Latest / The OneCry Podcast / #216 - 24/7 Prayer: How a City Prays Its Way to Revival

Transcript

#216 - 24/7 Prayer: How a City Prays Its Way to Revival · The OneCry Podcast

• 0:02
  When we look back in the history of prayer revival, there's been prayer movements
• 0:06
  and stuff, but this kind of sustained prayer, 24 hours a day,
• 0:10
  seven days a week, 365 days a year, year after year that can happen in Messianna and all over,
• 0:17
  it needs to be done because it's sustainable.
• 0:17
  Music.
• 0:20
  We've seen it in Austin for 17 straight years.
• 0:24
  Welcome to the One Cry Podcast, a nationwide call for spiritual awakening.
• 0:30
  The goal, accelerating the movement of God through sharing revival truth, stories, and reports.
• 0:40
  Well, welcome to the One Cry Podcast. And once again, I'm Byron Paulus,
• 0:45
  kind of the founder, well, not kind, I guess the founder.
• 0:47
  God's the founder of One Cry. And I'm blessed to be serving in that movement.
• 0:52
  And because we don't care about moments of, we care about movements of God's spirit.
• 0:57
  And I am blessed today to be able to interact with,
• 1:03
  with hopefully you as you're praying and listening and seeking the Lord and
• 1:08
  asking him particularly, what can I do in my backyard, in my community, in my Jerusalem,
• 1:17
  if you will, to see a movement of God? Where do I even begin?
• 1:22
  Now, I was this morning in a little meeting and prayer gathering,
• 1:27
  and the whole focus was on the importance of prayer preceding revival.
• 1:31
  And it reminded me of Matthew Henry, who said, when God intends great mercy
• 1:37
  upon his people, he first sets them to prayer. They go to their knees.
• 1:43
  And that's what we're seeing happening. And in a measure I've not seen in my
• 1:48
  decades of ministry towards revival, there is prayer taking place.
• 1:53
  There is a seeking of the Lord taking place, some of it very spontaneous.
• 1:57
  I mean, in malls, in Walmart, I saw the other days people come together and
• 2:01
  start just worshiping the Lord.
• 2:03
  I mean, this is a divine, unique movement.
• 2:06
  And I really believe the reason we're experiencing, especially among Gen Z today, is.
• 2:13
  Has to be contributed to a rising, elevating, escalating movement of prayer.
• 2:21
  And so I wanted to be able to just chat today with you listening in and participating
• 2:27
  in your heart with the founder of the Austin Prayer Network.
• 2:32
  It's the 24-7 prayer movement in Austin, Texas.
• 2:37
  And so I am so blessed. Trey Kent. Trey, thank you for joining me today.
• 2:42
  Thank you for being a friend.
• 2:44
  But more than that, thank you for being a catalyst and a friend to revival and
• 2:48
  awakening and just your understanding of how important prayer is in that.
• 2:54
  So, wow. Thanks. Thanks, Trey. I look forward to chatting.
• 2:57
  Every time I'm with you in One Cry, I love Jesus more.
• 3:01
  I love revival. I get inspired and empowered. So I love partnering with what
• 3:06
  you guys are doing. And we're one, really.
• 3:09
  It's the same heart, the same mind. Well, it's been so fun.
• 3:12
  And I may have one little disagreement with you that I think our listeners ought to know.
• 3:18
  And that is you think Austin should be the most prayed over city in America.
• 3:22
  And I think my backyard, Michiana, should be the most prayed over city in America.
• 3:28
  And I'll bet a lot of our listeners wish their community could be the most prayed
• 3:34
  over community in our nation.
• 3:38
  And some are listening overseas in whatever nation they're listening,
• 3:42
  that their backyard, their community.
• 3:44
  So I have some very practical questions that I think might be helpful to our listeners.
• 3:49
  If I'm listening and I want my community to be so prayed over that God just
• 3:54
  pours out his spirit, where do I begin?
• 3:57
  Just as a single, I mean, just an individual pastor or leader or influencer
• 4:03
  that's listening here today to our interaction, where do they begin?
• 4:07
  I think it begins with that individual. As we know, in 1857,
• 4:11
  prayer revival started with, you know, Jeremiah Lamphere. One person can change everything.
• 4:16
  But for us in Austin, it started with me really going to our church and.
• 4:22
  And just saying, you know, I think the mentality that I grew up with was that
• 4:26
  there's a few intercessors in the church that really know how to pray.
• 4:29
  And the rest of us are terrible at it. So let's don't even do it.
• 4:32
  That's not true. I think the truth is we're all called to be the house of prayer for all nations.
