Evangelism and Multiplication

By Joel Comiskey

Fall 2016

TEach cell needs to intercede for a world that doesn’t know Jesus Christ. Here are some practical prayer strategies:

• The “empty chair” prayer – Leave one chair empty during each group meeting to represent one or more lost friends. Ask your group members to gather around the chair and pray for the salvation of the lost people in their oikos (sphere of influence).
• Prayer partners – Pair up group members who will pray daily for each other’s lost friends. These partners can hold each other accountable.
• Concert prayer for the lost – Introduce a new kind of prayer to your group! At your next meeting, ask them to stand and pray aloud simultaneously for the salvation of specific lost friends. It can be noisy, but it’s a powerful “rumble” of prayer that puts Satan on notice!
• Prayer walking – Walk in pairs through a targeted community, praying for salvation to come to each home or apartment you walk past. This is a great way to prepare a new host home for your group meetings.
• Create a “Blessing List” or “Most Wanted” Poster – Many cells write the names of every relational contact on a large poster (butcher paper), so the whole group can intercede in unison. Post it on the wall and pray for these people each week, making plans to connect them to the members between meetings. During the cell meeting, it’s good to mention those unbeliever friends and then for the cell members to pray for these people.
• Conclude with intercessory prayer for the unreached peoples of the world. Find profiles of unreached people groups, pass them out to group members, and then pray for people groups in smaller groups within the cell or together.

Here are some tips when praying for non-Christians. Pray for God :

• To give them a hunger for Christ.
• To remove all barriers keeping them from responding to Christ.
• For God’s blessing on each area of their lives.
• For the Holy Spirit to make Jesus real to them.

Be creative! There is not one “right” way to mobilize cell members to pray, and flexibility helps avoid the boredom of a routine. Try these ideas:

• Break into groups of two or three. This allows more people to enter into prayer and is less intimidating for quieter members.
• Train your group to pray short, conversational prayers that provide greater interaction and agreement. This allows more people to pray and helps prevent one person from dominating.
• Ask individual cell members to intercede.
• Try using “concert prayer.” C. Peter Wagner describes this in his book, Churches that Pray, as “all those present in the prayer meeting pray out loud at the same time” (p. 119). Korean Christians have popularized this style of prayer. In Cho’s church, the leader gives the signal to begin, and a roar of prayer floods the church until a bell signals that it’s time to quit.