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Episode 5 - Use a Prayer Calendar
43 Plays4 months ago
You probably use a calendar to remember important things. Why not try using a simple calendar to help you remember who to pray for today? Listen as Bryan explains an easy way to stay focused and to pray for many people throughout the month.
If you want to see an example handout of how to do a prayer calendar, send an email to pray@coyfc.org and Bryan will send you one.
Central Ohio Youth for Christ: www.coyfc.org
Gracehaven: www.gracehavenohio.org
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Transcript
Introduction and Purpose
00:00:11
Speaker
I'm Brian Brooks from Central Ohio Youth for Christ. I love praying and seeing answers to prayer because I get to see God at work. The podcast is here to open all of our eyes to see God moving and to learn who he is.
00:00:27
Speaker
I'm inviting you to listen with an open mind, an open heart, asking God to show you how he is active around you. And i want to share stories of how God's reaching out to show his love to young people and adults here in our context at Central Ohio Youth for Christ, as well as an occasional personal story from my own life.
00:00:47
Speaker
And if you're someone who doesn't believe in God, you know you might ah find this positive and entertaining, which I certainly hope you do.
Personal Belief and Prayer's Role
00:00:55
Speaker
But the reality is that believing in God is not like believing in an impersonal force.
00:01:02
Speaker
It's having a close relationship with a personal God who knows everything about you, doesn't condemn you, wants to give you purpose, it's awesome.
00:01:14
Speaker
Believing in Jesus is real. God hears our prayers and he's active in changing people's lives. And you can get to be a part of that. I hope that This podcast will help you to pray more, pray with focus in the midst of our distracted world, and pray with joy because you're learning who God is, what He cares about, and how He's fulfilling His mission through prayer and His people.
Inspiration for Focused Prayer
00:01:35
Speaker
There's a ton of ways to get involved in what God is doing. All of them are great. Prayer is an excellent inroad to that. So let's pray and see what God does.
00:01:48
Speaker
Pray along with me. God, I want to pray more. I want to remember to pray and think about people. It's really hard in the middle of being busy and having many things to think about.
00:01:59
Speaker
Can you remind me? I'm so distracted. You say in your word, God, that the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. Can you help me in my weakness of forgetting who or what to pray for?
00:02:11
Speaker
Amen. So we're looking at some tools this time and next time that can help us to pray, to think about people more. And a tool is great when it serves its purpose and helps us to do things.
00:02:23
Speaker
You need to put together ah piece of furniture. Well, if you use a drill to screw 300 screws, it's going to go a lot faster than if you're doing it by hand with a screwdriver.
00:02:35
Speaker
This is similar. This is a tool to help us pray. And this tool is one that I was initially really skeptical about, but it's helped me over the past six months.
Tools for Prayer Efficiency
00:02:45
Speaker
Use a prayer calendar.
00:02:48
Speaker
I thought in the past, every time I came across this idea, man, that's wooden. It's rigid. It seems unnatural. Like, why would I use a calendar to think about people that I care about?
00:03:00
Speaker
But you know what? I found in the busyness of my life, of working, of being a dad, of marriage, of friends, keeping up with my church community, of playing music in my band, I can be easily distracted.
00:03:16
Speaker
I've got a lot of irons in the fire, a lot of things going on. You might too. This simple system has helped me to stay organized and focused. Here's how I heard about it. then I want to tell you how to actually set it up so you can do it for yourself.
00:03:31
Speaker
So i was at a meeting, ah part of For Columbus, which is a local nonprofit pulling together people from all kinds of churches, the marketplace, nonprofits like ours.
00:03:43
Speaker
And was a lunch and learn meeting. The guy was talking about simple tools for following Jesus. That following Jesus doesn't need to be complicated. And the tools he was suggesting weren't high tech.
00:03:56
Speaker
They were analog. like actual paper and a Bible. So he had us get out a sheet of notebook paper and put a column down the middle. On the left side, we titled it, Not Yet, Followers of Jesus. On the right side, Followers of Jesus.
