Planning Your Global Day of Prayer Activities
Planning Ideas
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Mobilizing for the Ten Days of Continuous Prayer
May 17-26, 2007
A Local Coordinator’s Guide
This document is designed to help anyone mobilizing prayer for the ten days of continuous prayer. Many different kinds of leaders will find this document helpful. You may be a pastor, or a prayer leader of a particular church, or even a citywide servant who mobilizes prayer among many churches. You may be a full-time prayer mobilizer, or a missionary seeking to help local leaders, or perhaps a business leader trying to encourage more prayer. Hopefully any kind of leader will find practical ideas for any kind of setting.
Step One - Understand the Ten Days as part of the GDOP
Be sure to read through the prayer guide before making too many plans to publish it. You will be able to answer questions and make the best decisions if you have an awareness of its contents. On the 2007 GDOP CD you can find the ten day prayer guide in three different formats: in a pdf format in color (not suitable for printing), a Word document, or in a text file.
Three components of GDOP. As you know, the Global Day of Prayer is more than just one day. On Pentecost Sunday, May 27, 2007, there will be one day of united prayer. But it will be preceded by ten days of continuous prayer. And it will be followed by ninety days of blessing, or service among our communities. The ten days of prayer help begin to gather people, to connect churches and and to give many Christians a desire for the kind of things we’ll be praying on May 27. These three components is why you will sometimes see the numbers 10•1•90 displayed.
Basic parts for each day. Each day contains the following four parts: A topic, a scripture, specific concerns, and prayer points. The prayers have been prepared by an international group of prayer leaders working in conjunction with the International Prayer Council.
Simple biblical focus. The vision and prayer focus of the GDOP is for the glory of Christ and the blessing of the nations. For an even better grasp of the biblical grounds for each of the daily topics, read through the Ten Day User’s Guide, also found on the 2007 GDOP CD.
Step Two - Pray and plan with others
Gather other leaders to consider what God will have you do to mobilize many thousands or millions to be uniting in prayer during the ten days leading to Pentecost. Before the first and second GDOP events in 2005 and 2006, many millions of believers all over the world were called by their pastors and leaders to unite in prayer during the ten days leading to Pentecost. Here are some of the reasons they thought the effort was valuable for the event and well beyond the event.
The ten day effort helps:
a) Build relationships of cooperative prayer among the churches. These relationships can last for years beyond the event.
b) Teach Christians how to pray with scripture in relevant ways for critical needs.
c) Promote the GDOP event on Pentecost.
d) Give God an opportunity to guide people to step into specific works of mercy and blessing during the 90 days of blessing.
e) Clarify how sound the GDOP is in theology and focus. The ten day guide helps make it clear that the entire effort is centered on Christ, based firmly on the Bible, and focused on the challenges that we face, but in biblical hope.
f) Help Christians find ways to pray with persistence, often with a 24/7 pattern that works well in their setting.
Step Three - Publish the prayer guide
Find the best way to publish the prayer guide for your people. It can be as simple as photocopying a few dozen copies for your local church, or as involved as printing 100,000 copies.
The Global Day of Prayer service office is not providing published copies for the languages and countries that need them. Like everything else about the GDOP, everything is supported and carried out by local leaders. For example, in the USA and Canada, the guide is published by a ministry called WayMakers.
Special note for those in North America: The prayer guide is available from WayMakers at a very reasonable cost. Go to www.waymakers.org for more info.
Some countries, such as Finland, modified the artwork used in the USA. But in other countries, Hong Kong and Turkey, for example, designed their own graphic artwork. They not only translated the text into the local language, they created their own look and style.
Six steps to publish the prayer guide:
Step 1. Edit and adapt the text.
Step 2. Translate the text.
Step 3. Design the artwork.
Step 4. Print the guides.
Step 5. Promote and distribute the guides.
Step 6. Evaluate.
Publishing Step 1. Edit and Adapt
We ask that you do not make changes to the basic elements: the daily prayer topics, the selected scriptures, the daily list of concerns, and the prayer points. Apart from small changes necessary to avoid offense or confusion, please respect the integrity of the prayer guide. Much of the value of the ten days of prayer is that we will be uniting in prayer around the same needs and hopes.
The introductory material, however, can be adapted or shortened in a way that is fitting for your setting. For example, in one country, the reference to “a greater Pentecost” was deleted because of the concern expressed by a prominent leader. In another setting where the dominant church is of Orthodox tradition, the date of Pentecost is celebrated at another time. In their case, they minimized references to Pentecost. What this means is that you should feel some measure of freedom to adapt the prayer guide so that it invites the widest participation with the clearest focus on the glory of Christ and the blessing of the nations.
We encourage you to include the “Prayer for the World” that we will be praying together on Pentecost. Please do not make any changes to this prayer. This is the one prayer that everyone will read in prayer on May 27.
Publishing Step 2. Translate
Check first to see if it’s been done already. That information should be on the web site www.globaldayofprayer.com. If the translation has been already done, you can learn from the web site how to obtain the translation to publish in your area. Of course, find out how and if others may already be publishing what you need. Perhaps you can work together with people in other countries or cities.
