Karen:        Well, today on the podcast, David Mains, my husband and I, are going to talk about his unique prayer group. And it meets every single Wednesday. And we’re going to talk about all the things he’s learning from his friends who are praying with him.

Intro:           Welcome to the Before We Go Podcast featuring Dr. David Mains and his wife, noted author Karen Mains. Here’s David and Karen Mains.

Karen:        Last time we talked on the podcast, we talked about how many people actually pray with one another. This is according to the Pew Forum that does gathering of all of these statistics and studies them and then makes them available. And we learned that people who pray audibly with another person are only 2% of those who pray. So that’s kind of a very, very small percentage and we’re concerned about that because your study of history and the impact of prayer groups on history indicate there has to be, how many of those kinds of group in a country like America. What do you think?

David:        I don’t know, that there’s any study that will say how many there need to be with one way or the other. We’re pretty convinced there aren’t enough of them now. I’ve said there need to be millions, literally millions of them in this country.

Karen:        And what are we looking for as far as what that would do to our country? What happens then according to your study of history?

David:        I think we begin to see the obvious hand of God working through his people, through his church in a marvelous way of renewing. And that’s happened before. It’s not as though this is a strange mystery that nobody knows what would take place. This is chronicled very much in Christian literature.

Karen:        So, what we’re going to talk about today in the podcast is your prayer group because you have been in a small prayer group that meets every week. Tell us about that.

David:        It wasn’t my group. Probably there is no person who’s the leader of the group. But historically I was asked by someone to pray.

Karen:        It was sort of a stranger that you met.

David:        I was speaking in the Dallas, Texas area. A gentleman came up afterward and he said, “Would you be interested in being part of a prayer group or revival in the land? And we meet on Wednesdays at noon.” And I said, “Sure, but I’m from Chicago, you know, and you’re in Texas.” And he said, “Well, we do it on the phone.”

Oh, that’s interesting. I’ve never heard of people doing prayer groups by phone. I said, “Sure, I’m interested.” And he said, “Well, I’ve written down the number. And if you want to call, call this week.”

And that was about the length of the exchange. I was interested because prayer group for revival, which I had been meeting with, there were a couple of people who had moved away and some of the people who were glue in the group. So anyway, I called that number on the following Wednesday. Now, I’m talking about something that was going on like five, six years ago.

And I talked to the gentleman. His name was Ron. Pretty soon I got this feeling. I think we are the prayer group. That’s there’s nobody else going to call in here. And I’ve never really talked to Ron, whether he had been meeting with others by phone. But I soon had also the feeling God has answered my prayer for people to pray with in a special way, because this guy, he’s not a fast talker. In fact, you know, Ron.

Karen:        Yeah. He’s an older gentleman.

David:        Well, I’m an older gentleman.

Karen:        Yes, you are an older gentleman.

David:        Yeah, I think I’m even older than Ron is. But he knows the Lord. And when he starts to pray, you have this feeling that you just want to listen and then you want to join in.

Karen:        So, let me reiterate here. The prayer group was basically Ron and you, right?

David:        That’s correct. And it lasted that way for a good number of months. And then I began to see other people and mentioned the thing to them. And as it went along quite slowly, they began to join to the place where now there are seven of us that are always there. If I’m traveling, then I try to call in as do others.

Karen:        And sometimes you can’t.

David:        But it’s just impossible. But it doesn’t matter. Those seven, they are pretty much my contacts. But I always think of Ron as the one who initiated everything. And he’s the one who, if you have a moderator in the prayer group, he would be the one who does it, although we’d get along if Ron didn’t call in one week.

Karen:        By this time, you have a sense of who one another is and how the prayer group functions.

David:        I was in Texas, Karen, and I knew that I was going to be relatively close to where Ron lives. And so, I called him and said, “Why don’t you come over?”

I was there for several days, and we’ll just be able to touch base again. This is who Ron is. Okay?

He got in the car. There are other people there. He said hello to them, and he got in the car, and I got in the other side. And he didn’t even say hi to me. He just started to pray.

Now he was driving.

Karen:        Oh my gosh.

David:        He was driving, and he prayed. I know where we were going. Took a while to get there. And I would say probably eight or nine minutes. He just kept praying. I knew he was watching where he was driving because I looked over to see.

Karen:        My feeling as you would tell me how this was going on. This was just with you and Ron for a while. So, how many other members and how did they join? How did they become part of it and where are they from?

David:        There are seven of us who are always there. I know all the people because they’re people I’ve invited. There’s a couple from California, longtime friends, wonderful, wonderful in the group and deeply loved by everyone in the group. There’s another couple. Those are only two couples and they’re in Michigan. They’re probably the youngest in the group, I’m guessing.

Karen:        But the youngest in their fifties. I mean, it’s midlife.

David:        But tour as far as praying people are concerned. I like it when he prays, he often like the people in scripture, say a Daniel. He will identify with the problems as not as though he’s the great solution. But this is a problem for me too, Lord.

