Mobilizing Your Church

Five Top Tips
for mobilizing your congregation

Most church prayer leaders find that 20% of the church are eager participants in almost any prayer initiative. Many of the other 80% sincerely desire to pray better and more. To better encourage your entire church family, consider these five tips:

1. Enlist the encouragement of key leaders. If a trusted key leader, such as a senior pastor, personally recommends the prayer guide, it gives those who are promoting the use of the prayer guide opportunity to be as enthusiastic as they want to be about it.

2. Establish it as an item of value. People generally use what they value and they value what they pay for. Offer copies of Seek God For The City with some kind of invitation to purchase it, or acquire it for a suggested donation. Even if you give copies to some, it helps to place a value on the item by suggesting donations can be received.

3. Give people the freedom to use only part of it. Because of how behind some people feel that they are in their prayers and reading, they can feel that they are obligating themselves to a commitment that they cannot keep by getting a copy of Seek God For The City. Liberate people from the burden of performing perfect prayer life for forty days. Encourage everyone to participate as they can by getting a copy of the booklet and using it in the best way that they can manage. You might say something like, "Even if you pray just four of five days of the forty day period, your prayers will be significant, and you'll grow in prayer along with millions of others."

4. Use opportunities to pray with the prayers, preach from the scriptures, or refer to the daily prayer focus points. By aligning sermon topics or congregational prayers with the scriptures and themes found in Seek God For The City, the value of the entire prayer initiative is reinforced.

5. Remind people to pray. Forty days is a period of several weeks. People will often find themselves disrupted or distracted. Reminders are suitable. Use the bulletin inserts on our website, or announce from time to time which day of the forty days it is. Of course, never needle or nag. Use your creativity to encourage people in positive ways.

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Simple steps to help your church family get the most out of Seek God For The City 2010

Step One: Work with the blessing of pastoral leadership. Approach your pastor(s) with a sample copy of Seek God For The City 2010. (We're happy to provide review copies for pastors if we hear from you by January 29.) Make a clear but flexible proposal about your church or city using the prayer guides.

Let your pastor and/or other key leaders know how you personally plan to use the booklet. Describe a few options about how it might be useful for others (For example: a copy for some of the leaders, or a copy for each of the lighthouse prayer participants, a copy for every church family member).

Frame your discussion with your pastor(s) around the idea of long-range value, far beyond Palm Sunday. How might a season of united prayer this spring contribute to the long-range vision and goals of the church? How might this fit in with what your church already has planned? How might this help church members pray with confidence and biblical depth?

Make yourself available to your church leadership to help facilitate the distribution of the booklets, and the mobilization of people to pray. If you are mobilizing people from different churches in your community, then seek the involvement of pastors and other leaders in your community.

Step Two: Estimate how many people may find the prayer guides useful and valuable in one of many different ways. Who will use the prayer guides? You may be surprised at how many people are concerned about their community and eager to learn how to pray more effectively for its needs. Many churches order enough guides for 20 %-50% of their families. Some order enough for every participant in their small group ministries. Every participant in prayer ministries is likely to be an eager recipient/purchaser/user. Liturgical churches may want to think of how many people participate on Ash Wednesday services. Add 25% to that number at least.

How many copies will you need? Your first thought may be to estimate how many you can afford. That may not be the best way to begin forming your plans. We find that people tend to use what they value, and value what they pay for; therefore, we strongly encourage you to plan, if at all possible, on distributing the booklets on a sale (or suggested donation) basis. If you make it easy for people to offer one or two or three dollars for a copy, you will find that the effort almost pays for itself. In fact, some churches have made money, and have designated the proceeds for a youth missions trip or something of the kind. Ultimately, the issue is rarely financial. Are your people ready for another step of growth in significant praying? If so, how many of them might make use of the booklet?

You don't want to order so many copies that you're left with large quantities after Palm Sunday. On the other hand, a substantial number of churches end up calling to request more booklets two or three times over the 40-day period because they ordered too few. We suggest you consider ordering a few more copies than you think you'll need, so that you can obtain the greatest discount possible, and have plenty to offer as gifts.

Step Three: Distribute the booklets so that those who receive them will understand their value and how to use them. The main idea of Seek God For The City 2010 is to involve people in united prayer; however, the way that you distribute the booklets can be an important part of this process.

