Pray Big, Pray Bold, Pray Better

So this past weekend, I had the opportunity to attend the Church Prayer Leaders Network Regional Prayer Conference here in beautiful Columbus, Indiana. It was held at First Christian Church and was led by Dave Butts and Jon Graf. So I thought I might blog about a few of my thoughts from the conference.

First of all, let me just say that it was an excellent conference. The theme of the conference was Pray Big, Pray Bold, Pray Better. It is always good to be challenged and instructed on prayer. I know that I want to grow in my prayer life, so it was very worthwhile for me to attend.

The conference started on Friday evening with some worship and a keynote address by Jon Graf. Now I have known Jon for many years and have sat in several of his seminars, so it just so happens that this address was one that I have heard at least a potion of in the past. But it was still a great reinforcement of what I have heard him share before. One of the great things that he did was to challenge us to pray the way God made us. In other words, not everyone prays the same way. We shouldn't expect to. There are some powerful principles on prayer in Scripture that we need to learn from, but different people pray in different ways, within those principles. For instance, God has gifted us differently and those gifts come out in the way we pray. So the person with the gift of mercy probably is going to pray much differently than the person with the gift of evangelism. Also, some people pray early in the morning, but that is not the only time to pray. So we should find the time that works best for us. And some people pray sitting quietly in their prayer closet, while others like to prayerwalk.

The first time I heard Jon share this, it was revolutionary for my prayer life. I walk when I preach, I walk when I talk on the phone, and sitting quietly in a chair while talking to God was tough for me. So why not walk? And so I do. Many who know me, know that is the main way that I now pray.

Saturday featured three more keynote addresses as well as two different times for breakout workshops. I missed the first workshop because I am helping to coach Jacob's basketball team and his game was just across the street, so I went for the game and came back around the time that the first workshops were ending. The afternoon workshop I did get to though and it was excellent. It was entitled "The Divine Dialogue" and was led by Dave's wife Kim. She challenged us to posture ourselves in such a way as to allow our heart to connect with God's heart. She wasn't talking about physical posture, but about spiritual posture. She spoke of narrowing the gaps of unawareness of Christ's presence and about how prayer is relational and expectational.

In the keynotes, Dave Butts spoke on how we need to pray bold. We need to get past the small prayers that we tend to pray and seek God's heart. Then later he talked about the heart of prayer and how we need to pray that the Father would help us to love Jesus the way that He loves Him. And Jon, in his other keynote address, challenged us to pray like Paul.

It was a great conference and then Jon came and spoke at our church on Sunday morning and challenged us as a church to be a House of Prayer. He showed us from Scripture how being a "House of Prayer" does not mean that we need to have more prayer events, but that we should be a place that is accepting of everyone and allows them to seek God.

All in all it was a great weekend. A busy one, but a great one.