DEVELOPING A PRAYER TEAM FOR YOUR WORKPLACE

©2003 by Gene Brooks. All Rights Reserved. Home 

Can You Develop a Prayer Team for your Workplace? 

• Religious discrimination is forbidden under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which says private employers must reasonably accommodate religious beliefs of workers unless it creates an undue hardship. There were no specific guidelines until 1997.
• Guidelines on Religious Exercise and Religious Expression in the Federal Workplace issued August 14, 1997, by President Clinton: 
• The directive declares that personal religious expression "to the greatest extent possible" applies to "all civilian executive branch agencies, officials, and employees in the federal workplace." The rules affirm the right of those 2 million civilian employees to read Scriptures during breaks, share beliefs with "receptive" coworkers and invite them to church, be excused from working on Sabbath or holy days, wear religious clothing and jewelry that is central to their faith, have equal access to an office conference room or cafeteria for lunchtime Bible study, and be excused from a work assignment that is "religiously objectionable." 
• Drafted primarily by the Christian Legal Society's (CLS) Center for Law and Religious Freedom and the American Jewish Congress, the new Guidelines on Religious Exercise and Religious Expression in the Federal Workplace have the backing of groups such as the National Council of Churches, the National Association of Evangelicals, the Church of Scientology International, the National Sikh Center, the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs, and People for the American Way.

Why Develop a Prayer Team for your Workplace

• We are not talking about churchianity@work, praying for Aunt Esmarelda’s big toe, sick list praying, preachy prayer times, paid company chaplain, etc.
• Encourage believers in workplace
• Provide care and hope for other non-believing employees in times of crisis. Life happens. 
• Illus. When a woman in our bookkeeping department lost her son in a fishing accident at Lake Monticello, we all did the best we could to comfort her. Her son was my age, so my prayer for her sometimes had a different meaning for her.
• Ask the Lord for direction for your business.
• Ask for open doors and new avenues for business. 
• Illus: When my brother, Chris, began asking the Lord to open sales contacts for him selling heavy equipment, the sales began. He is one of the top salesmen in his company while in his late twenties.
• Help from the Throne Room on personnel issues.  
• Illus: My wife, Amanda works for an employment agency. One day she needed at the last minute six people to sew garments. Sewing used to be standard education for people. Nowadays it is an art.  She prayed for the Lord to provide her with six sewers who would all pass their drug tests, and the next morning six people walked in from nowhere who could sew, passed their drug tests, and she placed them. The client manufacturer couldn't believe it.
• Ask the Lord concerning wisdom of, right people and capital for new ventures.
• MOST IMPORTANT: Keep your workplace/business glorifying the Lord.  
• Illus: My brother's sales techniques are based on the Golden Rule. He builds genuine relationships with his clients and does not talk about his products until his third sales call to a potential customer. Some people pay big money for Carnegie Sales schools to teach you that. He read it in the Bible. About a month into his new job in another state selling this heavy equipment, Chris wasn't selling anything. Then one night in his apartment in which he lived alone, he heard an audible voice:  "Are you going to become a Mason so that you can sell some equipment, or are you going to keep failing at selling anything?"  Immediately he recognized the demonic spiritual presence hovering in the room. He told it he was going to sell equipment in Jesus' way, and commanded the spirit to leave his home. That week he sold his first piece of equipment, and has been selling since.
• Illus:  While working at a school for adults getting their GED, I conducted an informal experiment to pray over the student desks on some days.  On the days I prayed over the room, the classes went smoothly and students learned. On the days I did not, rowdy young people would disrupt the classes and confusion reigned.  When I prayed, the Lord showed me drug dealers in the room, opened my eyes to see theft and lying going on, gave me great insight into people's lives for counseling them and helping them through their problems.

Paul, Aquila, & Priscilla: Manufactured Housing; Acts 18 1-4; 18-19; Romans 16:3-4

Paul, Aquila, and Priscilla were in the manufactured housing business, building mobile homes for the significant Bedouin and transient communities of their day.  They worked hard so that they could contribute to the Kingdom in time and teaching. Because of their movements together and later apart, one can inference that they spent much time praying over their direction, Kingdom work related to where they would do business, etc.  Paul, being a tentmaker with Aquila and Priscilla, would have been vitally involved with the leather industry coming from animals sacrificed at the pagan temples, therefore the passages regarding eating sacrificed meat (1 Corinthians 8; 10:14-22).

Abraham & Lot, Agribusiness;  Genesis 13: 1-18

1. Abraham was out in the business world (13:3) between Bethel (House of God) and Ai (House of Magic).
2. Abraham was a wealthy businessman (13:2).
3. Abraham regularly prayed (13:4).
4. Personnel problem developed between Lot’s and Abraham’s employees (13:7-8). How did they respond?
5. Abraham had the cultural right to take the best (age, wealth, patriarch) but gave Lot the choice of land.
1. From human point of view Abraham made a poor business decision (13:9-13).
2. From human point of view Lot made a lucrative business decision.
3. How did Abraham decide how to handle this personnel problem with Lot?
6. Abraham made a wise decision wrought from prayer.
1. God promised him all of the land as a result.
2. Lot eventually lost everything because of his business decision.
3. Abraham ended up both blessed and the glory of God going forth (13:14-18).

