When I first moved to Seminole I heard about a community prayer room. This is a time when people from different churches come together to intercede for the community during lunch once a week. In the beginning I intended to go but something always came up. As I was seeking the Lord for vision at the beginning of this year I sensed Him telling me to, “give myself to prayer more than ever.” Part of that command meant to make attending the CPR prayer meetings a high priority.
Since committing to go to those prayer meetings I have been moved to tears in every single prayer time. I pray alone and let the Lord direct my prayers in addition to lifting up the prayer requests made available. I have cried out to the Lord to give me His heart for the city of Seminole and for Gaines County. I feel God’s heart and the ache of those in desperate need all over the community.
I do not know how long CPR has been going on. I do know this. Very few people attend. It is a come and go prayer meeting. It starts around 11:30 and concludes around 1:30. The leader always says, “Come when you can and leave when you must.” I find myself wanting, longing, and craving to go to those meetings. My heart aches for the prayerlessness of the church today. I am new to CPR but I am pleading for the Lord to give His people the desire to pray. I am pleading for the Lord to move our hearts to cry out to Him on behalf of the city.
I cannot even begin to put into words what the Lord has been doing in my heart this year and in those CPR meetings. Often I barely pray words but sit or kneel with a stream of tears. I want God to move in this city. I feel the burdens that people have to carry and feel that I am never closer to the heart of God than when I am standing in the gap for people, many of whom I may not know.
I feel one of my missions as a pastor and author is to call people back to a life of prayer. We need God to intervene and invade space and time to help us. If I could point people back to prayer and trusting God in every circumstance of life I feel my life will not have been wasted. If through my own prayer life I can point people to God’s miracles then I will have accomplished my purpose in this generation.
I feel the weight of this community on my soul. I feel the depth of God’s heart wanting to move and longing to bring the so long needed revival to our community and nation. I sure do not feel like a person of great influence but with what little I do have I urge those of you who are reading this to join community prayer room. For those who live in Seminole we meet each Thursday from 11:30-1:30 around lunch at a different church each week. You come and go as you please. I am saddened by the pathetic few people I see from FBC Seminole and the other churches at those meetings. I long for the day when the churches will be filled with praying and warring saints who give God no rest until He establishes His kingdom on the earth. If you do not live in Seminole why not start a community prayer room in your area. It just takes one person with a heart who has tenacious faith.
Let me tell you an old story. Over a hundred and fifty years ago on my birthday one man started a prayer meeting in an old church building in New York on Fulton Street. It was a prayer meeting to be held at 12:00 noon. When Jeremiah walked up the stairs to the designated place to pray he walked into an empty room. He read the fliers he had passed out which read, “Prayer Meeting from 12 to 1 o’clock – Stop 5, 10, or 20 minutes, or the whole hour, as your time admits.” Nobody came for ten then twenty minutes.
Jeremiah Lanphier had been a businessman who at forty-nine surrendered his life to the ministry of visitation. He had felt impressed by the Lord to start these prayer meetings but it seemed people were too busy to take time out to pray.
At 12:30 that September day back in 1857 he began hearing a few footsteps coming up to pray. When the 1:00 hour arrived a total of six had turned out to pray on that initial day. The meeting was small and nothing out of the ordinary happened.
The following prayer meeting the crowd swelled to twenty. The following week they had forty in attendance. At this point Lanphier decided to go for a daily prayer meeting in a larger room.
That same week October 14, 1857 the nation encountered the worst financial panic in its history. People lost jobs, banks began to go belly up, and families were destitute for food.
In a very short time these prayer meetings began attracting crowds of 3,000 people taking over the entire church building. Within six months there were 10,000 people gathering for prayer everyday at noon. By this time other prayer meetings began to arise in the city. Revivals began break out all over the city and the country. People began to be converted to Christ by the hundreds of thousands. Just think, it started with one man yielded and obedient to Christ to start a noonday prayer meeting. Lanphier later said, “The subject was laid upon my heart, and was a matter of constant consideration for some time. At last I resolved to give myself to the work.” [1]
It was written about Lanphier, “Out of that solitary consecration to the service of Christ, who can tell what results have come?”[2] Here in Seminole a lady named Joyce Dow heard God’s call to start some lunchtime prayer meetings. Though the crowds are small she perseveres in faith. Now, I ask you who read this, will you give yourself to that work. Only God knows what impact that might have on a community and eventually a whole word. By the way, those prayer meetings are still going on to this day at Fulton Street because one man was faithful to obey God.
Jesus, thank you for Jeremiah Lanphier. Please come bless us with such an outpouring of your Spirit once again and give your people the desire and the heart to give themselves to the work of prayer. Amen.
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