Building Strong Groups by Fern Nichols, Founder & President

Grassroots Prayer Movement

One mom telling another mom. It’s casting the vision one to one, over and over and over. The vision will be cast if you have strong groups. Your members are your greatest outreachers. If they are being changed spiritually by being in the group, they will share.

How to have Strong Groups

  1. The leader is well-trained. She prays using the Four Steps of Prayer in one accord throughout the hour. She is prepared. (Partially filled-out Prayer Sheets on our Moms in Prayer website). If she is welltrained, she will be a confident leader and excited about the privilege of discipling her women in how to pray effectively and powerfully. Her members will invite others to the group. Her members will also cast the vision to other women she knows, challenging them to start Moms in Prayer for other schools. Multiplication will happen.
  2. The leader is enthusiastic. She does not see this hour as a burden, but life-changing for herself and her women. She knows that prayer works and that there is great power released in corporate prayer. Prayer principle in Deuteronomy: “one sends a thousand to flight, two sends ten thousand to flight.” WOW! Who wouldn’t want to pray with another mom if your prayers are 10 times stronger? This is the best decision for how you spend an hour of your life. And she stays enthusiastic because she is spending personal time with the Lord. And she comes to her leadership meetings to get stirred up!!
  3. The leader is committed. She will lead when she feels like it and when she doesn’t. She knows God will bless her obedience. She is committed to be ready with her Prayer Sheet, committed to pray for her women, committed to pass the leadership baton.
  4. The leader leads out of a cleansed heart. She is not perfect, but forgiven.
  5. The leader is habitually having a quiet time. She is intentional about setting aside time to spend with Jesus, keeping him as her first love. She is modeling Jesus to her women. She cannot take her women deeper into believing prayer than how far she has gone. As the leader goes, so goes the group! She is actually leading out of her personal walk with the Lord.
  6. The leader is establishing a sense of community. Women want to belong. They want a place where they feel safe, loved and accepted. No condemnation.
  7. The leader leads with integrity. Always start and end on time. PRAY your requests and thanksgivings, rather than sharing them first Fellowship time: come early or stay afterward Be committed. Confidentiality.
  8. The leader keeps the worldwide vision of Moms in Prayer before her women. Their group is part of thousands and thousands of moms praying together around the world. Visit the website. Women want to be part of a God-blessed discipleship, multiplication ministry. They want to be part of a movement where there is harvest and revival. To see it spread, many groups are weekly giving of their financial resources. They want to have an eternal investment in the lives of children and schools throughout the world. At the end of the month the leader sends what was given that month to headquarters. Example of one strong group: Poway High School has had a group for 28 years and is going strong with 20 to 25 members. That’s just one school that is reaping the benefits of an established strong group. May they all be! Our prayer is that when a group starts it continues strong until Jesus comes!!!

What are the Resuls/Benefits of a Strong Group?

  1. The women will grow in their faith and their relationship with Christ.
  2. The women will sense/know that King Jesus showed up right in the midst of their group, agreeing with one another and Jesus according to His will and His Word.
  3. The women experience answers to prayer.
  4. The women will be committed. Who would want to miss this powerful, effective prayer hour? They learn to love the discipline/structure of the hour. They know they will pray and not talk. Thus, the group will be sustainable and the leadership baton will be passed.
  5. The women in your group will become your greatest outreachers!

EXPECT HARVEST!

  1. Live in an attitude of expectancy of great harvest: salvation/revival at your school; every school covered.
  2. Pray for abundance — double blessing. Zechariah 9:12: “... even now (today) I announce that I will restore twice as much (double) to you.” 2012 — double the number of schools being prayed for — double the number of members in your group — double the number of women on your team — double the opportunities to speak about Moms in Prayer at MOPS, church, Bible study, neighbors
  3. Don’t give up! Acts 20:22, I pray for you: That you will be bound (compelled, driven) by the Holy Spirit out of a deep sense of duty toward the Master who called you to serve in this ministry despite any obstacles. There’s a harvest of souls to be reaped.
  4. Don’t Doubt!! I BELIEVE GOD IS WORKING: For we walk by faith not by sight, II Corinthians 5:7
  5. My prayer for you:“Oh, LORD Most High, crown the year with a bountiful harvest in __________; may even the hard pathways overflow with abundance. (From Psalm 65:11)

Adapted from an article by Brian Wechsler:

Your field might not look like much to the untrained eye ... But hidden under the snows of winter there’s potential. Great things can happen. Barren ground can become a fertile field. Today’s frozen ground holds tomorrow’s harvest! Putting energy into frozen, empty soil is not a waste of time. Just because there’s no evidence of life right now, doesn’t mean there never could be. It doesn’t mean there won’t be. ... There’s potential in the unseen! But before the harvest there’s work to be done. There are seeds to be planted, fertilizer to be applied, weeds to be wiped out and prayer to be prayed. It takes time and a whole lot of hard work. Come harvest time, IT’S ALL WORTH IT!!

What joy to be laborers in the harvest fields with you. We will reap a harvest if we do not give up!! Let’s together gather more laborers —the fields are white, ready to harvest.

Love you,
Fern

Click here to view as a pdf.