• 4:38
  And maybe we're not all good at it. But so we tried to do, let's mobilize every
• 4:42
  man, woman and child that's a Christian in our church to pray.
• 4:46
  So here's what I was on a prayer walk with my wife.
• 4:48
  It was honestly at midnight, February 17th, 2008.
• 4:52
  And if you're out praying at midnight in your neighborhood, you're desperate.
• 4:56
  I was walking around there and I felt like God said that he wanted Austin covered
• 5:00
  in 24-7 prayer by a church praying for one 24-hour period and passing it to
• 5:06
  the next church. And they pray for 24 hours.
• 5:08
  So for me, I was overwhelmed by that. I came home and I said,
• 5:11
  I don't even know if this is biblical.
• 5:14
  And I said, Lord, show me this biblical. And he said, he gave me first Thessalonians
• 5:18
  517, which we all know, pray without ceasing.
• 5:21
  And that's when I realized you cannot pray without ceasing by yourself.
• 5:24
  You've got to have the body of Christ.
• 5:27
  And so I came back and I think the first step for us, Byron,
• 5:30
  was and pastors listening in influencers, is that we went to our church and
• 5:36
  said, what if we took a Monday once a month and just prayed for 24 hours?
• 5:41
  I take an hour. My wife and I'll take midnight. Someone else take 1 a.m.
• 5:45
  We challenge our young people to take 1 and 2 and 3 a.m.
• 5:50
  And to pray for God to change Austin, to transform our city.
• 5:54
  We gave him a little prayer guide.
• 5:56
  Some people came to me. The most interesting thing was people came to me and
• 5:59
  they said, I've never prayed for an hour.
• 6:01
  And these are the ones that we mobilized and still mobilize to pray.
• 6:06
  And the house of prayer in our church has never been stronger.
• 6:11
  In our city, it moved from our church to 100 or more churches.
• 6:16
  And now it's spread to different cities across America and across the world
• 6:20
  because it's a simple model of saying to your church, what if we spent 24 hours
• 6:26
  a month praying for the city?
• 6:28
  That's all. That's our gift to the city every month is to pray for 24 hours.
• 6:33
  And I know most pastors are saying, I'm too busy for that.
• 6:40
  How do you deal with the pastor when you cast the vision for unceasing prayer in Austin?
• 6:47
  With the pastor that says, that means I've got to have at least 24 people in my church.
• 6:55
  You'll be surprised who does and who doesn't. Well, it's funny that you mention that.
• 6:59
  At our first meeting in February, I'm sorry, in 2008, we started casting vision to pastors.
• 7:04
  I had probably 40 pastors in the room and one raised his hand.
• 7:08
  He's a dear friend of mine. He's a part of the movement. And he said,
• 7:10
  I don't think every church is to intercede like this.
• 7:13
  And I don't think every pastor can lead his church to do this.
• 7:17
  And I thought, man, this is terrible. The guy's killing our movement.
• 7:20
  And I had a calendar on the wall. It said January 2009. And I asked people to
• 7:25
  sign up. I said, our church is here, but we need every day. covered.
• 7:28
  That day, we got 13 churches signed up our first time.
• 7:31
  And that guy that disagreed with me when he was leaving, his friend,
• 7:35
  who was another pastor, said, hey, Rick, why don't you lead your church to pray
• 7:39
  half the day and we'll pray the other half.
• 7:41
  And so Rick called me in about three months and he said, this is changing our church.
• 7:46
  Can I have a full day? And I'm like, yeah, you have a full day.
• 7:50
  And then he called me and I've never heard anybody do this. He called me and
• 7:52
  said, we're doing 24 hour prayers at our church. And I said,
• 7:56
  well, that's what we all do. And he said, no, no, we're inviting everybody in
• 7:59
  at seven o'clock Friday night and we're going to pray for 24 straight hours and we're not leaving.
• 8:04
  And I said, Rick, you're gone radical on me. First, you posted and now you're
• 8:08
  leading our city in prayer.
• 8:10
  So what I'm saying is, is that someone that thinks it can happen in their church
• 8:14
  probably is the one it can happen the most in.
• 8:17
  Wow, that's great. And I love the fact, Ray, from just where we've been together
• 8:23
  and we're seeing like Pensacola where they thought, And we can never do this.
• 8:27
  And it's just flourishing.
• 8:29
  And I think what really encouraged me most is it's been in my heart,
• 8:34
  your heart, all these listeners, I'm sure, heart.
• 8:37
  How do we cross denominational lines?
• 8:39
  And we know that when you pray together, you are one.
• 8:44
  There's a unity that takes place. But getting them together in the same room
• 8:48
  to pray, that's a big ask.
