15 Sean Thomé | Developing a Prayer Strategy

Sean (00:00)

as pastors, think that we need to have it all together and we need to put a prayer strategy in place for our church and for our family and stuff. Part of that prayer strategy is knowing that you have a team of people that love you and are praying for you. No strings attached. And I think, Andrew, majority of pastors do not have a team of people.

that is praying for them on a regular basis.

Andrew Estes (00:41)

Well, welcome back to the Nexus Church Planting podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Estes, and today I've got a question for you. What is your church's prayer strategy? Seems like a no-brainer that a church should have an intentional strategy about prayer, but if we're honest, many of us tend to build the plan first and then pray that God would bless it. We don't really think about prayer actually being the strategy.

Sean (00:57)

you

Andrew Estes (01:05)

That's what we're gonna dig into today. And my is my good friend, Sean Thomé Sean is the executive director of Expand Network, a ministry focused on encouraging pastors, training disciples, and planting churches across the globe. He's been thinking deeply, modeling, and training leaders on what it actually looks like to lead from a dependence on God through prayer.

And today we're gonna talk honestly about what it means to really build a prayer led ministry, to build a prayer strategy and what most of us oftentimes get wrong about it and what he's learned by actually doing it. Sean, so grateful to have you on the podcast, man. Thanks for being here.

Sean (01:45)

Yeah. Thanks, Andrew. Such a pleasure and a gift just to hang out here with you and to be part of this podcast. And dude, we're so grateful for you and for how God has just blessed us and our church planters and our churches through you and through your ministry with Nexus and we're just so thankful ⁓ the way that God has used you to really help equip and train.

our leaders just to be intentional about going after the vision and the mission that God's placed in their heart. So super stoked to be here with you to talk about prayer. But yeah, if anyone's listening, I'd say, Hey, chat, chat with Andrew. If you want clarity on what God is doing in your own heart or in your church, you're going to want to spend some time with Andrew. So we're grateful for your partnerships. Yeah. Yeah.

Andrew Estes (02:20)

Yeah, yeah, appreciate that.

I appreciate that man. that shout out. Yeah, I've known

you for goodness. Probably 2018-2019 was when I first met Sean. He had brought a church planting couple from the Portland area down to Dallas, Texas for one of our church planting trainings and had the opportunity to train and meet them there. And we've been engaged ever since. We gather together regularly as network leaders every September in Colorado here.

and we also have you know Just done multiple trainings throughout the years and so it's just a blessing and an honor to know you and get to dive into this Concept today because as we're talking about prayer and you know, it's been really a highlight of of our ministry for for nexus I know there's been a huge passion of Phil's for a really long time really digging into

the prayers, as it says in Acts two, where, you know, oftentimes, you know, really diving into the Psalms. And so if you've hung out with Phil Claycomb for any amount of time at all, you are going to be taken to the Psalms and really digging into prayer strategically, intentionally. And I wanted to really dive into this idea as we've been kind of collectively, either as a staff or Nexus, and then also outside of Nexus, going through some of Greg Pruitt's material on

extreme prayer and really devoting ourselves to what God is uniquely doing and Man Sean when I think of Sean and the expand network team and some of the church planters there they are wholeheartedly Devoted to prayer and not to say that any other networks are not devoted to prayer, but man anytime I'm around these guys. I just feel inspired encouraged

maybe a little guilty, a little shamed at times on a negative side of things, but I was like, man, I know that you guys are chasing after the Lord in everything that you're doing through prayer. we're just excited to dive into that topic today. But Sean, for those of our listeners that are maybe unfamiliar with you, unfamiliar with your story, we'd love for you to just kind of give us a high level overview of your journey in ministry, of what God has done in and through your life.

quick snapshot to get you into this, this role that expands currently.

Sean (04:45)

real quick, I was raised in the Catholic Church. That was my understanding of who God was when I was a little kid. I remember going to a vacation Bible school as a kid, like when I was 10, and always kind of knew about God and who Jesus was in my head, but never really experienced a personal relationship with Jesus.

And then when I was 15, I was invited to come to a youth group retreat. And at that retreat, I heard the gospel. I heard how much God loves me and who Jesus was and what Jesus did. ⁓ being a Jesus follower was not just about believing in Jesus and going to heaven one day, but it was about, you could experience this abundant relationship with God right now today.

