Dear Friends,
In an hour I will be heading up to our church for a time of
prayer. This past Sunday in the course of my message, I challenged our members
to join me at our church at 6:00 am to spend an hour together in prayer. I
don't know how many or how few will be participating, but the one thing I know
is that even if it is only a handful, our church will be different because of
the time we spend together.
In the sports world we have MVP's. They are those who are
recognized as the " Most Valuable Players." They are the ones who put
up big numbers and who are known for their athletic productivity whether it’s
on the baseball of football fields. In the spiritual world we also have
our MVP's. The MVP's in the spiritual world are not to be confused
with those in the sports world. They are not necessarily those who come
through in the clutch when there is some significant financial
need, or those servants who are always there when there is an important task to
be accomplished. The MVP's are not always the most well-known or prominent
members of the church; in fact, many in the church may not even know their
names. No, unlike MVP's in the sports world, these are not the Most Valuable
Players; they are the "Most Valuable Prayers.”
The church MVP's are those behind the scenes people like Pearl
Goode who are the key to the church's ministry. They are the ones who
faithfully and consistently spend time on their knees praying for
their pastors and their church.
Pearl Goode was a widowed nurse in her mid-60s, living in Pasadena
CA. in 1949 when a young evangelist came to hold tent meetings in Los Angeles.
The very first night of the crusade, she watched the fiery preacher Billy
Graham and his team share the gospel. As Pearl later recounted in an interview,
"That night God laid those boys on my heart as a burden."
After that night, Pearl traveled to dozens of Billy Graham
Crusades and prayed during each event. Pearl then joined the volunteer prayer
team for the greater Los Angeles Crusade and was a part of seeing the campaign
extended from three weeks to eight weeks, with people cramming into the tent
every night to hear the Good News. After that early crusade, Pearl became a
prayer warrior for the Crusades, with hardly anyone on the Billy Graham team
even knowing who she was.
She would spend her own money to travel by greyhound bus to
wherever they were holding an event, quietly check herself into a motel near
the venue, and immediately begin praying. Pearl estimated that over the years
of her prayer ministry she covered 48,000 miles to pray for the Crusades.
In an address Billy Graham gave in 1994, he said, "She prayed
all night many nights, and I could sense the presence and power or that prayer.
When she died, I felt it."
We can never underestimate the power of the prayer that is
lifted up by wonderful saints like Pearl Goode all around the world.
Prayer-talking to God-is of paramount importance in developing our
relationship with our Savior and in building up and supporting others
through the work of the Holy Spirit. The great significance of prayer is
why we see so many calls to prayer in the New Testament.
Charles Spurgeon, one of the greatest preachers in the church,
used to point to the furnace or boiler room below the sanctuary whenever
someone asked him about the power of his preaching ministry. Every week he
stood in the pulpit, there were as many as 300 people kneeling in the
basement, the "boiler room," below praying for him and
for every word that would come from his mouth.
Want to be a church MVP? If so, start kneeling, for God's MVP's
are always found on their knees.
As one great saint of the church used to say, "There is more
you can do after you have prayed, but there is no more you can do until you
have prayed."
While you may not be able to join me and others this morning, you
can participate with us by simply taking a few minutes following the reading of
this message to pray for your pastor and your church's ministry. In doing do,
you might become your church's MVP!
Yours in faith and friendship,
Tom
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