Outreach recently spoke with Mark Batterson to discuss the challenges of sharing the Gospel in Washington, D.C., the lessons he has learned about prayer, and how a church’s prayer life adapts to an ever-changing culture. Here is a glimpse into the conversation; you can find more from our Nov/Dec issue here.
What are the most important ministry lessons you’ve learned this year?
We are not trying to grow a church; we are trying to bless a city. When you bless a city, God grows His church. That philosophy has become part of our DNA over the last year. You know how you can read a Bible verse a thousand times, but then one day the full force of it hits you like a revelation? Jesus said, “I will build my church.” I have heard that a thousand times, but it finally clicked for me this year. My job is not to build the church. It is a simple realization, but it has been freeing for me and the pastors I share it with. If we stay out of the way and let Him build His church, great things happen. This blessing lifestyle has been a key aspect of our mission.
Prayer has also played a vital role. I believe prayer is the difference between the best you can do and the best God can do. If we are not praying, we are limited to our own efforts, which are never enough. When we get on our knees, the Holy Spirit does the heavy lifting. Prayer creates a culture of faith and gives people a heart for evangelism because being in God’s presence helps you adopt His heartbeat. This has been the game-changer for us, and our church perspective has been essential to our growth.
In your recent book, The Circle Maker, you talk about the important transformation of becoming a praying church. What does that look like for National Community?
You can delegate a lot of things, but you can’t delegate prayer. The Lord convicted me out of Acts 6—when the church leaders were delegating stuff so they could be in the Word and in prayer. I love conferences. I’m a conference junkie, but I’d rather have one God-idea than a thousand good ideas.
You can go to conferences and get a good idea, but you’re not going to get a God-idea there—you get that by being in the presence of God and getting into prayer. When The Circle Maker came out, I had this thriving personal prayer life, but I realized I hadn’t led the church corporately into that. So we started doing these 7:14 a.m. prayer meetings (based on 2 Chronicles 7:14), and I realized it was changing things.
I don’t know if it took me writing a book on prayer to realize how far short I had fallen—to kind of wake up to the reality. I felt a sense of responsibility that I better make sure I’m not just leading the way in my personal prayer life—I better be leading the way corporately.