I was just so excited just to be all in with that. So yeah, that kind of started my journey. ⁓ had ⁓ a pastor that came alongside and really began to disciple me, teach me how to read the scriptures, teach me how to pray and what it looks like to live for Jesus. Eventually went to school ⁓ in Fullerton at Hope International University, met my wife there and then

We did youth ministry for a few years in LA and then moved up to Tigard, Oregon. Did some youth ministry there for six, seven years. Then God called us to plant our first church in 2003 with this organization that I'm now the director of. then, yeah, in 2012, I was invited to step in as the executive director for Expand Network

to just come alongside and to serve leaders. God was really stirring in my heart to reach out and to come alongside leaders, to encourage them to help do discipleship training and just to see more churches being planted for the kingdom.

Andrew Estes (06:49)

Yeah, give us a quick snapshot of who Expand is, kind of some of your reach. You guys have been doing some different church planting things, even globally. And so I know that you're in the Portland area and kind of, believe it started in that region, but give us a quick snapshot of the history of Expand.

Sean (06:56)

Thank

Yeah, actually Expand used to be the Northwest Christian Evangelical Association started in 1956 with the vision of planting churches in three counties in the Portland area. And then in 2020, we went through a rebranding, went through lot of some of the vision frame stuff that you have walked us through and really sense the invitation from the Lord to move beyond just church planting and beyond Portland. And so.

⁓ Our focus became that we wanted to encourage pastors, train disciples, and plant churches. And so we really just sensed that God was inviting us to move, to kind of open up our lanes, if you will. And we still do church planting, but pastoral encouragement is just a real need. ⁓ It's not easy being in the ministry.

a lot of isolation and loneliness. then we just sense like there was a lack of discipleship training. A lot of pastors and churches want to be a church that makes disciples, but no intentional plan on how to do that. so felt like the Lord was leading us to step into those three ministries. And then God was opening up the door to move beyond Portland. We really saw Portland as kind of like our Jerusalem ministries. And then the Northwest as our

Judea Ministries and throughout the US as our Samaria and then literally to the ends of the earth. so God's opened up doors for us to network in Uganda. We work with 50 pastors over there, churches in New England with Jason and Bonnie over in Springfield, Massachusetts. So we're really just trying to sense where is the Lord leading us?

and how can we be involved? And so I think for us, Andrew, the big shift there as we transition into this conversation about prayer was in the past, we were pressing ahead thinking this is what we need to do and we would find a place to plant a church and then see if God wanted to get behind it rather than changing our strategy and saying, well, what does it look like for us to have an intentional prayer strategy?

and to put ourselves into the passenger seat and say, let's just seek the Lord. Let's find out where is Jesus at work and how is he inviting us to be involved in the kingdom work. And so we had no plan to go to Uganda. We had no plan to go to Springfield, Massachusetts. But I can say that because we were, I believe because we were intentional about just seeking the Lord and

where he was at work and how he was inviting us, he opened up those doors for us to partner.

Andrew Estes (10:01)

Yeah, yeah, that's good. Well, let's say I mean, I'd love to to walk with you because I know that from more more recently, you're kind of doing a little bit of work at a lot of local churches there in the Portland area and then obviously move well beyond that. And you're helping them to start think differently about how they strategically move in prayer for their church. And would just to love to just toss that out there as to

When you talk about training a church to develop a prayer strategy, let's just talk and just kind of define what does that actually mean?

Sean (10:38)

Yeah, you know, we felt like there was, especially in the church planting world or in a church ministry ⁓ setting, we're very intentional about having a budget strategy ⁓ or a ministry strategy, but not so much a prayer strategy. And so for us, this started going...

for us going through the book, Extreme Prayer, was really the catalyst that we felt like God used to say, what does it look like for expand network to move from just being a network that prays to having an intentional prayer strategy in place? And so without overthinking it and overcomplicating, Andrew, it's just being intentional about having a plan in place.

where we know when and who and what we're praying for, and you're inviting other people to be involved in that as well. And so there's certainly nothing wrong with being part of a ministry that prays. That's healthy, we believe, that's definitely something that we need to be doing. But after reading the book, Extreme Prayer, we were challenged, well, what would it look like to take our prayer life from, we pray, to actually putting a plan and a strategy

in place so that we can move to being intentional in that specific strategy.

Andrew Estes (12:11)

Yeah, yeah, that's good. When you're coaching a team to actually start to develop something like that, what does that look like and how is it different from just being a church that prays? Like, yeah, we're going to pray before our meetings and things of that nature as opposed to what actually becomes the strategy?

