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Advocates
In Prayer
"Linking
Hands In Prayer
Around
the Globe"
I
WOULD LIKE TO WELCOME YOU to the Advocates In Prayer
website. My name is Mark Copeland, the director for this
site, and I’m delighted you’ve decided to check us out.
As
you can no doubt tell by the title of this site, Advocates In
Prayer is a website with a mission. We believe that God
has called and equipped many of His people to specialized
ministries of prayer. These are people who love to
pray. They get great satisfaction from prayer. They
are anointed to pray powerfully and effectively. They
expect to receive answer to their prayers, and they frequently
do. We recognize also that there are people all around us
who are greatly in need of prayer and are reaching out to God
for help. They might be stressed in their personal lives
or in their family lives and relationships. Their
struggles might be with their finances or on their jobs.
Many of them are suffering ill health both emotionally and
physically. They might be concerned about their spiritual
well-being or the salvation of a friend or loved one. In
many cases, they feel alone in their circumstances, and their
prayers don’t seem to reach the ceiling. They need
someone to stand with them who can touch God on their
behalf. Our mission at Advocates In Prayer is to bring these
two groups together. Our goal is to connect those who pray
effectively with those who find themselves greatly in need of
prayer.
A
Global Pray Ministry
Advocates
In Prayer aims to be a global prayer ministry. Our slogan
is "Linking Hands in Prayer Around the Globe."
Maybe this seems a bit audacious to you. Why the emphasis
on a global prayer ministry? To answer that question, let
me set before you four brief points to consider:
First,
our mission as Christians is a global mission.
Jesus commands His follows in the Great Commission to "Go
into all the world and preach the good news to all
creation." (See Mark 16:16.)
Second,
our prayers are to have a global focus.
Jesus instructs us to pray, "Your kingdom come, your will
be done on earth as it is in heaven." (See Matthew
6:10.) We are to pray for God’s rule to be established
throughout the earth. That is a global prayer mandate.
Third,
the kingdom of God, for which we pray, is the answer to the very
things that people desire prayer for.
God's kingdom came into the world through the redeeming work of
Jesus, and God's rule defeats sin, sickness, disease, poverty,
grief, sorrow, broken relationships -- even death. In
short, God’s rulership of our lives is the answer to the very
things that people desire prayer for.
Fourth,
prayer is meant to be powerful and effective.
It is a primary vehicle through which God releases His grace and
power into people’s lives to meet their needs. Nowhere
did Jesus’ disciples ask Him to teach them to preach, but they
did ask Him to teach them to pray. They saw that the power
and effectiveness of His ministry was directly attributable to
His prayer life. Prayer is powerful, it's effective,
because it rolls out the red carpet of
invitation for God to enter our lives and the lives of those for
whom we pray. And we can pray with confidence that God
will answer. Jesus said, "If two of
you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall
ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in
heaven." (See Matthew 18:19.)
I
believe you can see from these four points that prayer is an
effective way to fulfill the Great Commission because prayer
invites God in Christ to enter into the lives of those we are
invited to pray for. What better way to touch
people with the reality of God’s love for them and His power
to change the circumstances of their lives than to effectively pray for
them and watch God answer our prayers.
Connecting
the World Through the Internet
God
wants us to enlarge our prayer lives to touch the world.
In order to do so, we have to have a way to connect with the
world. For most of us, travel is too cumbersome, mail is
too slow, and electronic media like television and radio are too
expensive. Add to that the duties of work and family, and
we could easily get lost in the maze of living and wonder how we
could ever have a part in fulfilling Jesus’ Great
Commission. We might feel that the best we can do is be
faithful with our tithes and offerings so someone else can do
ministry full time. How can we have an effective prayer
ministry that touches the world with the love and power of God
is we don’t have the time, the energy, or the money we would
need to make an effective impact? One answer to that
question is the Internet.
