I Remember Prayer Meetings III

After we had spent some time teaching on prayer and giving the young people here in North East, MD opportunities to pray in our Youth Services on Wednesday night. We really began to have a break through in prayer. Our services were often punctuated with exuberant praise and worship from the youth group.

This led to more teaching and some directed prayer to encourage the young people not to be satisfied with just crying and having God touch them. But we pushed them to pray for specific needs and situations they were aware of in the lives. We had them to voice their requests so we could pray a united prayer with them. Then when the need was met we had some fantastic testimonies coming from our young people. Theses testimonies simply increased our faith and we prayed on.

At times we had tongues and interpretations and God moved in a mighty way. The services and messages were geared to stir us up to a closer walk with God. They also reminded us how much we need to pray until we see results. Far too many people simply pray and then that is it.

They really don’t see results because they really are not concerned enough. But when we look at the scriptures and see that we are responsible to “our world” to share the “good news”. We realize that we need God to help us and lead us on a daily basis.

This type of teaching and preaching helped to lead the youth into intercessory prayer. There were a lot of services when the youth were scattered all over the fellowship hall where we have youth service and they would be weeping and travailing for the souls of their friends and others to find God. Some times this would go on for over an hour after the message was finished.

I have seen a lot of times when the service for the adults in the main auditorium was over and the parents would come and look in to see what their young person was doing only to find them prostrate on the floor travailing and talking in tongues.

This began to happen even on Sunday Services in the main auditorium. Our youth were so desperate to stay in touch with God they simply stayed in the altar until they got what they felt they needed from God. This had a marvelous effect on the church family because the youth actually brought the Spirit of God to bear in the services. It was an exciting time! This led to more outreach efforts that were quite exciting which we will share later! Keep praying!! Prayer works!!

I Remember Prayer Meetings Part II ...

I Remember Prayer Meetings Part II…

I have received a lot of interest via comments a quite a few emails from my post on “I remember Prayer Meetings Part I…” So I will write on this subject and include my thoughts on prayer meetings that we had here in North East MD.

When I came here I was not involved with the youth group “officially”. Though I had been on the District Youth Board in California and had been involved with the youth at The First Church in San Jose Ca. Pastored by Rev. Jim Shoemake at the time.

But as always I still had a burden for the youth. Praying and fasting youth is the foundation for revival in many of our churches. Plus this gives them a solid foundation to build on in reaching out to the lost. If their mind is on prayer and fasting then it will not be on the temptations that the world throws at them every minute.

I set up a scheduled time after awhile that I would go to the church and pray. Then I told others that I had been praying at the church on Saturday nights for several weeks. They suspected something because the Spirit was moving and we were praying several through to victory in the services. So they asked what’s-up? I told them come join me at prayer.

Later after I stepped down from the NJ/DE District Youth Board, Pastor Wayne Trout put me in as the Youth Pastor here at Truth & Life Center in North East MD.

From there God began to move in a mighty way. Several of those at the prayer meetings are now pastors or pastor’s wives. Some back slid later, then came back to God and are doing great in the church today.

But the impact on the church was felt when the youth kept praying at the altar along time after the adults were finished. We just kept pushing and praying every night. Eventually the youth started helping to pray for the youth.

Then one night Pastor Trout mentioned the youth and that everyone could see the results of their praying. So he had the adults come forward for the youth to pray for them and God just blessed every one. The altar area filled up with adults wanting to get in on the revival.

It was awesome to see parents and grandparents come up so their young people could pray for them. Even now I weep when I remember the sights and sounds of revival!!

We continued the push for prayer and revival. The young people were comfortable in praying. We had prayer at all our activities whether it was a fun night or service night; for example most of the time after an activity we closed with a song and a prayer.

The result was that the visitors became very interested in what we were doing. They noticed that we considered God to be more than some one we went to worship on an occasional Sunday. The other positive result was that our youth grew very comfortable in praying in all situations or surroundings. This led to other things that I will explore in another post!