer First, said that too often in America “Jesus is outside the church knocking on the door to get in. Our programs and activities – and lack of prayer and dependence on him – have pushed him aside. We are doing ministry on our own in many churches.”
In addition to the evening services, the conference offered more than 35 workshops.
The conference drew praise from its participants. After attending a personal prayer retreat mini-conference, Lisa Gleason said, “I came away feeling cleansed, free and with a deeper sense of purpose of God’s will for my life.”
Linda Martin came “mainly seeking information to take back to my church, but God dealt deeply with my own heart and need.”
Jerry Long, minister of evangelism, missions and prayer at Shandon, noted, “It is obvious from what we have heard at this conference that God is calling out his people in America to a deeper commitment to prayer for revival and for the completion of world evangelization. God honored our church by allowing us to host this conference, which featured key leaders, not only in the growing movement of prayer in the United States, but also in the prayer movement worldwide.”
Shandon’s worship band, under the direction of contemporary worship leader Steve Turner, led worship in one of the large group sessions.