Our International Services team just took a day to fast and pray. I’m recapping our experience not out of a desire to uplift our team, because believe me, we’re a team just like yours, no better, yet thankfully, perhaps no worse either. If by sharing our trek, we can help you decide to invest similarly in strategic prayer time, then all of this Brigada- stuff will have been well worth it.
Like many other organizations, we open each day with a 10-minute prayer time, plus we do an additional 30-minute prayer time together on Wednesday afternoons, during which we partner together to pray specifically and personally for every person in our ministry (about 310 adults these days). But because we’ve recently felt the need to strike out on a course to raise the bar and improve in some (many?) areas, our Leadership Team chose to ask all 30 of us to invest in an entire day of prayer together.
We opened with a “Concert of Prayer” together. I’ll try to remember to post here a link to the “script” we used. We relied on Dave Bryant’s tried and true book on the subject (“Concerts of Prayer”, a 1984 “oldie by goodie”). We moved from stage to stage, transitioning from groups of 3 to groups of 6 and back again, until we finally came together at the end as one body, praying together. (As you might imagine, the groups of 3 make it so much easier for everyone to participate repeatedly.)
We gave a 15-minute break, then moved into individual prayer walks. We asked our team members specifically and intentionally to try to “listen” to God. Because we are blessed with a campus designed for this kind of event (see our work-in-progress at: http://www.emeraldhills.info ), each of our roughly 30 team members could walk individually along prayer trails, streamsides, and in open meadows with lots of wildflowers, redbud, dogwood, and other signs of God’s creation. We gave about 2 hours for this experience. Some might feel that that’s a bit too long, but for the most part, it seemed to go well for our folks.
Next, our sub-teams met for 90 minutes to debrief on the experience. Many felt they had heard God speaking to them, either through scripture, or in some metaphor in the woods or meadow. Our sub-team leaders took notes, helping debrief these small groups of 5-8 participants in easier- to-speak fashion. In the group that I led, two team members were brought to tears as they debriefed the day of prayer and fasting. At least one admitted never having fasted previously. We then thanked everyone for taking part, then our Leadership Team met in an executive session to assimilate lessons learned, along with the feedback. We asked each sub- team leader to type up a report of all the comments and conclusions so we could assemble “minutes” of the day, which we will then email out to every team member across the board. That way, each staffer can take lessons from what the others experienced.
Perhaps you’ve done something similar? If so, please navigate to this item on the web at:
http://brigada.org/brigade/?p=66
then click on “comment” at the bottom of the article. Leave your message (you need not publicize your name or agency, if you prefer), and watch a list of similar ideas come to life there. Your comment will most likely be posted immediately (unless you try to leave links in your message, in which case, our blog spam-catcher will nix your message). Thanks for any feedback you might want to leave. And remember that our staff is just like yours, on a trek to try to do things better, for God’s glory. We’re “one beggar telling another where to get bread.” During our day together in the woods, we found lots of spiritual bread. :-)
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