How do we help our fellow believers build the habit of praying with and for others daily?
Being able to multiply a Prayer Calendar is just as important as personally practicing one. Just like everything else in DMM, the goal is to pass it along. In today’s mini blog we’ll talk about not only keeping your own Prayer Calendar, but also helping others engage in prayer by starting their own. Here are just a few key ways you can do that!
Multiplying Habits
Whenever we have some sort of disciple making habit we should be doing, it’s important that we multiply it out to other people. That’s what makes us disciple makers and not just people who inhabit a pew at church and do nice things on occasion. The Prayer Calendar is one such habit.
When we pass this tool off to others and help them multiply it as well, we create generations of people who are growing in the discipline of communal prayer. This concept of seeing generations of multiplication is what disciple making is all about, not only in the context of the Prayer Calendar with believers, but even with nonbelievers and the DBS.
Lead by Example
If we ever hope to mobilize the Prayer Calendar with others, it is essential that we practice it ourselves.
As disciple makers who use this tool, mobilizing prayer and seeing answered prayer allows us to guide others into this process of being more aware of and praying more for Great Commandment, Great Commission work. It increases prayer for various people within our churches and helps put disciple making on their radar as we ask them how we can be praying for their interactions with lost people.
One of the benefits of personally doing the prayer calendar is relational connection. This is no small thing given how things have played out with the pandemic over the last couple years, as well as how isolated we’ve become with technology and social media.
Nowadays we find ourselves, our friends and family members glued to our screens, scrolling, swiping and tapping through an endless sea of mind numbing content only to find that we’ve wasted three hours, six hours, an entire day and are even lonelier and more unfulfilled than we were before. The pandemic has only exacerbated this. So, actually taking the initiative to call or text people who aren’t in your immediate family to see how you can pray for them can have a bigger impact than you realize.
It’s important to note that you don’t need to be 100% perfect at the Prayer Calendar before you can start mobilizing it to others. I’ve been doing the Prayer Calendar for a couple years now and I have weeks and months where I am more, or less, consistent than others, but the goal is practice, not perfection.
We’re building the spiritual muscle of praying with and for others regularly, so don’t think you need to be some Prayer Calendar superstar before you can multiply. If that were the case, I doubt we’d ever multiply.
That said, what else does it take to see the Prayer Calendar multiplied out?
Practical Tips for Multiplying
Mobilizing the Prayer Calendar is all about one-on-one calls or texts with people at regular, frequent intervals. It’s not something we can merely preach at people about from a pulpit. While that could certainly help build awareness of this tool, the personal practice of regularly reaching out to pray for someone is always going to have the greater impact when it comes to passing it along to others.
Start by inviting people who are already on your Prayer Calendar. Anyone who’s been on your prayer calendar for any length of time should be able to attest to what a blessing it’s been for them. However, even if you find that many of them aren’t interested in starting their own Prayer Calendar, keep your eyes out for anyone who regularly seems grateful or offers to pray for you when you reach out to them. You can tell them, “Hey! Every time I reach out to pray for you, you always leave me so encouraged by your prayers. Have you considered starting your own Prayer Calendar?”
Share how you have been personally blessed by doing the Prayer Calendar. Express to them the benefits of doing it and what it’s all about. Something you can tell them is that the Prayer Calendar builds the habit of praying daily with someone else and establishes prayer relationships over time.
Share stories of the relationships that have emerged through the Prayer Calendar and the ways that God has answered requests. God deserves the glory for His provision and, by sharing what He’s done, we build up our faith and the faith of those hearing.
Call people at regular, specific times every week or every couple weeks in order to ask how their Prayer Calendar is going. This helps with accountability and is especially important when it comes to people who are just starting out.
Share the Prayer Calendar tutorial video, which you can find here. Like sharing about the Prayer Calendar from the pulpit, this is something that can build awareness, but shouldn’t be used as your primary method for mobilization. It’s best to share this tool when you know someone is definitely interested in doing the Prayer Calendar, or if they’ve been doing it for a few weeks and are still figuring it out.
Celebrate what has gone well with the Prayer Calendar within your meetings, and address what isn’t going well and needs to change in private outside of the meetings. By doing this, you encourage and build up those who shared the stories and those who heard them, and you show the group that the Prayer Calendar is something valuable. By handling areas for growth gently and away from the group, you encourage others to grow without embarrassing them.
Learn More
There is so much more to learn about when it comes to the Prayer Calendar. In “The Only Way to Mobilize the Prayer Calendar,“on the CDM Podcast, Paul and Rebecca share more practical tips that you won’t want to miss for how to multiply the Prayer Calendar to others. You can check out the full podcast here or on the CDM App! Thanks for reading!