How We Pray: With our prayer partners located around the world, we need to use the best of traditional prayer group approaches and modern technology to focus our intercession on the prayer needs that are communicated to us. The lens of the light house shown in the picture above is a physical example of this union of tradition and modern technology. Our front-line pray-ers live around the country, from California to New Brunswick, from Montana to Georgia.
Traditionally, the UPT prayer group met together every week to agree in prayer for the prayer requests that came in. That was possible in the 1950's and 60's because all the members lived near St. Paul, MN. Today, our members come from CFO's across North America and we have additional prayer partners in CFO's around the world. The UPT Council Ring, which is our core prayer group (our front-line prayers), still meets together for prayer and fellowship two or three times a year to know one another better and to develop the sense of unity that is so important to agreement and in prayer.
Today, most prayer requests come in by e-mail, but old-fashioned letters and telephone calls still work too. When a prayer request comes in, our coordinator quickly lifts the need to the Father for His best answers and then contacts the council ring prayer group so they can begin their individual intercession. That second line of communication goes by e-mail. Then, once a week, just as in the past, those council ring members who are available pray together, but today by a telephone conference call. Finally, our coordinator communicates with other prayer partners around the world as she is led to do. We also know that as soon as a prayer request is sent to UPT, it goes into a prayer box in heaven where Jesus intercedes for those who want to follow him. Illustrations were available on the internet for free public use or were photographed by the author. |