The
Internet is an ideal tool to use for an effective prayer
ministry. Think about it. Do you call people on the
telephone? Do you write letters to people? Do you
communicate with people by email? Do you pray for
people? Then put the pieces together. A Christian
website focused on prayer becomes a tool to blend these daily
activities into a global prayer ministry. Through a vast
array of telephone lines, hubs, and servers, our personal
computers can connect all over the world at very minimal
costs. The world truly becomes a global community where we
can easily, conveniently meet with people from every part of the
globe for prayer and ministry.
We
Are Here to Serve You
While
there are other website ministries out there, the Advocates In
Prayer website is also here to serve you, to help you grow in
your prayer life, and to enlarge your prayers to encompass the
world. You can play a key role in fulfilling the Great
Commission right there in your home.
Here’s
how we can help:
1.
If you sense God tugging at your heart to enlarge your prayer
life, this website ministry invites you to partner with our
Intercessors Circle. There is a link
on the website that provides a place for you to join the
Intercessors' Circle and tell us about yourself. You may fill in a brief
questionnaire there if you wish, and we will post a profile
about you on the Profiles page of the Intercessors’ Corner.
2.
Those needing prayer are invited to send in their prayer
requests through a form on the website. The
form asks for their first name, their email address, their city,
their state or province, their country, and their zip code or
postal code. We do not ask for last names or street
addresses.
3.
Prayer requests that come in through the website along with the
contact information of those sending them are emailed to our
prayer partners. The prayer partners are
invited to intercede for the requests and to correspond by email
with those sending them in.
4.
The correspondence between prayer partners and those on the
receiving end of prayer becomes an opportunity for personal
ministry to take place. Effective ministry is born out of prayer,
but it doesn’t stop
there. If you are an altar worker, you would not just pray
for the people who come forward. You would take time to
show a real
interest in them. You would follow up with them. The
same opportunity is available through a website ministry.
You not only have the opportunity to pray for the people who
send in their requests. You have the added opportunity to
show genuine concern for them by corresponding with them through
email.
An
online prayer ministry offers one important benefit that an
altar worker does not have. Those who minister at the
altar minister while the eyes of the congregation are on
them. But, those who minister in prayer and follow-up by
email are praying and caring in secret. If
Jesus said those who pray in secret will be rewarded openly, it
would be just like God to test our metal by seeing if we will be
faithful to minister in secret as well.
Jesus
compared the working of the kingdom of God in the earth to a
woman hiding yeast in a large amount of flour until the yeast
worked its way through the dough. Similarly, the ministry
to people that takes place on our knees before God is a hidden
ministry, and using the Internet as a tool, it is a ministry
that works its way throughout the earth. In the first
year that this website has been online, we’ve seen prayer
requests come in from 24 U.S. states and 14 countries. If
we take our ministry mandate seriously in prayer for others, we
can all play a key role in seeing the glory of God cover the
earth as the waters cover the see.
An
Invitation to Partnership
My
prayer is that this website envision you to a life of anointed,
powerful, effective prayer. The pages on this site provide
teaching on prayer, prayer resources, and links to other online
prayer ministries. There are forms on the site allowing
you to share answers to prayer, insights about prayer -- even to
submit articles about prayer. There is an index of our
prayer partners with their email addresses to encourage you to
correspond with other intercessors so that we can fellowship
with each other and learn from each other.
I’d
like to invite all who are reading this welcome message to
take full advantage of the resource that this website
provides. If you need prayer, send in your prayer request
with confidence that committed intercessors will agree with you
in touching God on your behalf. If you are an intercessor,
consider joining our Intercessors’ Circle. Let’s link
hands in prayer together around the globe. If you desire
to advance in your prayer life, check out the teachings and
resources available to you here.
Let me encourage you to
prayerfully ask the Lord if He would like for you to be a
part. Your prayers are a powerful channel through which
God's kingdom reign comes to the earth to bring redemption and
blessing to people near and far. I pray that God direct
you in your decision and bless you with multiplied fruitfulness
in your prayer life. God bless you!
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