Sean (12:30)

I think we tend to do a lot of kingdom ministry with the mindset of we're focused in on wanting to do the work that God's called us to do and then we might bookend it with an opening prayer or closing prayer and I don't know if we spend a lot of time or

intentional time about putting ⁓ time in our week just to say that we're going to pray as the strategy. so for us, has started with, let's first just look at the scriptures and just see the fact that Jesus himself modeled prayer and Jesus ⁓

got away just to be by himself to pray. And Jesus lived such a life of prayer that in Luke 11 the disciples were like, hey Jesus, you teach us how to pray? So first step in working with a church or a pastor or a planter is just to navigate through the scriptures and see what the scriptures have to say.

about prayer. And we typically start with Colossians chapter 4 verse 2 when Paul is writing to the church of Colossi where he says, yourself to prayer, being watchful and giving thanks. And so that really is the beginning of the prayer strategy. What would it look like for us to start baby steps to devote ourselves to prayer and then

to literally be watchful and then to give thanks and seeing how we're seeing God answer those prayers. when we start with just little steps of let's just get together and let's spend an hour in prayer together and then let's come back next week and then let's reflect on how did we see God actually answer that prayer?

because we're being watchful and then let's give thanks to how we see God doing that. And so ⁓ that has just been so encouraging for just as Jesus followers, just to be reminded, God answers prayer. He answers prayer all the time. I just think sometimes we don't take the time to be watchful and to share how we see God answering.

that prayer and then to give thanks. it starts, step one is starting just with the scriptures. Let's look at the life of Jesus. Let's look at the scriptures and then let's begin to put next steps in place in what a ⁓ simple next step of prayer strategy would be with that. And that typically,

leads us to the Lord's Prayer is where we tend to start and just go, what would it look like if we just practice the Lord's Prayer together? And taking an hour together and just literally just walking through the Lord's Prayer. And most people are like, dude, I can't pray for an hour. There's no way that we could do that. And what's surprising about it, Andrew, is like,

every time that we go through this exercise, we don't even get through the whole Lord's Prayer just a great way, it's a great model for us to practice prayer.

Andrew Estes (16:08)

yeah, for sure. I know that you've been, you know, doing a lot of training with different churches and elder teams and things of that nature. I know that there's been just some different stories of being able to begin with prayer and shifting from, all right, we need to have our meeting. We need to go into things and make some decisions on stuff. But being able to just stop and pause. And the sounds are so elementary, like even as it's like coming out of my mouth right

like, well, yeah, elders should be praying or pastors should be praying and we are, right? And it's not to say that we're not, but there's so many times that we have such a bend towards action and doing things and moving. in your opinion, what do you think keeps us from just being able to seek the Father first before we just run out and start doing stuff and ask God to bless it?

Sean (17:01)

Well, I'll answer that personally. I don't know how other leaders would answer that. But for me, what keeps me from doing that is my pride.

Right? Like feeling like I can move ahead and I can tackle today on my own. And so I think prayer is a tool that actually guards us from the pride of our hearts. And it allows us to be dependent upon God and

it also allows us to not take credit when we see things happen throughout the day. Because if I start with prayer and I'm like, okay, God, you know, this morning, just, okay, God, would you just bless our time together in this podcast and throughout the day together? And when something happens, it's like, God, that was you. That wasn't anything that I generated. So I think pride is...

one area that keeps us from being more intentional about devoting ourselves to prayer. I think that there might, some of us might think like, does prayer really change things? Like, it really going to make that much of a difference whether we spend an hour in prayer or I just kind of go through my day and

you know, do that. And so ⁓ what we've come to realize is that we do believe that prayer changes us first and puts us in the right posture with God. So I think some people wrestle with, we have so much work to do.

⁓ Let's just, you know, we've got two hours for this meeting. ⁓ We can't spend an hour in prayer because we just won't get everything done.

Yeah, it's a good question for people to wrestle why they choose not to incorporate prayer as part of their strategy. I think we see prayer as an addition to our strategy. And again, back to Greg Pruitt in his book, Extreme Prayer, he was the one that talked about that prayer is our strategy.

And then we allow the strategy of the ministry to come out of that. And so really reversing the two, and I forget how he said it in his book. ⁓ I think he was talking with someone in Africa when he was on the mission field. And they said, you know, in America, you guys pray about, you know, the strategy. And in Africa, prayer is our strategy. And that was just...

Andrew Estes (20:03)

Yeah.

Sean (20:06)

Yeah, that was a game changer. you know, what would it look like to just say that prayer is going to be part of our strategy in what we do?

