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CHAPTER ONE

Introduction

“Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.” James 1:22

I am a professor of Missions and, after six years of teaching in the US, I applied for and received a sabbatical leave—a break from classroom responsibilities in order to stay abreast of developments in my field. Several students of mine in the graduate School of Theology and Missions at Oral Roberts University, upon graduation and return to India, had given me long-standing invitations to join them in ministry. I made plans to visit three of these students at their places of ministry and began to design questions that would allow me to determine how much of their American educations were applicable in India and what aspects had been the most helpful. My three student friends each are involved in indigenous Indian organizations in which future pastors are being trained for the ministry. Their invitation to participate in their ministry provided ideal opportunities to research my areas of interest.

THE ORIGINAL RESEARCH INTENT
One of the more important subjects taught in the Master of Arts in Missions curriculum is Contextualized Theology. International students who take this course are eager to know what liberty they have to develop a Theology that relates to important issues in their cultures better than American Theology does. American students, on the other hand, often are surprised to learn that Theologies need to be tailored to address different issues in non-Western cultures. What I intended to research during my sabbatical focused on how useful the principles I taught in Contextualized Theology were to my students. I strive for balance in Theology so that our Theologies are both true to the Bible and relative to local cultural. I wanted to know if I had succeeded.

As in any discipline, there are arm-chair theorists and practical field-researchers. I wanted to be one of the latter. This meant that for me to grasp the important issues facing today’s missionaries I should again be involved in ministry and if possible the ministry of training pastors. The requests from my three student friends in India offered me an excellent opportunity to pursue my area of interest. I heartily accepted their invitations and through extensive email exchanges from January to May of 2002 planned schedules, curriculums, lectures, pastors’ conferences, and guest teaching commitments.

My wife Char, an ORU Ed.D. candidate, happily, was eager to join me on the trip. She also accepted invitations to use her newly acquired educational expertise in the area of Educational Leadership as well as teach Christian Education subjects which are her long-standing favorites. With Char as my traveling companion and ministry partner, it was easy to agree to add a two month ministry visit in South Africa from mid-June to mid-August to the four-month sabbatical missions trip planned for India. This was in response to another long-standing invite from Mount Carmel Ministry (MCM) of Johannesburg to return to South Africa for ministry among Bible College students and pastoral staffs.

TEACHING BY EXAMPLE
On June 24th, after having been in South Africa for eight days, I began a five-week course on Pastoral Leadership. I presented a lecture on the subject of “The Pastor’s Prayer Life.” When seeking to encourage others to pray, rather than saying “We should pray more,” I challenged the participants to actually increase their prayer time and then say, “This is how I pray. Follow my example.” This, I told them, would be more effective. Teaching by example is more effective than saying we all ought to do something different than we are willing to do ourselves. Platitudes—“ought tos”—are a weak teaching instrument; they only produce guilt. With this in mind, and as an example of teaching by example, I told my students that I spent the first two hours of every day alone with God in prayer. I explained that I felt for me this was enough time, and recommended they consider increasing their amount of prayer time according to how they felt God was leading them.

THE BEGINNING OF AN EXPERIMENT IN PRAYER
About that same time, during my first week working with MCM, I had noticed God’s Generals in the library of one of the pastoral staff members. I asked if I could borrow it and began reading this inspiring book. In chapter after chapter I was impressed with how much time fruitful men and women of God with gifts of miracles and healing spent in prayer. Learning how much they prayed provided a greater challenge to me than many of the things I had read over the years about prayer. By the second of the five weeks of teaching Pastoral Leadership and just eight days after telling my class on July 1 that I thought I was praying enough, I decided I would conduct an experiment. I wanted to find out what would happen if a person with a teaching gift began to pray with the same intensity and commitment to intercession demonstrated by the men and women whose stories were included in God’s Generals. On Tuesday morning, July 9, I announced to Char and the host pastor with whom we were staying and his wife, that beginning that day I would be spending more time out on the hillside near their home where I was comfortable praying alone. They were not to worry about me, it was just that I was conducting an experiment in prayer and would be out four hours each day, not just two.

That very evening I was told that I had been invited to speak on an up-coming Sunday morning at Grace Bible Church, the largest and most dynamic church in Soweto. Soweto, originally an acronym for “South West Township,” is well-known as the hotbed of racial unrest during the apartheid period. The Holy Spirit whispered to me that He was at work already and that this invitation was in response to my experiment in increased prayer. I had earlier heard of Pastor Mosa Sono and the very powerful work being done at Grace when I had spoken at another church in Soweto. At that time there had been a twinge of jealousy that I had not been scheduled at Grace Bible Church instead of the smaller church in which we ministered. O wretched flesh!

By the time I spoke at Grace I had preached on “The Power and Danger of Prayer” three times already in South Africa. The message had been well received, and I was becoming familiar with the right way to express each thought. But I was in no way prepared for what happened at Grace. Char finished her ministry in vocal music and, after being introduced, I walked to the pulpit. Almost without looking at my sermon notes and certainly with nothing like bondage to them, I preached—or taught since I am a teaching preacher—the lessons in my message. Like most preachers, there have been times when I spoke with greater liberty than at other times, but never in the thirty-seven years of public speaking and preaching until then had I delivered God’s Word with such authority, precision, conciseness, and power. Volume was not the issue; authority was. Char, seated on the front row, immediately recognized the new freedom with which I spoke. She later told me she laughed in her spirit all the way through the sermon. It is true that the two thousand plus attendees were responsive, but I know that much more than human response was adding energy to the message that day.

