by Dave Imboden Every mission mobilizer should take a hard look at the prayer life of J.O Fraser, missionary to the Lisu tribe of Southeast China. As Fraser labored on without success, he eventually came to recognize the inescapable necessity of mobilizing sustained prayer for the breakthroughs needed among the Lisu. As prayer mobilization brought about lasting life change to the Lisu, Fraser came to this conclusion: "I used to think that prayer should have the first place and teaching the second. I now feel it would be truer to give prayer the first, second, and third places, and teaching the fourth." What a powerful testimony for the priority of prayer mobilization! Yet, in over twenty years of serving as a mission mobilizer, my overall impression is that prayer—and more importantly, prayer mobilization—has yet to become our first priority. Fraser went on to say: "We are not dealing with an enemy that fires at the head only—that keeps the mind only in ignorance—but with an enemy who uses poison gas attacks which wrap the people round with deadly effect, and yet are impalpable, elusive. What would you think of the folly of the soldier who fired a gun into the gas, to kill it or drive it back? Nor would it be of any more avail to teach or preach to the Lisu here, while they are held back by these invisible forces. Poisonous gas cannot be dispersed, I suppose, in any other way than by the wind springing up and dispersing it. Man is powerless." As in the case of the Lisu, the American Church walks in a similar blindness; a blindness caused by an enemy, who, out of desperation for his own perservation, blockades God's people from understanding and embracing His call to world evangelization. If you are not yet convinced that there is such a blindness, with respect to the availability of excellent mission resources, conferences, seminars and classes today, the American Church contributes only five cents to missions out of every dollar given to the Church—and only a tiny fraction of that goes towards reaching the unreached and least evangelized peoples! In light of the above, Go Connect has sensed God's urging to do our part in casting vision and helping to facilitate strategic, targeted prayer for a missions-awakened Church, including a strong emphasis on mobilizing prayer for citywide networking and mobilization. You can begin praying now by going clicking here. Finally, churches, agencies, mobilizers, networkers and everyone given to intercession, we earnestly invite your input so that together we can strengthen this critical step forward in our collective pursuit of a mission-awakened Church. The source of J.O. Fraser's quotes are from The Prayer of Faith, found on OMF's US web site. Highly recommended: J.O. Fraser's biography, Mountain Rain is simply one of the best books available for stirring the hearts of God's people for specific, concerted prayer for unreached people groups. It will bring revival to your own heart in the process! Check out the following testimonials: 1 2 3 4 5