Andrew Estes (20:17)

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I remember going through some different training with just disciple-making leaders nationwide and one of the things, or worldwide really, and one of the things that I remember coming out of a movement in Africa was one of the things that they measured was the amount of hours in corporate prayer spent together. And they could directly tie kind of

moves of God or growth in kingdom work and stuff like that to the amount of hours that they spent in corporate prayer together. And it's just that shared dependency, the increase of the faith, maybe the humility as opposed to the pride of strategy. And we're so good at that, like in the Western world where we just have remarkable entrepreneurial type leaders and business leaders that are just

globally minded thinkers and how to scale and how to do this and how to do that and we can Accomplish quite a bit without God actually ever being a part of it and do it all in Jesus name, But getting back to the heart of you know, even just personal quiet time right now reading through some of the Old Testament of just the blessing that comes when people choose to inquire of the Lord first before they go through ⁓ moving in different directions of whatever it might be

that they're doing and so how God speaks really. Like when people inquire of the Lord or when they go to a prophet to inquire the Lord, they do receive an answer. And so sometimes it takes a while, sometimes it doesn't, but being able to recognize that and move forward and that is pretty powerful. I'm curious how with the church planters that you are developing and training and going through ⁓ just the heartbeat and the value of where you guys are at in

you you posture prayer in your ministry and how you ⁓ kind of model that for other people and train that. How, what ways are you, are you helping church planters, you know, kind of establish a culture of prayer before they even launch?

Sean (22:16)

Yeah. Well, with our church planting strategy, what we've tried to do is when the Lord ⁓ brings to us a planter and that planter begins to identify a place, then we invite planters for the first, you know, six to nine months just to be on site. ⁓ I think it was Dean Truen.

that says we want to be on site for insight and that comes through prayer. And so we just invite planters just to literally for the first season of their time together to devote themselves to prayer and to listening and loving people and then letting Jesus give them his perspective on how he wants to build the church.

When we start up a church plant, that literally is the main job of the church planter is prayer, people, perspective in that order. And so we try not to overload or overwhelm planters with lots of different tasks, even though there's stuff that needs to be done, we wanna make sure that we're just really devoting ourselves to prayer.

personally in that way. Also Dean Trune from Healthy Churches Network, he has come out multiple times and he will lead a ⁓ prayer journey or a prayer walk for two or three days with a church planter and their team. So he'll do some training on listening prayer and then we'll send people out to go walk the neighborhood or drive through the city and just to listen.

and just to start to pray what we sense God is asking us to pray for. And then we'll come back and we'll talk with one another about what we heard and what God did. And then the next day we'll do some more training on ⁓ listening prayer or conversational prayer and then go back out and do the same thing and come back. And so ⁓ that's been some of the startup process in church planting. But what's been so great about that, Andrew, is that

It isn't just a one and done. It's the DNA that is from the beginning that the church planters then move from that to, wait, we don't need to do that just when we're starting a church. We need to do this all the time. And so what does it look like to devote yourselves to prayer in every season of that church?

you know, Bob and Stephanie out at the Bridge Church in Wilsonville, you know, ⁓ they incorporate 24-hour prayer vigils on a regular basis. It's part of their DNA. They just invite their whole congregation, maybe four or five times a year, just to say, church, we're going to devote ourselves to prayer right now.

gives everyone the opportunity to be able to participate in that. You know Jason and Bonnie Hamm out in Springfield, Massachusetts, and they set their alarm for 4.13 p.m. every day. They have their whole church do that and just praying for God's kingdom to come in Springfield as it would be in heaven. And the whole church is part of that. Pete and Christie, church planters out in

northeast Portland, they devote themselves every Thursday from nine to noon. They invite their whole team to come together and to pray. And that is their agenda. And those things are not going to stop once the church is up and going. That is the work that God is calling them to do as they are.

living as everyday missionaries, making disciples, and joining in with Jesus as He builds His Church. So it's been awesome to see that the prayer training from the beginning launches the Church into their own unique way of incorporating the DNA of intentional prayer strategy.

Andrew Estes (26:51)

Yeah, that's beautiful. love, yeah, just some of the practical application of that, of just the commitment to being able to do some of those. The church that I'm attending right now is every Thursday, they started doing a noon to one. Everybody can take their lunch break and I encourage people to either fast and pray or to eat a real quick lunch and bring it with them or whatever they want to do to be able to every single week we're going to do this and pray. I just think of

Goodness, a really old book kind of came to mind as we were talking, the Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire from Jim Zimballa. he was just talking about, I remember, if you want to talk about how popular your pastor is, measure the people that come on Sunday mornings. But if you want to talk about how popular Jesus is in your church, measure about your prayer ⁓ meeting that you're holding. And so just being able to have...

some kind of a consistent something, some kind of a very intentional something where we can corporately gather together and intentionally pray as a body or just as leaders in the church, whatever that looks like is pretty significant.