I might have been inclined to believe that the experience at Grace was an isolated case or the result of the mature zeal that congregation has for God and His Word. But the increased authority and anointing has continued since that day. I do not claim to always speak with the same power evident that morning at Grace, but there has been a marked increase of the anointing since doubling the time I spend in daily prayer. Does God anoint according to the amount of time spent in prayer? Are quid pro quo exchanges with God possible? Does God work as a payment or in exchange for our prayer or is His sovereignty more in control than my puny efforts? I can’t answer all those questions yet, but I do know that the experiment of doubling my prayer time in order to see what would happen if someone with the teaching gift were to be more serious about prayer began right away to produce something new in me.

THE LEGITIMACY OF EXPERIMENTATION IN SPIRITUAL MATTERS
God invites us to reason with him. Job 33:14 says, “For God does speak—now one way, now another—though man may not perceive it.” Pr. 25:2 says, “It is the glory of God to conceal a matter; to search out a matter is the glory of kings.” It seems like God invites discovery by concealing some of his treasured ideas. Experiments, motivated by an honest inquiring mind, are one way God communicates with us. When we see the conditions under which God blesses and compare them with the circumstances under which His blessings are not so evident, can we not learn to try to duplicate the state of affairs under which He blesses? God does not reject a person who wants to increase in fruitfulness. You, too, can conduct your own experiment with increased time spent in prayer to see what change God might do for you in the exercise of your gifts. Whatever degree of fruitfulness you are experiencing in the use of your gifts, do you want to be even more fruitful? If so, conduct the test and see if more time in prayer produces more fruit or not. Prayer releases, enhances, facilitates, and expands the use of anyone’s gifts. Prayer does not make us become someone we are not, but rather brings out new fullness in the use of existing or dormant natural and spiritual gifts. Prayer may not change your unique combination of gifts, but it will more fully release the gifts you have.

Sometimes words seem trite or meaningless. At other times, or with other speakers, words are authoritative and convincing. What is the difference? As a result of my experiment—trying to determine what would happen if a teacher would pray more—it seems evident that words have added weight, value, and persuasive power over hearers when the Holy Spirit bears witness to them in answer to serious prayer. I had prayed my two hours a day, fasted regularly, and spent hours with God over the previous thirty-seven years of ministry, but I had never experienced the consistent and continuing touch of the Spirit of God on my teaching, lectures, preaching, and study of God’s Word as I have since July 9, 2002, the day this experiment began.

Usually spending hours of prayer each day is considered consistent with Christian ministries of deliverance, miracles, and healing evangelists. Yet the teaching ministry is also in need of the touch of the Spirit of God in order to be more effective. There have been times when I would wistfully note that miracle workers and healing evangelists seem to have more dramatic and interesting ministries. But now my experiment with prayer indicates that a teacher too can be more powerful if he prays more.

I do not know if other ministers who spend hours in prayer talk about it or not. There are specific scriptural instructions not to brag about how much we pray. My inclination would be to not say anything about my personal prayer life. But my reason for becoming as open as I am on this subject is to teach pastors, missionaries, and other Christians to up the ante, increase the prayer, and experience greater authority in teaching, preaching, and counseling or receive greater wisdom in pursuit of any God-given career. For my experiment to be of any benefit to others I must share it. To me, as a trainer of Christians leaders, sharing is the way I can challenge others in my efforts to try to lead by example. Paul also led by example, sharing what he did and inviting others to follow him.

HUNGER FOR GOD
Since I am now spending more time seeking God, it amazes me to find so many scriptures that encourage me to continue the pursuit. It is as though God was waiting all the time for me to begin to pursue Him more earnestly, more tenaciously. The challenges were there all along.

Naturally, regularly spending four hours per day at anything requires organizing the daily schedule to make it possible. And, since a day still has only twenty-four hours, some things I used to do more I now do less. These verses, therefore, help me know I am on a good path and encourage me to continue. These verses have also become a part of the “decoration” in the garage at my house where I pray.

“. . . seek first his kingdom and his righteousness. . .” Mt. 6:33
“Come near to God and he will come near to you.” James 4:8
“Love the Lord your God will all your heart . . . soul . . . strength . . . mind.” Luke 10:27
“He rewards those who earnestly seek him.” Heb. 11:6
“Do not be afraid . . . I am your shield, your very great reward.” Gen 15:1

GOD’S SURPRISE AGENDA
I thought the centerpiece of my learning experience on the sabbatical/missions trip would be contextualized Theology and its usefulness in non-Western nations, but God had another agenda. He wanted me to learn of the increased fruitfulness possible with increased time spent with Him. This lesson will certainly apply in any crosscultural ministry or any career situation. One of the lessons God wanted this professor to relearn on his sabbatical was the power of prayer—and the increase of power that is possible through even more prayer.

I am told that in industry, manufacturers should discover what they produce most profitably and focus on producing that even more and better. In successful businesses smart businessmen identify what works best for them and concentrate on that. I have long said and felt prayer was the most important thing I do in any given day. So, when I realized my amount of time spent in prayer did not match my belief, I knew I needed to either change my belief or behavior. If prayer was really the most important thing I did, I needed to do it more than anything else I did.

At age fifty-eight with thirty-seven years of ministry experience completed, I thought I knew what fruitfulness in ministry was about. But I discovered it is possible, after all, for an old dog to learn a new trick. I thought I prayed enough, but I learned I could pray more. I thought I was fruitful enough, but I learned I could be more so. I thought I taught with authority, but I learned there were increased quantities available for the asking. What increased fruitfulness awaits you and your career?

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