• 8:53
  But they're praying together
• 8:56
  all across all streams right in austin like you right they did all denominations
• 9:01
  and black white asian hispanic mixed church reformed churches charismatic churches
• 9:07
  evangelical churches here's the thing i think you're right once we start praying
• 9:11
  in unity towards the same goal of a transformed city.
• 9:15
  It unifies our heart. It unifies our heart. So what we found was once churches
• 9:20
  started praying, you know, at first we got one each day and then we got two.
• 9:23
  And some days, let's say our church and your church was on the same day.
• 9:28
  Maybe once a month we'd pray together. And all of a sudden we started seeing
• 9:30
  this unity happen that had never been there before.
• 9:33
  Before we started this, churches in Austin were speaking against each other from the pulpit.
• 9:39
  It was terrible. And we were known as a preacher's graveyard.
• 9:43
  And Austin still got a lot of needs. But one thing that we have that we didn't have is unity.
• 9:48
  And it came through the prayer movement and it came as we started crying out together.
• 9:52
  And what happened, Byron, after three or four years of people adopted a day
• 9:56
  of prayer, we started doing these citywide prayer meetings quarterly.
• 10:00
  We just had one. We had several hundred people from all of our city.
• 10:04
  Asians, whites, Hispanic.
• 10:07
  I mean, it was an incredible number of people that came just to cry out for
• 10:10
  the transformation of our city. And that happens regularly.
• 10:14
  It's hard to do that right at first, but I think once you start praying for
• 10:17
  the city, you'll see movements. God will show you what the next step is to bring unity.
• 10:21
  And I think that's a profound aspect of this. I think we realize,
• 10:24
  hey, we're unified in prayer.
• 10:26
  We each are praying a different day, but another church is praying a different
• 10:30
  day, and they're a different stream, and another church a different stream.
• 10:33
  And, you know, we had a major—in Life Action,
• 10:38
  where I served for president for 32 years, had a major denomination to say,
• 10:42
  Hey, why don't you come under our denomination as an organization and we'll
• 10:46
  help fund and fuel and everything you're doing.
• 10:48
  And it wasn't even a decision on my part. I just said, wait a minute.
• 10:53
  The nature of revival is it crosses every denomination when God moves.
• 10:57
  Why would I want to get identified with just one?
• 11:00
  And I think that's so essential today to see God continue the escalating work
• 11:07
  that he's doing in Gen Z. They don't care about denominations.
• 11:11
  Maybe that's why God is pouring out his spirit on Gen Z in a significant way.
• 11:15
  So I just love the model. We're praying individually a different day,
• 11:20
  yet we're praying together with that church.
• 11:24
  And as you just said, I love the fact that down the road, they can't wait to
• 11:29
  meet those people that they've been praying with for the same focus.
• 11:33
  Yeah, all that time.
• 11:36
  So, yeah, we expect God to send revival to our community, but we won't in any
• 11:41
  way, even an easy way like this, unite in prayer.
• 11:45
  I don't, I think God's stiff arms that personally. Yeah. This is probably rooted in pride.
• 11:51
  Yeah. You know, that famous quote, you can do more than pray once you pray,
• 11:55
  but you can't do more than pray until you pray.
• 11:58
  And so as you pray, all of a sudden things start happening.
• 12:01
  Miracles start. We start seeing in our local church, we couldn't get anybody
• 12:04
  mobilized out to do evangelism until we started praying and prayer that doesn't
• 12:09
  lead to outreach and evangelism and making disciples is not true prayer.
• 12:13
  So once you really start praying, all of a sudden you're going to see people
• 12:17
  begin to awaken to their calling to reach the city and their family for Christ.
• 12:23
  We've seen it and we're seeing it in our city.
• 12:25
  And out of the prayer movement, there arose an evangelism movement that is powerful
• 12:30
  in our city and we go hand in hand.
• 12:33
  And so there's so much that can happen. But once you start praying,
• 12:36
  and I think I'm sure I'm talking to churches that are stuck.
• 12:39
  Like many ways, you know, we all want to see more breakthrough.
• 12:42
  I think it starts in prayer, mobilizing your people to cry out because I want
• 12:48
  my people alive for Jesus.
• 12:50
  And prayer is the place where it happens.
• 12:53
  So let me ask you one more question, Trey, and then I want our listeners to
• 12:57
  send in questions at info at onecry.com that they would have for you,
• 13:02
  because I would just think they're saying, I want this, but there's one or two
• 13:05
  things still lingering in my heart. But here's my question.