Sean (27:54)

Yeah, I think of Pete Greig He's been one of the guys that I've read quite a bit from 24 seven prayer. And he has multiple books out on like how to pray and praying through the Lord's Prayer. And But what I appreciate about

what Pete says when it comes to prayer is he has three principles that he encourages everyone with. Number one, keep it simple. Like don't overwhelm it. Don't overcomplicate it, man. Just keep it simple. Number two, keep it real. And number three, keep it up. so, you know, whether it's, hey, every Thursday from 12 to one o'clock, dude, that's simple.

Set your alarm for 4:13. That's simple. Don't try to be like make it into a huge thing. You're just trying to be intentional about having a strategy to say, is how we are going to incorporate prayer and this is when and this is what we're doing and invite everyone to participate in it and allow God to lead you, your family, your organization into

what a strategy would look like that fits who you are. So for Expand, when we started doing this, we...

put together a prayer strategy together as a team to say, would it look like for us to move from prayer to intentional prayer? And so for us, what that meant was a five-step strategy, and we're not fully there yet, but this is what we're going after. Step one, we're inviting everyone on the board, on the staff, ⁓ just to be in prayer every day.

Would you just join us in prayer for what God wants to do with expand? Step number two, we invite everyone to pray on Wednesdays and to pray and fast from something. And, you know, it doesn't have to be the whole day, doesn't have to be every meal, but just would you pray and fast from something?

just to be able to be more intentional about the things that we're asking from the Father. Step number three, we do a monthly Zoom call, the third Wednesday of every month from 12 to one o'clock. And anyone that can jump on for five minutes or for the whole hour, we just invite the board, the staff, our planters, our partners, just jump on board and let's pray together with those things. And ⁓ step number four is we're...

trying to incorporate a 24 hour prayer strategy on a quarterly basis where we just want to people to join us for 24 hours, period of 24 hours and just see what God wants to do. And then step number five is we would love to get to a week long time of worship, prayer and fasting, maybe at the end of the year or the beginning of the year. And so, ⁓

Andrew Estes (31:08)

Okay.

Sean (31:11)

That's what it is on paper, Andrew. We're, we're, are not there yet, man. And so we are growing in that. And so I, I think one thing that I would encourage everyone as we're talking about a prayer strategy is, man, just, just be careful of the enemy. because I feel like whenever we ask people about their personal prayer time or a church leadership about a prayer strategy, you know, even you mentioned it here in the beginning, it's like, ⁓

Andrew Estes (31:13)

Yeah.

Sean (31:40)

might feel a little guilty or, you know, it's just like, that's not from the Father. And ⁓ this is not something that's motivated out of guilt or out of shame. It's motivated out of invitation from the Father to be with Him. you know, we're just trying to practice and we're just trying to be better.

at strengthening our prayer muscles. And so it is a journey. I'm not there personally. We're not there as a team, but dude, I can tell you that I have a prayer strategy. Our team has a prayer strategy and we know the direction that we're trying to move towards as a team rather than just saying, okay, let's just pray. And so

I would just say give yourself grace as you begin to say, what's the next step? What would it look like for you personally, for your organization to be like, what's one step that we could take in moving into an intentional prayer strategy where we can invite other people to join us?

Andrew Estes (32:38)

Yeah.

Yeah, love it, Yeah, just again, just like setting some high lofty goals of just, you know, what would it look like, you know, just to dream and to have a full week long prayer and worship session for just for our network to kind of get together. And I love all of that and just the attentionality behind what that brings. I I'm sure that there's stories on stories of some of the things that you've just seen God do and how God's moved.

in and through either your network or through your just local churches or even just personally having committed yourself to these types of strategies and committing to grow in these types of areas. What is something that God has done recently that's just kind of blown you away?

Sean (33:38)

Yeah, it's a question. a couple of things come to my mind with that. ⁓ One, personally, I was just talking to a friend this week and he was just talking about, ⁓ you know, needing to make a decision on something. you know, we just said, well, we're going to pray about that and we're going to trust that

God's Word says that if you want wisdom, all we have to do is ask and He's going to give it generously to His people without even finding any fault in us. And it was just amazing to hear how God spoke to him the very next day ⁓ through his devotion, through a scripture that helped bring some clarity, and then how God used

one of his coworkers to come alongside him and say, Hey, I kind of had this thought for you that I wanted to share with you about this decision process about dropping your nets, you know, on a different side of the boat, you know, and that story with Peter. And then, you know, he called me just yesterday and he's like, man, I got to tell you some of these things that happened since.

we started praying about this together. And we were both just smiling because it was like this reminder, wait, God really does answer our prayers. And I know it's not like a huge story, you know, but it's like, it was just this reminder. God really does hear us when we pray and God does really come through.

with his promises that he's going to give wisdom. And God gave that wisdom to us. And as a result, yes, we were grateful for the wisdom in the direction, but it just kind of made us smile like...

