Walt Kallestad: Turn Your Church Inside Out

Prayer remains one of the essential ways that God works. If we can recover this culture of prayer, we will see God’s involvement in this world as well as experience a deeper level of intimacy with God. Walt Kallestad, declares, “when prayer became our number one priority, a new and holy fire began burning in the lives of our people. Prayer not about renewal, refocus or revival. The prefix “re” look to the past, hoping to restore yesterday into the present. Prayer, however, is about now and it is about newness.”16 To put it succinctly, corporate prayer moves the church into now with the wisdom to carry on God’s work with power and effectively. 16 Walt Kallestad, Turn Your Church Inside Out, (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2001), 63

Talking to the father was so important that he would spend all night no occasionally, but his custom was to commune with God before every major decision or event in his life. Jesus’ prayer life was so consistent that the disciple enquired about learning how to prayer. Jesus did not supply the disciples with a formula on praying rather he taught them to prayer in community using the plural pronouns our, and us, as they communed with the father. The early church follow the pattern set by Jesus and designated corporate prayer as a priority in the life of the church. Thus not just hosting prayer meeting in the house, but becoming the prayer meeting. According to Acts 2:42 the early church was devoted to several elements with prayer being

15:8). In our churches we need sound biblical preaching, but it’s not a house of preaching. We need suitable God honoring music, but it’s not a house of music. The church embraces many wonderful ministries to attract seekers, and the unchurched, but neglect the coming together for prayer. For instance, a car dealership sells cars, a restaurant sells food. The biggest problem in the church house is not gossip and idle talk, its prayerlessness. The church of today must create a culture of prayer for the house of prayer. Some of the ideas that have been implement at Progressive Baptist to recover a culture of prayer. For instance, we peached several series on pray such a “The prayer life of Jesus,” “the prayer life of the early church,” “when the church prays together something will happen” and “the church on its knees, the secret to health”. The next phase of our strategy to recover a culture of prayer was to re-enforce the sermon series on prayer by teaching a series simultaneously in our bible studies groups. Furthermore, at the same time we implemented times of prayer when the leadership gathers together and prayer. We gather on Sunday morning between Sunday school and church service for prayer. We have schedule 24 hour prayer vigils throughout the year. Periodically we close out our worship service by