How to distribute the booklets

1. Set the dates for distributing the booklets. Sundays are most important. More than one Sunday works best. We suggest you distribute the prayer guides on Sunday, January 31, February 7, and February 14. Consider also the gatherings that take place on other evenings or mornings at your church. Don't forget to keep them available throughout the month of March. Many people are glad to join in the 40 day effort at any point.

2. Check a few details. The booklets are printed with a $3.00 sales price on the back cover. Receiving money for church endeavors on a donation basis can simplify matters of collecting sales tax in many situations. If you are a bookstore or a private party reselling the books at a profit, check local laws for applicable sales tax requirements. If you are simply exchanging booklets in connection with a church prayer program, then it's unlikely you'll need to collect sales tax.

3. Establish distribution points. Set up one or two tables where booklets can be made available. If it's customary to offer prayer helps or other resources for sale near an entry way to the place your congregation gathers, then seek permission to use that area. Some churches have an in-house bookstore or a book table (click here for signs and bulletin inserts, available in December). That's great. But even if the bookstore is handling the transactions, make arrangements, if at all possible, to set the booklets in a prominent, visible place.

Consider offering the booklets with a self-service arrangement. Put up a sign that says something like: "Now is the time to get your copy of Seek God For The City 2010. Suggested donation: Only $3.00 Many are donating more than two dollars, making it possible for everyone to receive a copy." Download the signs we have designed, or make your own (Click here to see our signs and inserts, available in December). Many people find that they can make a fantastic poster for only a few dollars by having the cover of Seek God For The City 2010 photocopied in color and enlarged. Mount it or hang it in a way that looks clean and inviting.

4. Enlist volunteers to facilitate the booklet sales. Best results are always obtained by having a real person on hand to offer people a copy of Seek God For The City, answer questions and encourage them to pray. Enlist volunteers to stand by the display, answer questions and mobilize participants even if the sales are being handled by an in-house bookstore.

With respect to collecting money, plan to have some change available, and know in advance who people can write checks to if you are accepting checks.

Step Four: Encourage people to pray. Actively seek to encourage and equip your church family members regularly throughout the 40 days.

Never scold people for failing in prayer, or for missing days, or for starting late. People rarely, if ever, respond positively to critique and guilt feelings about their prayer life. Address your church family with the presumption that they are eager to love God and to grow in prayer.

Use some of these ideas to encourage your people:

Remind the people of your church that there are many thousands of others around the world who are praying with the same topics and scriptures. You may know of other churches in your city or region which are using the prayer guide.
Ask participants to share with others what they may be hearing from God as they pray.
Demonstrate how flexible and easy-to-use the prayer guides can be. With booklets in hand, direct any group to actually use some of the ideas. Day 8 is a good example. Point out that one person can read the scriptures; others can be turned loose to pray; then everyone can join together at the conclusion.
Check with small-group leaders about how they are utilizing the prayer guides personally or in small groups.
Continue to offer the booklets for sale. As people talk among themselves about Seek God For The City, more people will want to obtain a copy.
Provide weekly reminders in your bulletin and from the pulpit, if possible. Use that time to mention the weekly theme, and for what part of the world we'll be praying. Use the ready-made bulletin inserts as reminders, not replacements, for the prayer calendar.
It's possible that your pastor will want to consider preaching from one of the biblical passages that will be prayed during the week following Sunday's message.
Let people know that their prayers have great value as they're praying beyond personal concerns, toward God's promises for spiritual awakening in their communities.
Find ways to clarify that we are praying toward biblical hope, which doesn't compare to sentimental ideas, political agendas or merely wishful thinking!
Find out which people have been trying some of the prayerwalking ideas. Get them to tell others about their efforts.
Establish a forty-day prayer chain, in which one church or one family takes on the assignment to fast and pray during one of the forty days. Even if only a couple of dozen people participate (taking more than one day); their dedication speaks volumes of encouragement to others. It makes a statement that your church is the kind of church that fasts and prays with persistence.
Have people put personal names and dates beside their prayers for the different subsets of your population mentioned every day (such as native peoples, pastors, law enforcement officials, educators, or health care workers). Consider approaching some of these people on the day their subset is mentioned to let them know that many people are focusing prayers for them. You may even want to single out some of the people in these groups for a special time of prayer on a Sunday morning during the 40-day prayer effort.

E-mail us your ideas to encourage your friends and church family to use Seek God For The City.

May God bless you and the people of your church and city.