Yeah, God, you really are this good. So ⁓ yeah, that was just recently. Andrew, you came out and did some work with one of the churches that we're working with out here in Portland. one of their obstacles that they chose to turn into an opportunity.

to pray for God to be glorified was with their finances. And so instead of ⁓ immediately going to the congregation and putting a plan in place on how to address their finances, as an eldership, they chose to just spend a couple of weeks to pray together on what God wanted them to do about this.

And their prayer was not so much for God to meet their financial situation that was part of it, but their primary prayer was that God would take this obstacle and turn it into an opportunity for God to be glorified in this situation. And even just the posture of that was, hey, here's

Andrew Estes (36:53)

Hmm.

Sean (36:56)

Here's a prayer request, here's a need, and we're asking the Father for that need, but God, we want to see you answer this in such a way that it's not just about answering the prayer, but that you would receive all the glory and all the credit in that. And, you know, so they invited the congregation into a prayer strategy ⁓ as a result of

Andrew Estes (37:14)

Wow.

Sean (37:26)

Them spending two weeks in prayer, they invited the church into a prayer strategy where every Tuesday they invite the church to pray and to fast for God to be glorified, specifically with ministry clarity opportunities for the kingdom and for

the financial needs of the congregation. And so it was neat to see how God took that one area, the elders took time to pray about it, and then came up with a plan on how to invite the whole congregation into being part of this, where the focus of the prayer is, Father, would you be glorified through this particular

opportunity. One of the a story that she ran into someone who hadn't been part of the church for, I don't know, the last several years. And this lady walked up to her and said, hey, would you mind doing me a favor? like, sure, what do you need? And she's like, well, a couple of years ago,

Andrew Estes (38:18)

Yeah.

Sean (38:41)

This church was really instrumental for me and my boyfriend and you guys helped us out in a significant way. She said, I have this check that I've had for the past month that I've been meaning to get to the church and I just can't get there. Can you take this check and deposit it into the tithing for me?

And it's just like, come on dude, that was amazing, right? Not only was that a divine appointment for this woman, but you have a group of elders praying for God to be glorified in meeting the needs of the financial situation. And here's this woman who hasn't been to church in years and has been carrying around a check.

Andrew Estes (39:16)

Yeah.

Sean (39:31)

you know, that she's been trying to get to the church and wants to give it to them. It's like, how can you not see that God was in the middle of all of that and how he used everyone just to remind us like, God, you're so good. You're just so good. And so I know those seem like maybe small, everyday, you know, examples, Andrew, but.

Andrew Estes (39:40)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Sean (39:57)

I think when we truly devote ourselves to prayer and being watchful, we're looking for the little ways and the big ways on how God answers prayer in those situations.

Andrew Estes (40:11)

Yeah, and it's so encouraging as you're seeing some of these little stories just kind of take shape. the goodness, especially when you hit something as stressful or potentially stressful as like difficult finances in a church situation, financial times, you know, when you're looking at, know, any number of ways that you could probably cut costs or all these different things and you just immediately go to prayer.

as your default mechanism of, we just have to pray about this. And then to have the faith and the humility to look for the glory of God in the midst of it, rather than operating out of fear or trepidation or anxiety or whatever might come is pretty significant. And I love the fact, just the invitation to the people, to the body, to be able to participate in that. I was even thinking of just the story of Esther.

when you're talking about that, where it's not just she totally could have just her and Mordecai or whoever just be stressing out about this. But the call was to, hey, go to the people and have the people fast and pray. And there's this communal humility and crying out to the Lord that happens through stuff like that. It's just still learning about some of that, but trying to put that into practice. But I love not fighting the battle on our own.

you know, just even as church leaders, I think we get stuck in that sometimes of just, man, this is a weight that we have to own, that we have to bear and that we have to pray about rather than just saying, hey, everybody, this is this is what's going on is not some of our leadership's default, you know, when it comes to our strategic prayer. So love that man. As you are, you know, just kind of kind of wrapping up for you personally, you know, we talked about some

Sean (41:52)

Hmm.

