Teach Us To PrayMfano

Learning From The Early Church: Praying For Mission

The church at Antioch was experiencing revival. God was working for the first time on a grand scale among Gentiles. This church provided a glimpse of God’s future for his church. It had a strong leadership team with Barnabas as the senior pastor and a young guy named Saul as the youth pastor. (Well at least he’s mentioned last in the list of the pastoral team in Acts 13:1, so I presume he’s the youth pastor!!). But God’s plans for this church were far bigger than they imagined. God was about to launch a mission from this local church that would change the world. 

Reading: Acts 13:1-3

The mission that was launched that day was what we describe as “Paul’s first missionary journey.” It set the trajectory for Paul’s lifetime work of taking the gospel to unreached places and planting churches all over the Roman world. The Antioch church may have felt some grief in sending off their key leaders, but the group had no doubt that God had spoken, and they obeyed immediately. God’s mission was more important than their comfort or future. As we pray for God’s kingdom to grow and as we seek a greater impact on our world, there are a few things we can learn from this church.

First, their leading from God did not come from a planning meeting but a worship session. It’s not quite clear whether it was the whole church worshipping or just the leaders, but there is no doubt that God spoke unmistakably to them in the middle of their worship time. I’m big into planning. We do need to be good stewards of our resources and to strategize well. But ultimately, it’s the voice of God that we want to hear louder than helpful human wisdom, and this often happens when we are close to God’s heart in worship and prayer. It probably would never have occurred to this church to send out their best leaders, but when God spoke, they didn’t hesitate, and the rest is history.

Second, fasting is mentioned twice in these three verses so it can’t be ignored. God spoke to them while they were fasting and then they fasted some more before sending Barnabas and Paul out on mission. They must have been rather hungry by the time Barnabas and Paul left. But you get the impression that they regarded fasting as a key component of their spiritual journey. Personally, I find fasting difficult. I don’t enjoy it. It’s hard giving up things that I really like. I wouldn’t do it, except that Scripture keeps mentioning it. Somehow fasting heightens our spiritual sensitivity and increases our spiritual authority, at least this is what the early church found. 

Third, they prayed Barnabas and Paul’s mission into life. Barnabas was an incredible man of God and Paul was a gifted leader and evangelist. But the success of their mission was not just dependent on the character and gifts of these men, but on the prayers of their church. The early church knew this. They covered these guys in prayer before they sent them off. Prayer has huge spiritual power. 

There it is: worship, fasting, prayer. The three fundamentals of Spirit-empowered mission. At least that’s what the early church found. 

Prayer Practice

If your heart is for the powerful work of God in mission, then you probably do need to fast for it. It doesn’t have to be food, but it does have to be costly. Make a plan right now to worship, fast and pray about mission sometime soon. Maybe today. Praise God for his greatness and pray for God’s new direction and power in mission.