If there is still need for translation please consider carefully if you are able to see that it is done in a quality way. The theological concepts can be tricky to translate well. Be sure that the person(s) you are enlisting to translate have the proven ability and the available time to get the job done by the deadline that you will need to set. Of course you should consider paying them for their work if that is appropriate in your setting.
Please make your translation available for other in different parts of the world. Communicate with the coordination office of the GDOP about your translation. They will be able to pass it on to others.
Publishing Step 3. Graphic Design
The files available on this disk will help you get started. The text and Word documents can be used or modified in many ways.
The small color pdf file is not of sufficient quality to have printed. The color design is available at no cost and can be modified for your setting. To use the color photos and files you will need to have a professional graphic artist prepare the artwork from files which are available by special internet connections. See the Prayer Guide Information and Guidelines file on this CD about how you can obtain those files.
The color files that you see on this CD have been prepared in Adobe Indesign Creative Suite and Adobe Illustrator software. They are very large files which are not on this CD. They are not compatible with Corel Draw or Microsoft Publisher or Quark Express. In some cases the Adobe Illustrator files can be modified on Corel Draw or Quark Express. See the Prayer Guide Information and Guidelines file on this CD for more information.
Publishing Step 4. Printing
Decide how you will reproduce copies. Most of the prayer guides around the world will be photocopied. But many millions will be printed, some in black and white, others in four color. Many will be published as small booklets, while others will be sheets of paper stapled together. Find the best format for your community.
What about the cost? Put together a reasonable estimate. Do not plan on giving the copies away. But be careful not to overestimate what you will receive in payment. People use what they value. And they value what they pay for. Ask churches and leaders to help cover the cost of printing in appropriate ways. Invite business leaders to contribute to the cost.
Be careful not to overprint. It will be better to run out of copies than to have expended funds for excess copies.
Publishing Step 5. Distribution
Encourage local church coordinators to act with their pastor’s approval to challenge and equip their church families to pray. Build a network of leaders who will influence their circles to participate in the best way. Use the distribution of the ten day prayer guides as a way of promoting the Pentecost event.
Publishing Step 6. Evaluate
Set a date that you will meet with others to consider how the effort went. What were the surprises? What could have been done differently? What do you think God is saying to you about the GDOP in 2008, or 2009, or 2010?
Please send a copy of your published prayer guide to the South African office of the GDOP. Let them know how many people you think participated in the ten days of prayer.
Step Four - Mobilize
The above six steps are about the practical matters of publishing. But most leaders would consider the heart of the matter to be calling people to pray.
Here are some of the models for mobilizing prayer that have already emerged in the first two years of the Global Day of Prayer:
Model One: Watches
Consider calling for around the clock prayer meetings or watches. The usual 168 hour week will need to be extended to 240 hours. Another way to do this is to invite a church to cover one of the days, and leave it to the church to pray during that day in whatever way they see fit. Perhaps they will have a prayer meeting in the evening, or they may set up a ten or twenty-four hour watch. In one city leaders quickly found many more than ten churches who wanted to cover one of the days. They kept adding churches to the list until they had forty or fifty churches, some of the days had six or seven churches. The organizers made efforts to let the churches know what other churches were praying with them.
Model Two: Meetings
In one large city with less than 1% Christians of any kind, there were only 29 Protestant churches. All 29 agreed to unite in prayer during the ten day effort in 2006. They organized three different prayer meetings for each of the ten evenings. Some churches with conveniently located buildings hosted more than once, but each of the 29 churches was entrusted with the responsibility to lead one of the prayer meetings.
Model Three: Prayer Rooms
In many cities there are dedicated prayer rooms. Sometimes they are part of international networks. Most of these leaders have been very happy to make the daily topics one of the primary points of prayer during the ten days. Sometimes the daily topic serves as a launching point for prayer. There are many styles and ways to invite this stream of united prayer to take part. Many churches have prayer rooms. Be sure they are equipped with the prayer guide.
Model Four: Add to existing prayer efforts
Many churches and mission agencies have prayer guides published for each week or month. With advance planning, many leaders are very happy to use the daily themes and topics of the GDOP ten day prayer guides as a way of framing prayer about their ministries or church families.
Model Five: Internet
A daily posting on web sites or even a daily email can convey the basic prayer information to many.
Model Six: Radio
Where there are Christian radio stations, it is often possible to arrange for short times of a 60 or 90 seconds to mention the daily topic, read the day’s scripture, and read a short prayer. You can find short prayers which have been carefully written in the User’s Guide for the Ten Day Prayer Guide. Or you can write your own. You can enlist known leaders or pastors to record the prayers weeks or months earlier.
Invite pastors or leaders to focus their existing prayer meetings upon the theme that many millions will be praying on that particular day. Your best tool to help leaders guide people to pray in powerful ways with the topics of the day is the User’s Guide found on this CD or on the web site www.globaldayofprayer.com.
posted by Global Day of Prayer at 6:34 PM