Andrew Estes (42:02)

very practical to do's of some of the churches and how they could just dream and get creative about how we might intentionally incorporate some kind of strategic prayer strategies or goals or things that we'd want to do or regular time slots and different ways that we could go about that. When it comes to you, just personally, you're as a leader, a high level leader, being able to do the incredible things that God has given you to do. What are some things just

Sean (42:06)

Thank

Andrew Estes (42:31)

strategically that you do personally just to stay close to the heart of God.

Sean (42:36)

Yeah, one the thoughts that comes to my mind, Andrew, is when you were out here, we were talking about this. You and I had an opportunity just to go to the gym, you know, for the day. And the thought about, like, there's so many, there's so many different, you know, pieces of exercise equipment in that gym, right? And ⁓ it could be overwhelming if you don't know what you're doing. ⁓ But it's also like, dude, you're showing up.

At least you're at the gym and you're gonna go do something. And so whether you work on legs that day or arms that day or swim that day or whatever it may be, the reality is like, dude, you're in this place and there are a variety of things that you can do to exercise today. So well done for showing up and just getting there, right? And so part of that, as we grow in our prayer life, I want us just to think about, dude, there are so many ways that we can incorporate prayer.

I think part of the most important piece is just showing up first and deciding, okay, I'm going to get involved and do this. And so I have been enjoying just learning different ways to pray trying to incorporate variety of tools.

and just kind of trying them on and see how they fit, if that makes sense. And so ⁓ one tool that Pete Gregg, you know, talks about is just ⁓ the acronym for PRAY, ⁓ P-R-A-Y, to pause and to reflect and to rejoice and to ask God and to yield. that's been so helpful for me ⁓ just to start off.

I try to start off my morning, grab a cup of coffee, sit on my deck, and work through my cup of coffee with no agenda except just to pause and to say, Father, I'm just here to be with you. Is there anything that you wanna speak to me as I'm just gonna be in silence right now and just start my prayer by listening?

and then reflecting on the day before and what took place, and then just asking God for his wisdom and direction throughout the day, and then just yielding what might be overwhelming to me for the day, or things that I might be anxious about, ⁓ or whatever is on my heart.

that time. that's honestly that's probably like a five, ten minute rhythm of just sitting with the Lord with no agenda, but just to start off as Jesus says, when you pray say, Father.

That is so powerful. We get to approach God as our Father. We are His kids. He loves us. He wants to minister to us. And sometimes we forget about that and we jump into the prayer life of, here's what needs to be done. Here's the tasks and stuff. So just starting off with being with God as Father and letting God love me.

has been a significant piece of my journey for that. So that's one tool that I've been practicing of pray. And again, you can find that at 247 Prayer with Pete Gregg or the Lectio 365 app. Praying through the Lord's Prayer has been really helpful for me to put in a strategic plan on how to pray, who to pray, and what to pray for. So...

Just praying through that, know, ⁓ Father, hallowed be your name and praising God for who he is and what he has done, Praying for thy kingdom to come and his will to be done. Praying over the events and activities and the meetings throughout each day. And then praying for my daily bread is when I typically turn to the word.

and then just read the scripture as first like, would you just fill my heart with your word? And then whatever that scripture might be that God gives to me that day, then that becomes my prayer over my daily bread list. And so for my daily bread list, I have broken up ⁓ my prayer strategy into five days and with different categories.

Every day I'm praying for a specific family member. Every day I'm praying for a specific staff member. Every day I'm praying for a specific church planter. Every day I'm praying for a specific, you know, fill in the blank. But I know who I'm praying for. I know what I'm praying for. And I'm able to look at that and go, okay, God, how do I see you working in that?

And so it just gives me a structure through my daily bread to begin to put that plan in place. And I tend to visit it like every quarter of like, hey, do I still need to be praying for these things or how can I tweak that, you know, ⁓ that specific prayer request in there? And then, you know, forgive me for my sins, just looking at

the areas that I need to repent from and that I need to confess. And then also what areas am I ⁓ needing to be invited into what God is teaching me through his word. And then praying for the areas to lead us away from temptation. What areas am I being tempted right now not to trust in God or to, you know,

Andrew Estes (48:35)

Thank

Sean (48:41)

live in a way that's not pleasing to God, what areas am I being tempted in? And then, ⁓ you know, just praying to deliver us from evil of like, okay, praying protection over myself and over my family and over our team and that. And so that sounds complicated, but honestly, it really isn't. Again, so the tool there is, it's just the Lord's Prayer and breaking it down.

and knowing who and what that you want to pray for for each of those. So ⁓ yesterday I tried to incorporate another type of prayer as I was swimming, I was back at the gym and was like, dude, when I pray, when I swim, you know, this lap going down, I'm going to pray for a family member. And then when I swim back the other way, I'm going to pray for...

