WayMakers: Praying Toward Purpose
WayMakers is an extraordinary prayer mobilization and missional ministry focused on the desire to see the glory of the Lord cover the earth. Their easy-to-navigate website (waymakers.org) provides an abundance of teaching and resources to help you and your church to pray differently and hope differently toward the Kingdom purposes of God. They seek to come alongside leaders and local movements of united prayer focused on seeing entire communities prayed for, evangelized, transformed, and awakened to the glory of Christ Jesus.
WayMakers equips people to develop a vision and a great hope and passion for living in a prayed-for community and ultimately a prayed-for world. The site offers a variety of tools, teaching, and resources for engaging people in “saturation prayer”—prayer that covers the world locally and globally.
From the Home page you can navigate to several important areas of the website. However, because the Home page is fluid (changing content often), we will focus mainly on the Pray dropdown menu. Here you will find a powerful array of opportunities for creative praying that is Kingdom focused and Christ honoring. The following is a brief synopsis of some of what is available:
- Praying Toward Purpose: In this section the reader will learn that God is already on the move and that perhaps answered prayer is His favorite way to be glorified. Prayer is the avenue He has chosen and designed for His people to accomplish His purposes on the earth. There are a variety of articles by Steve Hawthorne, WayMakers director, to excite and encourage readers toward pursuing God’s purpose
- Seek God for the City: This is an amazing prayer guide for a season of sustained, hope-filled prayer for 40 days leading up to Palm Sunday. It is produced by WayMakers each year with a Spanish translation, a children’s version, and a mobile app. The guide is an easy-to-use tool that encourages united prayer in a variety of contexts. Users will be well prepared for Easter week by praying for their communities and the world.
- Prayer-Care-Share: WayMakers advocates this powerful way to pray for lost people in your community. It moves hearts to look for ways to show God’s love, opening doors to share the gospel. This prayer lifestyle fits well with many national initiatives, including Mission America’s LOVE2020.
- Prayerwalking: This is described as praying “on site with insight.” According to WayMakers, “It’s simply praying in the very places that we expect God to bring forth His answers.” The website has easy and helpful tools to get you started in prayerwalking around your neighborhood. Steve Hawthorne co-authored a book on prayerwalking and helped to coin the word.
- Ways to Pray: This section offers practical resources to help inform and enliven your prayers through pocket-sized prayer guides. Learn to pray powerfully where you live, work, or play. The website allows you to see sample pages of the prayer guides.
- Fresh Prayer: This free, single-page prayer guide is newly released every two months. Fresh Prayer uses Scripture to help you pray specifically for those who are far from Christ. There is a leader’s guide in each issue to assist pray-ers to stay focused and strategic. Many back issues of the prayer guides are available online.
- Global Day of Prayer: Each year on Pentecost Sunday, thousands of believers and churches around the world join to pray in one accord. Believers can pray the same “prayer for the world” as a movement of prayer goes through each time zone. Prior to Pentecost, there are ten days of continuous prayer to kick off this global movement. A PDF prayer guide is available to help focus prayers. Following Pentecost comes 90 days of blessing that encourages Christ followers to bless their communities with loving action.
- 30 Days of Prayer for the Muslim World: During the season of Ramadan, WayMakers makes available a prayer guide produced by worldchristian.com so that Christians can focus their prayers as they pray for Muslim neighbors and nations.
