theWall: The Guest of Honor Always Shows

This Friday 456 will be hosting theWall: a night of student-led worship and prayer that has been held in Olathe periodically since 2008. Students from several churches and schools in Olathe create worship teams comprised of students who may never have met otherwise, and we gather to pray for 6 hours on Friday night. The name comes from Isaiah 62:6-7, which is directly associated with Jerusalem, but the principle also applies to Kansas City:

"I have posted watchmen on your walls. . . they will never be silent day or night. You who call on the LORD, give yourselves no rest, and give him no rest till he establishes Jerusalem and makes her the praise of the earth."

The goal of theWall is to effect the heavens through prayer. Scripture teaches that when God's people pray, He hears their prayers and responds according to His will. In Hebrew understanding, there is no separation between what we call the "physicall" or "natural realm" and the "spiritual realm." Biblically, the two realities are one. The spiritual directly effects the natural, and the natural effects the spiritual, so to a Hebrew, the significance of the spiritual reality is just as real and important as the natural. The only difference is that we often do not see physically the effects of our prayers or actions in the spiritual realm. So the two are better defined as "seen" and "unseen."

theWall is special for 456 because it focuses wholeheartedly on the unseen side of reality. Allow me to demonstrate. Ministries often have events that are directly focused on natural ministry (what we can see), and some events are more spiritual in focus, and some focus on both. For example:

1. A food pantry is a ministry that directly effects people physically in the natural reality. The effectiveness of these events is primarily measured by the number of people the ministry touches.

2. An evangelistic rally is an event that focuses on both spiritual and natural realities. These too are effective only as much as the number of people in attendance because people are still the subject of the ministry.

3. A prayer meeting, however, is entirely different and is in no way measured by the number of people that attend. God is the subject of the ministry. Often we feel the need to measure prayer-based events by the number of people that attend, but to do so undermines the entire focus of the event: the unseen. That would make the event about the people and not about the subject of your prayers.

Not only that, but the natural ministries are far more effective when the battle has been won in the spirit through prayer. The spiritual realm so effects the natural ministry that our prayers can determine our effectiveness in the natural. A natural ministry deprived of the spiritual reality will never reach its potential.

If numbers do not determine the effectiveness of a prayer meeting because of its spiritual nature, what does? The guest of honor at a prayer meeting is always God (Father, Son, Holy Spirit). So when you open up in prayer, you are inviting the Trinity as well as millions of angels to a prayer meeting. Already your numbers are through the roof so you are effective by that measurement. For 456, the effectiveness is measured by our hunger level. A prayer meeting should empower those in attendance (earth-beings) to live the Sermon on the Mount lifestyle and should provoke us to hunger for more. If our prayers are not derived from sincere humility and hunger in our hearts, then what are they?Isaiah 58 points out that our heart posture and sincerity is key to our effectiveness in prayer and fasting.

Truthfully, the measure of the effectiveness of a prayer meeting is unsearchable because of the eternal nature of prayer. We may not hear of how effective our prayer meeting was until we are in the next age of history with Jesus, but that makes the prayer meeting so much more worth it. There are also times when we see the fruit of our prayers even in the salvation of those we bring before God.

We have events and trainings that minister directly to physical people, but our prayer meetings minister directly to the heart of God. The place of prayer, therefore, is to be prized among our ministries. If prayer can effect the rest of our ministry in the natural, then prayer is our primary call. A ministry aligned with God's heart in prayer will operate according to God's will.

Coming to theWall this weekend, it does not matter how many people show up, because that will not determine our effectiveness before God. We can do outreach later, because the next 6-hours of prayer may not only determine the effectiveness of our next outreach, but also effect the eternities of those who attend that outreach.

History belongs to the intercessor.