00:04:12
Speaker
For the left side, for the not yet, he had us write Matthew 28, 18 through 20. It was at the end of Matthew in the New
Organizing with a Prayer Calendar
00:04:20
Speaker
Testament. Jesus came and said to them, his followers,
00:04:23
Speaker
And then the right side, for followers of Jesus, Colossians 4, 2-4. go therefore and make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the father the son and the holy spirit teaching them to to observe all i've commanded you behold i'm with you always to the end of the age and then on the right side four followers of jesus colossians four two through four We've looked at this verse in a prior episode.
00:04:48
Speaker
Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving. At the same time, pray also for us that God may open to us a door for the word to declare the mystery of Christ on account of which I'm in prison, that I may make it clear which is how I ought to speak.
00:05:05
Speaker
So when we pray for people who are not yet followers of Jesus, we're praying that they would come to know God and who he is. And for followers of Jesus, we're praying that God would give them opportunities to share with others who he is.
00:05:21
Speaker
He had us put date numbers down the left side of the paper, however many days were in the month. And then he said, start with today. Ask God on today's date, who do you want to bring to my mind to pray for today?
00:05:36
Speaker
And whoever came to mind, don't overthink it. Just put one name in each column for that day. And You're putting people, if you don't know where they stand with God, what they think about Jesus, put them in the column on the left until you find out.
00:05:52
Speaker
For people that you know are followers of Jesus, that are friends, that are in your church, that are serving with you at Youth for Christ, or you know they have a relationship with God, put them in the one on the right.
00:06:03
Speaker
And the reality is, look, it's not that we can't pray for other people who aren't on the list, but this is a minimum to focus for each day.
Sharing Prayers and Community Impact
00:06:12
Speaker
Then you pull out your phone and you get ready to text each person for for the day.
00:06:19
Speaker
You know, think about it. It's a cool thing to get a text from one of your friends saying, hey, I'm thinking about you. How are you doing? This is the same type of thing that you would send to your friends to ask what you can pray for for them.
00:06:34
Speaker
We've already talked about how prayer changes people. It changes the person that we're talking to God about. And the prayer calendar is a simple way to keep track of praying for the people in your life, students, coworkers, family, whoever.
00:06:49
Speaker
Well, at this group meeting, we texted the people on that day. It was November 14th, six months ago. I texted people.
00:07:00
Speaker
I got a response while we were sitting there, but it was within minutes of people texting that the area pastor said, hey, look, raise your hand if you've gotten a response.
00:07:11
Speaker
And several people in the room had already gotten a response, and they shared some of the stories of text conversations they were in. It was awesome. I've seen that too. Well, several months into trying this, like any new thing I try, I start to lose steam and motivation.
00:07:27
Speaker
I found myself looking at this calendar thinking, okay, God, I know you value persistent prayer. I believe that you hear my prayers for each of these people and that you're doing something to show them your love and who you are.
00:07:41
Speaker
Can you help me to see what you're doing in their lives? Like, I don't need to see it, but I want to. Can you help me see it? That was a Wednesday morning and I'd had, you know, a functional week where all kinds of things were breaking and my car,
00:07:57
Speaker
had been broken down again for the second week in a row. I had scheduled doing a repair over a lunch break. little crazy. I'm not advocating you do that, but I had a time crunch where I was going to replace a throttle body in our van.
00:08:13
Speaker
ah was ready to do the work, had on my work clothes, gloves were on, tools were out, the hood of the van was up. I started in on the job. And i was excited to get it done.
00:08:24
Speaker
But my phone was in my pocket and it started buzzing. I instantly got semi-aggravated like, okay, you got to be kidding. Like, I can't even take a break for an hour without getting interrupted.
00:08:35
Speaker
Yeah, okay, if this is what it's going to be like, I should turn my phone off. So I take off my glove I was using to work on the car, pull my phone out, and I look and it was a text.
00:08:46
Speaker
The text was from one of my friends that I had been praying for. And he said, hey, I just want to let you know, it really means a lot that you're praying for me. I really appreciate that. And you've been a really great friend.
00:08:59
Speaker
Wild. Except for the fact that earlier that morning, I asked God to give me a glimpse and show me if any of this stuff really mattered. Well, in a prior episode, I've also mentioned Chris, who's a young leader in our Youth for Christ ministry.
