We are occasionally asked by churches and organizations if we can come and train their staff in prayer ministry. How exciting!
While we know it can be helpful (for many reasons) to have a third-party organization you can refer individuals to for specialized prayer ministry like Six One, we are highly supportive of churches and organizations offering this in-house. It isn’t that we believe every church or organization needs to develop and staff their own organized prayer ministry, but more that we agree and would love to help be part of the Body of Christ being more equipped in prayer and in praying with one another. And how exciting it is to have your people growing in their giftings and in how they pray with one another, whether they be elders, staff, volunteers, or members of your congregation or organization.
There are probably some amazing prayer ministries out there who could come and train your staff in all things prayer ministry with ease. Perhaps the Lord will one day make that a reality for Six One. However, with all that the Lord currently has our staff involved in, along with our convictions about how to effectively train prayer ministers and build prayer ministry teams, not to mention our fees that would need to cover our staff’s travel and loss of income from taking time off to come and train your staff (yes, we have day jobs), we’d like to recommend an alternative, two-step path.
Step One: Foundational Learning
Rather than hiring Six One to teach all the nuts and bolts on prayer ministry to your team, which could be very lengthy (more than you are thinking), we recommend a team-wide workshop, class, or series of classes on the foundations. Everyone wants to jump right into learning practical ways to pray in advanced ways, but we often neglect the foundations. Even if you think everyone is on the same page, start here. It’s vital. Go through the foundations together as a team.
Foundations can include such topics as:
- Expectations for your team (logistics, instructions)
- How to pray (basic prayer model)
- Types of prayer (beyond petition and intercession)
- Spiritual dynamics (spiritual warfare, authority in Christ)
- Guidelines and responsibilities (your do’s and don’ts)
We can recommend resources, online courses, and books to read. It is also much easier for us to send someone to teach your staff the foundational elements, if that is desired.
Step Two: Task Specific Team Members with Learning, Developing, and Implementation
Consider identifying and deploying specific team members (those who are gifted and called by the Lord in this area of ministry) to learn the nuts and bolts and bring it back to your team. Send them to workshops, trainings, and classes to grow in this area of ministry. Send them out to learn not only the foundations, but also the practical and advanced ways to pray. These team members know your organization, they know the inner workings, they know your congregations and clientele, and can best help bring this back to your organization and train your staff in a way that best suits your needs.
We have seen this work amazingly well. There are organizations and churches that have sent several team members to complete Immersed, our 8-month discipleship course in prayer ministry. They are now able to take what they have learned back into the organization and help build out and incorporate prayer ministry in a way that is most effective for them.
In addition to Immersed, we have online courses these team members can complete at home and at their own pace. We are also happy to recommend other ministries they can learn from, books they can read, and places they can go for deep learning.
While we believe this is a much more effective way to train your staff, at least for Six One, we also confess that we don’t know everything! If you have an idea you want to run by us, we’d love to consider it. You can submit a request here: https://sixoneministries.org/customtraining/.
Mostly, we are thrilled to know that you are interested and wanting your people to grow in the area of prayer. Hallelujah!
