This May Be a Huge Reason Why Your Church Isn’t Growing

For many years, Church Prayers Leaders Network President Jonathan Graf considered himself a “crisis pray-er.”

But when he came across A.W. Tozer’s best-seller The Pursuit of God—a book he wound up reading 10 times—Graf discovered a much deeper, more meaningful method of prayer he says churches would do well to adopt.

“In Scripture, prayer is supposed to be central to a ministry,” Graf said on a recent episode of “Charisma Connection” on the Charisma Podcast Network. “Prayer needs to be focused outwardly on lost people and the movement of the Spirit of God and much more dynamic, kingdom types of things. I’ve seen firsthand when churches change the way they pray corporately and hunger for God more through prayer, then they don’t stay stagnate.

“I think one of the reasons why so many churches aren’t growing today is because they don’t focus on prayer beyond the needs of their own people. One of the things we’ve failed to do in churches is disciple people beyond that first stage of praying. We’re told in Scripture that we should pray about everything. That’s one of the ways we show love to the body, and God will honor that.”

For more about the Church Prayer Leaders Network, listen to the podcast below.