Transformative Power of Prayer
00:09:15
Speaker
He's one of the people that's shown up on my prayer calendar because I've been meeting with him. And I've been praying that God would give him opportunities to share Christ with ah his coworkers and people he knows.
00:09:27
Speaker
Well, he's been sharing with his friend Henry. And so I put Henry on the calendar. Well, we've been praying that Henry would come to place his faith in Jesus Christ, which he ended up doing over the past five months.
00:09:41
Speaker
We've seen him soak up reading the Bible, and he started to tell other people around him about his experience with God. We got to see Henry move from the column on the left of not yet believer in Jesus to the column on the right, someone who knows God and is sharing with other people. It's awesome.
00:10:01
Speaker
We want to put things on the calendar so you remember it. That's how we remember things in our lives. We put a reminder. But you schedule it so the phone reminds you at a certain point. You put people's birthdays in your calendar.
00:10:14
Speaker
It's the idea of using like an external system or a list to remind you of things to think about. And we want to use a list so we free up our brain from remembering every single detail.
00:10:26
Speaker
In our case, we're using a prayer calendar to pray for a few people every day. You can always think of more people to pray for, but this is like a bare minimum. I'm going to sit down and think about these people, pray for them, and see what God brings to mind, and start a conversation with them over text.
00:10:45
Speaker
It's a tool to help us learn more about how people are really doing, what's going on in their lives, and to communicate care and concern for them and that we're praying for them. So Paul says 1 Thessalonians 5, we should rejoice always. We should pray without ceasing and give thanks in all circumstances for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
00:11:12
Speaker
How do you pray without ceasing? If you're distracted or you have a hard time remembering, well, you get a tool. You get something that helps you to remember. Use a prayer calendar. In our Colossians 4 passage, How do you remember...
00:11:28
Speaker
and the same time pray for us that god may open to us a door for the word to declare the mystery of christ on account of which i'm in prison pray i may make it clear which is how i ought to speak how do you remember other Christian believers to pray for and to pray for their opportunities to serve and love other people.
00:11:47
Speaker
Use a calendar. Ephesians 6, 18, pray at all times in the spirit. Keep alert. Make supplication or pray for all the believers. How do you remember who those people are?
00:12:00
Speaker
What helps to write them down? So I hope you're seeing that this call in the Bible for followers of Jesus to pray at all times, to pray for more than just yourself, to pray for other people as a part of God's mission.
00:12:15
Speaker
We can't in life today, you can't rely solely on your brain to remember everything. That only gets you so far. Using a calendar helps you to remember everything. Put it on the calendar so you remember.
00:12:29
Speaker
So my challenge for you today is start your own prayer calendar. You can use a paper notebook, or I guess if you want to, you could use a calendar app as a reminder on your phone.
Setting Up a Prayer Calendar
00:12:39
Speaker
know I use a simple bullet journal method to track what goes on each month.
00:12:44
Speaker
And, you know, I have a calendar page for things that happen in the month, as well as ah projects around the house I get to finish. i actually try and recount answers to prayer that were noticeable in the month, as well as cool spiritual moments of God.
00:13:00
Speaker
On the next page, that's where I have my prayer calendar. I do the column on the left, column on the right, you know, with a line down the middle. And the title on the left, if not yet, Believers in Jesus. And I write down that reference, Matthew 28, 18 through 20.
00:13:15
Speaker
And on the right, for Believers in Jesus, I write down the reference of Colossians 4, 2 through 4. Put the numbers of the dates for the month. I ask God to bring names to mind.
00:13:27
Speaker
And I start with a person today. If it's the first of the month, I start on that day. Hey, I started using this prayer calendar. Is there anything I can pray for you today? And it's been pretty neat.
00:13:38
Speaker
So hopefully you hear it's not rocket science, but simply a tool to help us
Starting a Prayer Group
00:13:43
Speaker
remember. We put it on the calendar so we'll remember because we want to pray for people and see God move in their life.
00:13:50
Speaker
Next time, we're going to talk about how to pray, what to pray about for people using the book of Psalms in the Bible. If you want to connect and learn more about starting a prayer group for one of our YFC ministries, shoot an email to pray at COYFC.org.
00:14:08
Speaker
That email is going to come to me. I'd love to connect with you that way.