Karen:        Ok, it’s vulnerable.

David:        Yeah, very beautiful.

Karen:        Oh, sweet.

David:        There’s a couple in Ohio and he’s the one who has decided to join us. He’s a PhD and his wife is a PhD, and they call themselves a paradox.

Karen:        A pair of docs.

David:        She’s a wonderful woman, you know, and it’s kind of like you. I don’t know why she doesn’t join the group, but he says she holds him, “Do it. This is your thing, and you do it.”

I don’t know whether she just is glad that he’s a part, but he’s an interesting guy because I always think of Bob as an original thinker. He thinks outside of the box. And he will say things and do things. When one of the persons prayed the other day, he was one of the men in the group. But it was done. You hear this clapping because he was moved and didn’t know how to. And rather than let the group just go right on and continue, pray.

Karen:        So, he claps in the phone.

David:        He was clapping. It’s not a silly time at all. And I mean, it’s incredibly intense when we get into it. Now we first set up to pray for a half hour. So, it was at noon, and that related to where Ron’s lunch hour was. He had a half hour at lunch, and he could do that.

Now, he’s not under the same time restriction. So, we start at noon, and it usually goes to, I would say, quarter to 10 minutes to the hour. And there’s very, very little chit chat. It’s just when you’re waiting for other people to come on the line and Ron who moderates it, who’s going to start and then we’re into it.

Karen:        So, whenever I say to you on Wednesdays, “Well, how did your prayer time go with your group?” You know what you always say?

David:        I’m pretty sure that I was, it was wonderful.

Karen:        You always say it’s wonderful. And then I would say, “Well, now why was it so wonderful?” So, I’ve kind of caught up a little bit to what happens in that prayer group just because you tell me a little bit about it every, in every sweet chat after your prayer is over.

David:        It’s wonderful because it has a clear focus. It’s wonderful because these are people who have become very dear to me over the years. It’s wonderful because somebody joins the group and that’s the Lord. Usually someone will remind us, or the Lord, both at the same time that he is present with us, how honored we are to have the Creator of the universe and the Son of the living God and the One who gave Himself for us, listen to what we say. “Lord, we’re not very good at this, but thank you for excusing that we are not wise like you are. We’re very limited in our understanding, but you’ll catch our heart.” That’s the feel that you get in the group. All the time is going on. There’s yes, amen. Right, right on.

Karen:        Yeah, there’s a response comment here.

David:        It’s like a chatter.

Karen:        Yeah, chatter. Yeah, that’s great.

David:        It’s going on. And I do it at my desk because I have a pencil and paper, and this isn’t necessarily the only reason I do it. But I do write down when I hear something and I’m not listening for these, but if I hear something expressed in an unusual way that just touches me, it’s like, “Oh, man. I should have said that.” I write it down because…

Karen:        You want to use it yourself.

David:        I use it. Yeah, in fact, that’s one of the good things about prayer groups. You learn so much from one another. In fact, there are times when one in the group will pray. And usually, the prayers are at the maximum four or five minutes. You just want to say, nobody talks. We have just entered into a very…

Karen:        The holy of holies, right?

David:        Yeah, exactly. That sounds crazy to say it that way, but that’s what I feel.

Karen:        That’s wonderful. I looked up some scriptures on praying together, let me just read a few of them. Okay?

David:        You know what? In the prayer group, there are always people who pray, and I’m not any good at this. They pray scriptures. A lot of times the first person who starts to pray will say, “As you say in scripture, God,” or somebody will be praying and then another person will interrupt and say, that’s exactly like it says in the scriptures.

Karen:        That’s wonderful.

David:        It just has this phenomenal feel to it. It’s a private thing. I don’t know how it happens. Can you ever so often somebody else will join us? Nobody stops and says, “Let me give you a little background and says.” And sometimes we’ve had people that will join us for two, three times. Sometimes they don’t for a while and then they’re back in again.

Karen:        That’s interesting. But you have a core group that is always there.

David:        That core group of seven, it’s not as though every time. This has lasted over five years now in my situation. Other people came in a little bit later, but not too far back. I think the ones who joined most recently have probably been going, he said, when we finish, he said, “I just want you to know that this is my 200th time to join the group.” Well, that’s like four years. Yeah, there is. Oh, my goodness. Then we realized we’ve been praying together a long time.

Karen:        Acts 1:14 says, “…all these with one accord,” isn’t that beautiful? One accord. “Were devoting themselves to prayer together with the women and Mary, the mother of Jesus and his brothers.”

David:        That wasn’t an hour they were going on for days. That’s the early part of Acts.

Karen:        Acts 2, and they continued step vastly in the Apostles’ doctrine and fellowship and in breaking a bread and in prayers. So, this is very much part of the early church.

Acts 12, “When he realized this, he went to the home of Mary. The mother of John Mark where many were gathered for prayer.” So, this was sort of an ongoing practice.

