Observations on How the Spirit of God is Currently Leading us to Him in Prayer 5.7.11

May 07 2011, 2:41 pm | Bill Elliff

As some of you may know, the Lord has graciously led us in five weeks of spontaneous nightly prayer meetings that have lasted 2-4 hours each night. It is a mercy drop of revival, but in my 42+ years of ministry I have never been involved in nor observed a moment quite like this and am amazingly and humbly grateful.

And it is a PRAYER MEETING. The agenda every night has been to hear the direction through God’s word, open the microphone and shepherd all that happens into fervent, travailing prayer. Each night the Spirit of God has graciously directed us through His Word and the needs of the people into an arena of prayer.

Several pastors have asked me what is happening in these meetings and expressed a desire for God to do a similar work in their church and community. At the great risk of being misunderstood that this could be “program-ized” or manipulated, but also the humble recognition that God uses such moments to instruct and direct us, I would make these following observations about WHAT is happening and HOW the Spirit of God seems to be leading in these particular prayer meetings at this particular season.

1. A group of intercessors have been gathering every night—completely un-orchestrated—to pray prior to the meeting. Often they are silently praying around the room. These are often prayers of spiritual warfare and protection by the Lord from the enemy for the night’s meeting; for direction and the Spirit’s leadership, etc.
2. There is a deep sense and constant awareness that the Spirit of God is the ONLY leader. We are to listen to Him and do exactly what He directs.
3. There is a deep faith that has been given to us by God in these meetings. The more we are led to pray, the more we realize it is God and therefore He has an agenda, a purpose and we are merely cooperating with Him. 2 Chronicles 7:14-15 has become precious to us as we have constantly been reminded that, at this moment in an unusual way,  God’s “eye is open to us and His ear is attentive to our cry.” I cannot explain this, but it is wonderful to pray in such faith.
4. The Lord has awakened us, it seems, to call us to pray primarily for our city. There has been deep prayer for individuals, but also prayer almost every night for the pastors and spiritual leaders and churches in our city. Many nights we have gathered around pastors who have been attending and prayed over them.
5. Myself or another one of our pastors has been “shepherding” these nights. It seems that the Lord will not tell us what is to happen ten minutes ahead, but gives direction in the moment as we progress through the prayer time. The Spirit of God is a GOOD LEADER if we will just get out of the way, listen, and obey. He can be trusted to lead in “all the paths of righteousness for His Name’s sake.”
6. The Lord has led us nightly to begin with simple, short worship and simple singing throughout as God prompted.
7. Each day He has given us a passage to read and comment on at the beginning of the night that seems to give direction to the night or a context for what He is doing. Sometimes this is more extensive and deliberate than others. There is a LOT of Biblical teaching that occurs every night in one form or another.
8. We are learning at a far more rapid pace than usual because of the peculiar grace of God, the frequency of our gatherings, the teaching of our pastors and people, and the people’s prompt obedience which solidifies the truth and digests it into our daily lives.
9. In the first weeks there was a need to constantly remind them to not quench the Spirit by despising what the Lord was directing them to do (1 Thessalonians 5:19-21), but to promptly, humble do what He says when He said it. If He told them to come to the altar, then come. If they were to go to a brother and seek reconciliation, they should instantly obey. If they were to come to the microphone to seek prayer for a need (James 5:16), then come. If God prompted their heart to give something, then give it.
10. We have put the four tenants of the Welsh Revival up on the screen nightly as a good reminder of our posture:
    1. Confess all known sin
    2. Forsake all doubtful habits
    3. Obey the Spirit instantly
    4. Confess (or proclaim) Christ boldly
11.   We often begin the night, after sharing a Scripture and exhortation, asking the people to stand and gather in groups to pray for the night.
12. The Lord seems to be leading, almost every night, people to the microphone to share. Often people who would never had the courage to share but who realize that they are in a safe place and a helpful place of God’s grace.
13. As people share a need, a confession, a burden, a scripture or a word from the microphone, the Lord seems to give direction to me or whoever is facilitating that night. Some of the things that He has directed us to do are as follows:
    1. To direct the person to go to the side and ask people who have a burden to come pray over them immediately
    2. To call the whole church to prayer over that issue…either asking them to pray out loud together, or gather in groups, or with another individual and go to prayer.
    3. To “teach” off that moment. Often someone will come, or even several people in a row, with the same issue and we realize that God is calling us to learn something important. If the Lord prompts, I will take a moment, open the Word as He directs, and give further biblical instruction. Or, one of our other teachers/leaders/elders will come and do the same as they are prompted.
    4. Often, when one person has shared a deep need, before we have sent them aside for folks to pray over them, the Lord has prompted us to ask if there are others with that exact need and we have asked them to stand. One night, when a brother shared of the bitterness in his heart and a desire for release we issued the call to others and 30 people immediately stood. This has happened many, many times. We then invite people to gather around them and pray.
14. We are constantly reminding people, every night in multiple ways that they are not spectators but participants. That they are standing before a holy God who is speaking directly to THEM and they need to respond and not quench His Spirit.
15. It has seemed to be important to be aware how God is directing, i.e., the “theme” that seems to be emerging at times and call it to the people’s attention so that we will not miss what God is saying.
16. There seems to be a natural moment when the Lord begins to indicate that the meeting is drawing to a close, but we do not determine that beforehand. I will admit, that I am not good about closing! On several nights, we have tried to close multiple times and people will come up and plead to share and we will continue. We do not hesitate to close if we feel led, though, even if there are people lined up waiting to share.
17. We have realized, as one dear leader who visited from Michigan reminded me, that revival is “messy!” There are awkward moments, confusing moments, moments when are dealing with a “weaker brother” that call for patience, forbearance, and love. We must embrace these and move through them gently. But also, we have been led on occasion to turn off the microphone and give some instruction to the one sharing privately such as…”be brief” “don’t reflect negatively on anyone” “Give God alone the glory-not any man” etc.
18. We have opened the nursery for the smaller preschool children, letting parents bring their kids there if they agree to serve, but also encouraged parents to bring their children into the meetings. These children have been wonderfully moved and have been often used to speak to us in precious ways. Many children have been saved.
19. We have not restricted those who come to the microphone, confessing their faith in Christ and desiring immediate baptism. 65 people have been baptized in the last 5 weeks.
20. The first weeks of the prayer meetings were consumed with much personal cleansing. Although this has continued nightly, the last few weeks have been less of that and more intercession for those outside of our church.
21. We are now seeing multiple churches in area gathering for prayer in this manner. We had over 500 at our quarterly citywide prayer gathering this week and it was an unbelievable night of worship and fervent, travailing intercession. This is the first year we have called the city to prayer regularly in this manner and are talking among the pastors of increasing its frequency. Other churches are beginning either First Monday prayer (the first Monday of the month) or just Monday Prayer on each Monday night. We are also wondering if God is now about to call our lay people to start daily prayer meetings in the mornings or at noon all across our city. We will not manipulate this but the idea is arising in many hearts.
22. Our Sunday morning services are dramatically changed, hopefully forever. There is no attention to the clock. Our first service has, more often than not, merged into the second with ease and after the preaching of the word we have moved into the same ministry/prayer times that we have been experiencing nightly.

“Who has known the mind of the Lord and who can instruct Him?” is our honest thought. God is the leader and longs to be so when we let Him. Again, I plead with you not to take these thoughts as prescriptive, for God can move in whatever ways He desires and is gloriously creative. But we felt that these observations at this particular season may be helpful to others.

May God bless all that we say and do to the reviving of the church, the awakening of the lost, and the rapid expansion of the kingdom!

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