”Doing Church,” “Being Church,” is a spiritual undertaking that requires the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. Over the course of 30 days you will learn the practice of praying for your church. You will be led through a deep examination of Jesus’ and Paul’s prayers for the church. Spending 15 minutes a day will begin to transform your understanding of how to pray for the ongoing ministries of your church. As you interact with various scriptures God will grow your love for His church and show you what He wants to do through your church.

The church is in the middle of a great spiritual battle as the forces of Satan attempt to thwart the plan of God for humanity. Powers and principalities in high places are actively working against the church, at times within the church, to distract the church from its mission. The selfishness of humanity rises up to tear apart the fabric of unity in the church. Bitterness and frustration grow within the membership because the members of the church are frail and unable on their own to carry out the work of the church. Therefore, the church requires much prayer.

To be prepared for this we need much prayer. We don’t need prayer to convince God to save people, because we know He already wants to do this. We don’t need prayer to manipulate God into doing things on our behalf because we know He already wants to work in our lives. We need prayer chiefly to prepare our own hearts to be ready for Him to work through us. We need prayer to align ourselves with His will. We need prayer to humble our hearts so that we will give Him proper glory and credit for what He does here. We need prayer to get ourselves out of His way. We need prayer to acknowledge our desperate need for Him to move in our midst. The journey begins and ends with God. Therefore, we need to pray.

My prayer for you as you work through the next thirty days is that God will use this book to challenge you and encourage you. I hope He begins to raise up prayer warriors for churches across the world who consistently enter His throne room on behalf of their local body of believers.