• 13:08
  We have, in my home community here in Michiana, we're going to be starting a
• 13:16
  24-7 prayer movement, hopefully launching at the first of the year.
• 13:20
  And there are those that really have this passion, especially some Christian
• 13:26
  universities and colleges.
• 13:28
  And does it have to be a local church?
• 13:31
  Can it be an individual that has constituents like Marketplace or something like that?
• 13:38
  How do you play that out there in Austin?
• 13:41
  Well, in Austin, primarily it's been churches, but we've seen some nonprofits. Listen to this.
• 13:47
  We've seen a prison took a day.
• 13:51
  Isn't that crazy? They're in jail. We've seen a pro-life movement take a day.
• 13:56
  And this is the most astounding one.
• 13:58
  The Austin Police Department took a day.
• 14:01
  We had a guy that was there.
• 14:05
  And so that's not well known, but anybody can sign people up,
• 14:10
  sign your friends up, Take an hour to pray, and you'll be surprised how fast you can move.
• 14:16
  And Marianne and I love it. We do it every month.
• 14:19
  And to know that we're crying out with hundreds, thousands, several thousand
• 14:24
  other people crying out for our city, it's amazing.
• 14:27
  You know, many places, it's never been done. When we look back in the history
• 14:31
  of prayer revival, there's been prayer movements and stuff.
• 14:33
  But this kind of sustained prayer, 24 hours a day, seven days a week,
• 14:38
  365 days a year, year after year that can happen in Missiana and all over.
• 14:44
  It needs to be done because it's sustainable. We've seen it in Austin for 17 straight years. Wow.
• 14:51
  Well, thank you, Trey. Would you pray right now as these listeners to the One
• 14:58
  Cry podcast and whatever community they are, most of them in America,
• 15:01
  but not all of them, that God would just direct them.
• 15:05
  And I don't hesitate to say stir them to begin some kind of unceasing prayer
• 15:11
  effort in their community.
• 15:13
  So pray for us, Trey. Let's pray. Father, we thank you that your heart for prayer
• 15:18
  is everything, that you died and rose again so we could have that one-to-one,
• 15:23
  that access, that relationship.
• 15:25
  So I pray over pastors and leaders.
• 15:27
  I pray over nonprofit leaders. I pray over business leaders,
• 15:31
  senior pastors of large and small churches, Lord, all different denominations,
• 15:36
  all different ethnic makeups, Lord, that you would move, Lord,
• 15:40
  all across America, all across the world, and stir this heart, Lord.
• 15:44
  Thank you that we've seen it in Florida and California and Texas and Kentucky
• 15:49
  and, Lord, the Northeast and the Northwest. We see it everywhere,
• 15:54
  all over the world, Lord.
• 15:54
  Berlin and San Francisco and just nations of the earth are beginning to cry out.
• 16:00
  So we pray you would do it. Stir people today, Lord.
• 16:04
  The spirit of prayer is the Holy Spirit. So Holy Spirit, would you ignite prayer
• 16:09
  movements that last until Jesus comes back all across the earth?
• 16:13
  We give you praise. You're worthy of it all, Jesus. In your name we pray. Amen.
• 16:20
  Well, thank you, Trey. And wow, thank you, One Cry family, podcast family.
• 16:26
  I hope your heart was stirred like mine was afresh.
• 16:29
  And I was just thinking, practically, you could just forward this podcast to your pastor friends.
• 16:37
  The kingdom is advanced through friendships, relationships.
• 16:40
  And I think one resource, Trey, that I know I've appreciated over the years
• 16:44
  that God put it on your heart to really put all this in a book.
• 16:48
  And that's an easy read, but man, I'm inspired by it. So let's tell our podcast
• 16:53
  family how in the world they can access that, get that.
• 16:57
  So talk to us just briefly about it. Yeah. So Kai Bowman, a pastor of a large
• 17:01
  Baptist church and I, we wrote City of Prayer.
• 17:04
  It kind of tells a story of how God launched 24-7 prayer in Austin.
• 17:07
  If you can do it in Austin, you can do it anywhere.
• 17:10
  It's a very accessible book. You can read it in one day, but it's really inspired
• 17:13
  prayer movements around the world.
• 17:15
  And it will be helpful for your community as well. Amazon?
• 17:19
  Yeah, Amazon. And the name of it again? City of Prayer. City of Prayer. Go to Amazon.
• 17:25
  Send a request in to OneCry. We want you to have that resource.
• 17:31
  And so thank you again. What a blessing to be seeking God together for a new,
• 17:38
  a greater awakening than we've ever seen before.
• 17:42
  And I hear the rumblings taking place all over the country and especially on
• 17:47
  our campuses. So God bless you.