National Network for Community Prayer Teams Launches
A new initiative is launching to foster and link local prayer networks nationwide. The Prayer Connect Community Network is a joint project of The Mission America Coalition and the Church of God National Prayer Committee. The first event of the initiative will be held on August 23, the final day of the Praying Church Conference in Cartersville, Ga.
“Dozens of these prayer organizations and networks already exist. But they are unaware of resources that could assist them and they are often silos, functioning alone,” says P. Douglas Small, who heads Project Pray, an outreach of Alive Ministries, and will lead the new initiative. “The goal of the movement will be to nurture the formation of new local networks, increase awareness of resources, and facilitate communication across the nation between these local community prayer efforts.”
In the new network, national prayer organizations will retain their distinctiveness but connect to each other at the local level, Small explains.
“Our unity will attract the blessing of God on our nation, community by community,” he says.
Small is a member of the National Prayer Committee and on the leadership team of the Denominational Prayer Leaders Network. He was one of the early participants in City Impact Roundtables and the Mission America Coalition, as well as a leader in the prayer summit movement, which impacts thousands of pastors.
The first step of The Prayer Connect Community Network will be a gathering of potential pilot cities August 23 in Cartersville, Ga. That week the Praying Church Conference will take place at the Church at Liberty Square August 21-23. The Praying Church conference is designed to assist prayer leaders and pastors. More than thirty workshops will be offered by prayer leaders from across the nation.
In addition to well-known pastor, Jim Cymbala of the Brooklyn Tabernacle, and Daniel Henderson of Strategic Renewal Ministries, the conference will feature workshops by Claude King, co-author of the best seller, Experiencing God; Jon Graf, editor of Prayer-Connect Magazine; John Maempa, Assembly of God Prayer Coordinator; and Elaine Helms, representing the Billy Graham organization. Church of God prayer leaders who will speak at the conference include Dr. J. David Stephens, Assistant General Overseer; Lance Colkmire, Evangel editor; State Prayer Coordinators: Dr. Peggy Scarborough (South Carolina), Dr. Jacob King (N. Georgia), Arthur Guice (Great Lakes), Carletta Douglas (Kentucky), Darrell Buttram (West Virginia), Andre Hester (Western North Carolina), and Bill Wooten (Florida).
A special gathering for State Prayer Leaders will take place on Wednesday, August 21, from noon to 5:00 p.m.. This special time will focus on moving the prayer process forward in states and in Church of God congregations. This meeting is also open to selected prayer teams from local churches. At 6:00 p.m., a special dinner will occur for administrative bishops and their State Prayer Teams.
Dr. Paul Cedar, Chairman of the Mission America Coalition (MAC), comments, “The idea of community prayer leadership teams representing national existing organizations with congregational prayer representatives seems an idea whose time has come. Awakening always begins with prayer – community-based prayer that longs for national spiritual renewal and widespread evangelism.”
Chairman of the National Prayer Committee (NPC), Dave Butts, agrees, “We are in a season in which the critical state of the nation demands a new grass-roots movement of prayer, a unified prayer effort.”
The new project will fall under the umbrella of the NPC, which represents a collage of the nation’s most powerful prayer organizations and sponsor of National Day of Prayer. Butts explains that those national leaders gather at least annually for collaboration, but the local representatives of most prayer organization are not connected to each other. This pointed to the need for the new initiative.
MAC is a coalition of more than five hundred organizational partners involved in evangelism. Noted evangelism author Robert Coleman calls it “the largest coalition of church leaders ever assembled for the express purpose of evangelism in America.”
For more information about the Prayer Connect Community Network, contact [email protected]. to register for the Praying Church Conference, go to www.praycog.org or call 855-842-5483.
