The Wrong Prayer
In my early ministry years, Saturday nights were consumed with prayer in anticipation of the Sunday worship gathering. My pastor and I – the only two church staff – would meet to pray for the Spirit of God to move, for the people who God would send to meet Jesus, and for God to be glorified.
I wouldn’t say that was the wrong prayer. But I now see we were missing the one prayer request Jesus gave His disciples.
Jesus modeled and taught about prayer in numerous passages of Scripture. He got alone to the lonely places to pray. He responded to the disciples’ desire to learn how to pray by teaching them the model prayer. But only one time did He give His disciples a specific prayer request.
“These were His instructions to them: ‘The harvest is great, but the workers are few. So pray to the Lord who is in charge of the harvest; ask Him to send more workers into His fields’” (Luke 10:2).
Lately, I have been gripped and convicted by my failure to obey Jesus over the years by not praying this prayer often enough. I have prayed for the harvest. I have prayed for more people to come to Christ. I have prayed for more revival. I have prayed for more financial provision for the ministry. I have prayed for more unity. I have prayed for more miracles. But how often have I prayed for more workers?
One of our regional directors helped me change this with a Luke 10:2 prayer challenge. That is, to simply set a reminder to pause every day at 10:02 am to pray for more workers. This has become so important that it even pauses our Ministry Leadership Council meetings to join together to obey Jesus and to beg God for more workers.
I believe God will answer this prayer when we pray it. And when He does, are we prepared to be good stewards of the new workers He sends?
To help us prepare, we have ramped up our Church Multiplication Training Center (CMTC) bootcamps and workshops as we head into the new year. In 2026, we will have three trainings and cohorts for coaching to be ready to welcome a new crop of leaders, multipliers, and church planters. And we need the churches of the Missionary Church to help!
Our annual Thanksgiving offering, called the Harvest Offering, will be designated to paying the way for Missionary Church planters and ministers to be part of this training and coaching. It will also fund our Parenting Churches Training to help existing churches prepare to multiply. We are committed to doing this for approved projects and plants at no cost to the church, planter, or the planting teams. The value of this 12-month experience is more than $3,000 per plant and project – an incredible investment opportunity for our family of churches.
Will your church join us in making this possible? I encourage you to choose a Sunday in November or before the end of the year to take up a special offering that will contribute to the Harvest Offering. We will be sending you additional resources via email and mail to use in promoting this and casting the vision. Your church can then forward those funds to the Missionary Church national office either by check or online here.
Through this and our other shared initiatives, we can not only pray the prayer Jesus instructed us to pray, but we can be ready for Him to answer that prayer, too.