you know, one of our planters or one of our pastors. And I don't know. I mean, and I did that, Andrew, because, you know, I've felt like the last maybe month or so, things have just kind of been, I don't know. I don't know if dry is the right word, ⁓ but just kind of feeling like I'm getting into a rut a little bit. And so, and I think sometimes we don't talk about that. think, you know,

Andrew Estes (49:39)

hahahaha

Sean (50:02)

We think, you're talking about putting a prayer strategy in place and prayer's always great. And the reality is, like, right now I'm kind of in a dry spot and just going, okay, God, what's going on? And so I like to kind of change things up. So I'm like, I'm gonna swim and pray. And I really enjoyed it, you know? So all of that to say, there are so many different ways to incorporate prayer and...

for you to be how God created you to be. So if that's taking a run and praying, if that's surfing and praying, if that's sitting in silence, if that's singing songs, I don't think it matters. I think it's just prayer's an opportunity to connect with our Father in an intentional way.

Andrew Estes (50:52)

Yeah, yeah. That's good. Well, with the majority of our planters being in central US, I'm not sure if surfing and praying is an option, but just getting creative. You know, we got to figure it out. that's good stuff, Well, Sean, I'm so grateful for you, for your heart, for just the good work that you guys continue to do through Expand and training leaders and equipping pastors and planting churches and all the different things.

Sean (50:59)

Yeah, maybe not.

Andrew Estes (51:18)

want to ask you just one last question. If you have a pastor right now that might be listening to this who maybe feels like in that dry spell and just maybe just kind of going through the motions, maybe a little complacent, whether it's in their church leadership and how they approach prayer, whether they personally do it, what's one or two things that you would say to encourage them?

Sean (51:26)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, such a good question.

I would start with acknowledging where you're at and what you're thinking and feeling and embrace that and try not to hide that and try not to be like, I'm just gonna get better at this, you know, but just do the invitation from the father is just like, come on, no matter where you're at, no matter what's going on, just bring that to me.

And so I would say just start by just being honest with yourself. Don't, don't let the enemy shame you or guilt you in that. And just know that that's, that's part of, of a real relationship. Right. There's times where we feel close. There's times where we don't feel close and that's just reality. And so I think it just starts by being.

real acknowledging where we're at and bringing that to the Father, just going, God, I kind of feel like I'm dry right now. I don't feel like this prayer thing's working right now. So would you help me with that? know, and seeing where God leads us in that. think, again, back to our gym analogy, just show up, just get to the gym, right?

You're going to do something there. So, I think the enemy loves to keep us in isolation. it's so important for pastors and leaders to have a prayer team for you.

And Dean Trune says almost every pastor that he knows is overworked and under-prayed for.

And as pastors, think that we need to have it all together and we need to put a prayer strategy in place for our church and for our family and stuff. Part of that prayer strategy is knowing that you have a team of people that love you and are praying for you. No strings attached. And I think, Andrew, majority of pastors do not have a team of people.

that is praying for them on a regular basis. And so I would say, who are two, three people that you trust, that you can be totally open and honest with, and just say, man, can I send you a couple prayer requests each week? And would you just be willing to pray for me and for protection for my family, my marriage, and what God is leading me to do?

Andrew Estes (54:23)

you

Sean (54:25)

And so incorporate some people around you to hold your arms up, you know, for the battle that's going on as well.

Andrew Estes (54:33)

Yeah,

yeah, that's good, man. Well, dude, so grateful for you, again, for your ministry and all the things that you guys do. pray that you would continue to do the good things that God has in store for you. so, man, dude, thank you for sharing your heart, sharing your thoughts, sharing some stories and just for joining us on our podcast,

Sean (54:55)

Yeah, appreciate you, Andrew. If there's any way that we can serve any leader in sharing with what we have learned in prayer strategy, you know, we're happy to jump on a call or to, we get opportunities to do workshops or pathways in helping leaders and churches just move from praying to putting a strategy in place. And so if there's any way that we can help serve any leaders in any way, we'd happy to do so.

Andrew Estes (55:22)

Thank you so much.

Sean (55:24)

Yeah, thanks, Andrew.

Nexus: Church Planting & Le... (55:39)

Thank you for checking out the Nexus Church Planting Podcast. We hope this conversation was helpful and inspires you to lean deeper into your calling. If you want to learn more about Nexus, visit us at nexus.us. There you'll find church planting resources, upcoming trainings, events, and more. We also want to encourage you to subscribe so you never miss an episode. Leave a review or rating to help others find us.

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