David:        Well, that was a special… I think that’s when Peter was arrested, and they thought he was going to die like James had died.

Karen:        So, this is the last one. 2 Corinthians 1. “He also helping together by prayer for us, that for the gift bestowed upon us by the means of many persons, thanks may be given by many on our behalf.”

So, a group was praying together regularly for these apostles who were taking the gospel forward into the world. That’s what we need to have in our country and what we need to have in our churches these days.

David:        My feeling is, Karen, that there need to be literally millions of these. For the size of this country, we’re talking the need of millions of such prayer groups forming. Whether that’s one million or two million, I don’t care, or three million.

Karen:        So, what are we asking our podcast listeners to do? This is not too hard to figure out.

David:        It’s a sentence. Scores in hundreds and thousands and millions of prayer groups need to form in the near future, if America is to be dramatically touched by God’s hand. I think that people listen this probably one at a time and that may seem a little overwhelming. And we’re not even into the scores. Although, you know, we don’t have, Karen, an understanding of how many such groups have already been formed outside of our knowledge. There could well easily be scores and there may be hundreds. But we have to bump that up to the thousands and to the millions. Or we’re not going to seek God’s handwork the way we want.

Karen:        So, we’re asking our listeners to seriously consider and prayerfully consider if they’re not in a prayer group that meets weekly. How they can start one or how they can join one.

So, I came up with a neighborhood sign. We live in a neighborhood that I have had a real burden for our neighbors. We’re kind of in an isolated area on this street. We have a surrounding that goes around our property of woods and we’re isolated by ourselves on the south side of the street. The north side, though, has a large development that was built years ago, and I pray for those people.

So, I’m going to have signs made and it’s going to read this.

Neighborhood prayer group, all faiths welcome. Thursday at 12 or Sunday evening at 5. Please come. Something like that.

You can help me work it out. But that’s I have them printed up. I have a sign company I use and often put little signs up on the side of our drive. We have a circle drive and let’s just see what God does with that. Let’s see if during the wrapping up, if it is wrapping up of the COVID problems we’ve been having of this isolation, if there are people who are hungry for prayer, hungry to be prayed for, hungry to be part of a prayer group. Let’s see what God provides.

David:        I’m sure there are. I know some of those people over there and I think they’ll respond very positively to that. I had a great letter come in. This was probably two weeks ago.

Karen:        Okay. This is from one of our listeners. It was such a lovely gesture.

David:        “I really enjoy your podcast. I’m one of the 150 faithful listeners,” which is, we’ve said this is not a huge ministry. Probably 150 may be stretching you a little bit for all I know, but one of the things she states in here, “I have started a prayer group on Saturdays from seven to eight mountain standard time.”

A lot of times people will write kind of like a page to us and I read that, “Oh wonderful. They are listening.” You know, so it doesn’t mean you have to write us a letter if you start one.

Karen:        Well, we’d love to hear though.

David:        Yeah, we really would.

Karen:        Yeah, and we’d love to hear what people’s experience with prayer groups have been in the past. If they’re part of a prayer group now, we’d like to hear about that. We’d like to hear about the nature of those prayer groups, what they’ve discovered in that prayer time. It can’t be just a one-time prayer group. It has to be one that meets.

David:        We just talk about sustaining.

Karen:        A sustaining prayer group week after week or however times they set up. What were the lessons they learned? What did they learn from one another? Things they wouldn’t have known on their own, but being in that prayer group gave them a fresh idea or an incentive.

I had a covenant group that met for 17 years. It wasn’t necessarily a prayer group, but we did pray for one another, and I was thinking back on those 17 years. There were probably five or six women. All of them were involved in ministry, in one way or another.

And so that was an extraordinary journey to be in a group that met, and I don’t think we met weekly. I think we meet maybe once or twice a month. I can’t remember now what the parameters of it were, but we really loved one another, and we really learned from one another, and we really had a deep feeling for one another. And then different ones moved and there just was not a core base anymore and so we decided to call it an appropriate ending.

I would love to know from our listeners what they have experienced in their prayer journey with other people and what things that they have learned. So, if you please, you just send us an email or write us a letter. Dean will give the information on how to do that. We’d love to hear from you. I mean this little note that came from the lady that you just read a portion of her letter. It was extremely encouraging to us. And it helps us know that we’re on the right track. Studies have shown that the COVID months, that COVID years, there’s been an energizing of religiosity.

I’m not sure what that means because I was going through the Pew reports on prayer. I’m not sure what religiosity means, but at least an interest in faith-based conversations or faith-based activities. So, let’s figure out what that’s all about. We’d love to have our listeners tell us what they’re experiencing.

Outro:        You’ve been listening to the Before We Go Podcast. And if you would like to write to us, please send us an email at the following address, hosts@beforewego.show. That’s all-lower-case letters, hosts@beforewego.show.

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