How to pray on a mission trip

“So, if the second Great Awakening is underway, how,” you may ask, “how do I join it?  Where does that initial motivation come from?” Here is how you can pray before, during, and after your mission trip.

Before your mission trip

• Begin by shoring up your own prayer efforts.  Pray against the particular strongholds in the lives of those in your group.  Pray for your leaders by name.  Ultimately the passion for prayer in your group will mirror your own passion for prayer.  If you’re discouraged about group members’ commitment, take a reality check concerning your own commitment.
• Pray that your students will be brought to a place of total honesty with God.  Avoid tired Evangelical phrases when talking to God.  For example, replace, “Help me to do my best” with “God, invade me with the feelings that the poor mother on the corner feels when she sees me interacting with her children.”
• Make your group’s prayers more specific.  Exchange “bless the missionaries in Africa” for “Lord, I’m asking you that the Stewarts would identify three candidates this week in their efforts to identify a local pastor by June.”
• Ask group members to identify and pray with prayer partners.

During your mission trip

• Put project participants in uncomfortable situations requiring their prayers of faith.  As long as they can figure out a way to do things on their own strength, they will.  Only by removing the safety net and asking them to jump will they be able to understand at a gut level that God is trustworthy.  The person who has difficulty raising support for a missions project or sharing his faith with peers is forced to rely on God’s grace.
• Enable your group to rub shoulders with prayer warriors.  The cliche, “Prayer is caught not taught,” is true.  By seeing righteous people engaged in effectual fervent prayer, your students learn the truth behind James 5:16.

After your mission trip

• As you pray, begin recording answers.  After returning home, compile your own book entitled “Our Group’s Book of miracles.”  Your faith will double as you see God’s record of faithfulness and learn more about His tenderness.