How To Pray For Missionaries

Is there more to missionary intercession than "Lord, please bless the missionaries"?

Much missionary prayer is quite shallow

Yet prayer is the most important service that we can render in fulfillment of the Lord's Great Commission. Every Christian should be involved in world evangelism through faithful, biblically based prayer. Here are some suggestions I think will empower your intercession:

Love for God

The most important commandment for all Christians, including missionaries, is "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all you mind." Like Martha of Bethany, missionaries can become so service-oriented that their worship grows cold.

Genuine Love for Others

Because missionaries face cultures which often seem (to them) difficult, it is easy for missionaries to become frustrated and angry at the people to whom they minister. Also, relationships with coworkers can become tense on the mission field. Pray for harmony and patience.

A Deeper Relationship with God

Missionaries do more than go door-to-door witnessing each day! They must wear a thousand hats, from auto mechanic to accountant, not to mention preaching, evangelizing, discipling, counseling, providing theological education, homeschooling, etc., all in a different culture and language without the help of secretaries or paid church staff members! Wives must do all cooking from scratch without electricity for much of the day! Hence, missionaries are tempted to skip or skimp on their time alone with the Lord. The only result is frustration. Pray for consistent devotional lives.

Vital, supportive home churches and individuals who are willing to pray fervently and faithfully.

The supply of financial need

Missionary ministries are more expensive to maintain than expected. The problems of money exchange, the fall of the dollar, inflation, endemic bribery, etc., are constant points of concern.

Cultural adjustment

Culture stress is the subject of much humor, but is very real. Many prospective missionaries cannot make the adjustment to new foods, life styles, languages, value systems, and attitudes. Some return home disillusioned and with a sense of failure, others react wrongly on the field and hinder their fellowship and witness; yet others go too far in their adaptation and compromise their health and sometimes their faith. Balance and objectivity are needed.

Protection from Satan's attacks

In many areas Satan's kingdom has never been challenged before. Missionaries are attacked through bad health, loneliness, depression, threats, and even well-meaning Christian workers. They need victorious faith.

Family life

For some, the missionary call may mean foregoing marriage for the sake of the Gospel. For others, family life may be made difficult by living conditions, inadequate amenities, lack of finance, or be disrupted by long separations, many visitors, and overwork. Missionaries' children can sometimes become resentful or rebellious in their teens. Pray that missionary families may be an effective witness and example of all that a Christian family should be.

Fruitfulness

All workers desire an effective ministry that bears fruit. They need clear objectives and time to achieve them. Too much time can be spent on survival and handling trivial interruptions, and too little on the real task. Only the Holy Spirit can give a worker that constraining love of Christ for sinners-human pity is inadequate.

A sense of urgency

Expulsions or enforced departure from the field could suddenly terminate a ministry. The missionary needs to work hard to train his successors and help local believers to maturity.

Homecoming for furlough

Returning missionaries need the continued support of God's people for overcoming "re-entry shock" and establishment of an effective rapport with churches at home, and of an effective ministry.

Health and strength

One of the top requests from missionaries are health issues, because they often live in unsanitary conditions with insufficient medical facilities. Also, many parts of the world are becoming more and more hostile to foreign missionaries. Pray that the Lord will grant the strength, health and protection that will bring His greatest glory and the greatest good for the missionaries.