by Andy Johnson

Prayer Coordinator and Worker Care Director

Throughout 2023, we are leading you to pray through the life cycle of workers who are sent to the field. Every stage is important, but this month I’m asking you to pray into a particularly complicated one: the relationship between a sending church and the workers it sends.

At MRN, we advocate for (and really do believe in) churches sending workers directly. It’s a beautiful way to accomplish the calling of the church and the calling of the individual. It can be one of the best parts of being sent.

And, like all really good things, it can be one of the hardest parts.

I’ve seen our enemy wiggle into the relationship between churches and workers far too many times. Friend, will you pray these things with me this month over sending churches and those they either send or are preparing to send?

·      Ask the Father for joy in relationship and in getting to see God at work.

·      Pray against Satan’s use of fear of failure, of not measuring up, and of a scarcity mindset. You might think that only workers suffer from these, but in our experience, those are very real fears for churches as well.

·      Pray that each would be able to rest firm in their identity – the worker and the church.

·      Pray that workers and churches would listen well to each other and that they would establish healthy and open lines of communication.

·      Pray for churches and for workers to choose to assume the best when interacting with each other. The pressure cookers of sending and being sent make it very easy to assume unholy motivations. Instead, ask God to free them to assume the best of each other.

·      Finally, pray that both workers and churches would be moved to praise for the gift of getting to be involved in each other’s lives and in what He is doing around the world.

Thank you, friend, for praying with us. Your work in prayer matters.

Peace.

Are you interested in sharing Jesus with unreached people of the world? Or do you know someone who you think God is calling?

We can help!

Email startthejourney@mrnet.org to talk about it.