Prayer is the key to everything. Whether you are considering a localized move of God or a full-blown revival, it is prayer that lays the foundation and makes room for God to work. This is true for you as an individual, and it is true for your church corporately.

Prayer Brings You Into Your Calling
Not too long ago I heard Kenneth Copeland talking about what a difference a prayer connection had made in his life before he was even saved. He began by talking about the company he used to keep:

"I used to run around with some really bad guys. But I never had the bad things happen to me that happened to most of them. I never wound up murdering someone and being sentenced to life in prison or death row.

"For a long time I didn't understand that. I was no better than them. I did many of the same things they did but didn't experience a lot of the negative consequences. Later, God revealed to me that my mother had prayed me out of those things."

In other words, Brother Copeland had a mother with a prayer connection that enabled God to retain a hold on his life and sustain him until he came to know Jesus for himself and began to walk in the calling of God.

The same prayer connection is equally vital for churches. I used to marvel at the growth rate of the church I pastor. I knew other ministers that were much better preachers than I was and more qualified to stand in the pulpit because they had a seminary degree, yet their church wasn't growing at the rate that mine was. So one time I finally said, "Lord, why are we prospering so?" His answer to me was simple, "Your prayer connection."

Prayer Paves the Way for Increase
In the life of an individual as well as in the life of a church, the prayer connection must be there if growth and increase are going to be fully manifested. In my life and in the life of our church, my wife has been instrumental in keeping that prayer connection strong. As a result of that thick prayer covering, God has been able to keep my mistakes from being too costly and my natural inadequacies from hindering His plan and purpose for the ministry.

It will do the same for you. We all make mistakes. We all have shortcomings. But if the prayer connection is there, you will see growth, blessing and a marvelous realization of the plan of God in your life. That is why it grieves me to see that many pastors are reluctant to give prayer a central place in the life and organization of their churches. I do understand why, though.

Prayer is one of those areas of ministry where there has been much abuse and flakiness. Over the years I've heard pastors say things such as, "I'm not going to have a bunch of kooky intercessors running around in my church. I'll guarantee you that."

I know there have been abuses in the past, especially when proper safeguards and correcting mechanisms haven't been in place. But to not give prayer its proper place because of a handful of past mistakes isn't clear thinking. If you get a bad haircut, you don't stop having your hair cut, do you? Of course, not. You simply change barbers!

Prayer is God's ordained way of progress. Prayer always precedes and makes room for every advancement.

Prayer Brings in the Harvest
Let me give you an example from our church of how prayer paves the way for increase. In the early years of our fellowship, we had a strong desire to see people saved. As an outgrowth of that desire, we would go out on the streets of Minneapolis once or twice a week with evangelism teams.

In the first few years, our efforts didn't seem to produce much fruit. Initially we had set a goal of 1,000 salvations on the streets in a year, but it took us four years of hard witnessing to see it reached.

About that same time, my wife Lynne pulled together a group of about five believers who had a heart for souls and were willing to pray, and they started meeting once a week to pray for the harvest. Every Monday night they would get on their faces before God in our prayer room and pray for souls.

As the Spirit of God energized and filled their praying, they would weep, groan and cry out to God travailing for the lost of our city. They would soak the carpet of that little prayer room with tears as they beseeched the Lord of the Harvest to help the workers bring in the precious fruit of the earth (James 5:7).

Then, in August of the fifth year, something changed. Suddenly, the weekly prayer times were charged with an atmosphere of victory rather than travail. There was no more groaning and travail, and they couldn't cry if they tried. Their prayers were just victory, victory, victory.

From that time on, things were different for our witnessing teams on the street. People were more receptive. There was an openness to the gospel. That year alone we prayed with more than 6,000 people on the streets and the following year with more than 10,000.

In 1995, our teams witnessed on the streets of the Twin Cities and on special, short-term mission trips around the world praying with more than 50,000 people. Our soul goal for 1997 was 100,000 people.

Please understand that I'm not telling you this to boast because we are ordinary people with ordinary talents. I'm telling you this to illustrate to you that this growth isn't the product of a brilliant strategy or an ingenious new system. We are seeing tens of thousands come into the kingdom of God because prayer went before our efforts and blazed the trail.

Give Prayer Its Proper Place
Knowing the important place that prayer holds, we, as individuals and as churches, must give prayer its rightful place. We church leaders must overcome our fear of what might happen if things got out of hand and trust God enough to give prayer the place it should have in the local church. It is foundational and must be one of our first priorities.

I could give you example after example, in my own life and in the life of our church, of how God has produced His will, His purpose and extraordinary increase because there was a prayer connection. Let me encourage you to give prayer its proper place in your life because it is intricately connected to operating in the principle of seeing and knowing and will make way for the increase God wants to bring you as you make your supply available to the body of Christ.

Source: Yielded and Bold by Mac Hammond
Excerpt permission granted by Mac Hammond Ministries