 

Illustration: NewLife Turf’s giving. Bragg & Salley Williams prayed concerning their role in the Kingdom as a business. Sold steady local communications company. Lord promised that if they would give as much as they could to the Kingdom, He would grow a new business for them. They went into turf farming. Today SC has the most acreage in golf courses per capita in the United States, and the Williams give a high percentage to the Kingdom’s work. They live on a small percentage of that income.

How to Develop a Prayer Team for your Workplace

The Right Prayer Team Personnel

• Non paid.  Paid intercessors can get you into conflict of interest problems and  can leave you vulnerable to non-believers who might perceive partiality. 
• Selective and by invitation.
• Include both those employed by the company and non-employees
• Commitment to prayer and to confidentiality. Illus: our personal intercessors and yearly mail-in form
• People who can handle a fiduciary trust. Simple test as to whether a person should be on prayer team: Are you comfortable showing internal numbers to this person?
• Team size 10-12 maximum. Principle: Prayer focus decreases as size increases.

Forming a Prayer Team

1. In your time with the Lord, ask Him to show you the persons who should be on this prayer team.
2. Individually meet with them and invite them as the Lord shows you.
3. Do not choose them too quickly out of your excitement to get going (1 Timothy 3:6, 10; 5:22).
4. Choose people from within and without the company.
5. Call your first meeting and have an orientation which includes ground rules for prayer.
6. Once the team is set, do not be in a hurry to add to the team. Team dynamics rules are amplified on prayer teams.

Lydia of Philippi, Territory Sales; Acts 16:11-15

Lydia was a Macedonia territory sales rep for an exclusive Thyatira dye company. She was probably widowed & wealthy (Acts 16:11-15).  The Roman colony of Philippi gained its citizenship by helping Caesar Augustus win the throne in 42BC. The whole city was also tax-exempt. Philippi, located on a hill, was home to a large military installation. It was a military town. Soldiers were common in the streets. It was a straightforward city, focusing only on copying everything Rome did. Because of the virulent Roman anti-Semitism, there were not enough Jews there for a synagogue, and there were no Christians when Paul and company arrived (52 AD) after having the vision of the man in Macedonia.

 

After the vision of a man, their first European converts were women, notably Lydia, a territory sales rep for Macedonia for an exclusive Thyatira purple dye company. She was probably widowed and wealthy. It probably helped to do business in this foremost city of Macedonia since every sale was tax-free. Women, probably led by powerful businesswoman Lydia, had a prominent place in the Philippian church, and they were generous in giving to the Lord’s work (Phil. 4:10-16; 2 Corinthians 8:1-5).  Lydia led a weekly prayer group in Philippi. Her business would probably have been one of the weekly prayer items.

Prayer Team Operations

• Consider this prayer meeting time as blocked time, similar to an important business meeting. You ARE doing business with the Lord!
• Meet weekly at either the beginning or middle of week outside normal office hours.
• You lead the meeting with an open hand, watching for emerging leadership to help you in the future.
• It is OK to pray for sick family members or colleagues, but that is not why you are there.  You have this prayer team to welcome Christ’s manifest Presence into your Company.
• Ask the Lord specifically, not generally, for things such as:
• How to handle a problem employee
• How to make an effective sales presentation
• Whether to make a buy-out offer, etc.
• Remember the purpose of this team: for the Company to bring glory to God and extend His Kingdom, not yours.
• CHECK IN: Go around the room to everyone asking each one, “What has the Lord been saying to you concerning our company?  This is very effective. As you go around the group, clarity usually comes. A prevailing wind blows, and wisdom comes forward (2 Chronicles 18:4; Psalm 16:7; 32:8; Proverbs 15:22; 27:9). Possible results:
•        Shift in focus to younger market
•        Lord not pleased with chemical damage the company is leaving in an area of operation. Proper response: Repent, restitution.
•        Pay scale is taking financial advantage of poor personnel.
•        Allocate more resources to the research division
•        Do not buy into that company. Things are not as they seem.
•        Hire the underqualified person. That woman is the Lord’s choice.
•        God will bring glory to Himself and bless you in the process.

Receiving Input from a Prayer Team

• Encouragement is always received with gratitude.
• Directional input is held lightly but seriously considered on the testimony of two or three witnesses (Deuteronomy 17:6; 19:15; Matthew 18:16; 2 Corinthians 13:1; 1 Timothy 5:19; Hebrews 10:28).
• Rebuke or corrective input from the prayer team is received humbly on the testimony of two or three witnesses.
• Do not take directional action without much corroboration and confirmation from several sources both within and without the prayer team.

George Washington Carver (1864/5 – 1943) A Prayer for Peanuts

For years Southern farmers had been planting cotton season after season, depleting the soil and producing less every year. The boll weevil was cutting a destructive path through the South. Carver warned farmers that the cotton business would disappear, leaving famine and unusable soil. Carver ushered in a new era in agriculture in the South with crop rotation. He encouraged cultivation of sweet potatoes, peanuts and soybeans to restore the soil and provide much needed nutrients.

Carver wrote, “Conservation is one of our big problems in this section. You can't tear up everything just to get the dollar out of it without suffering as a result. It is a travesty to burn our woods and thereby burn up the fertilizer nature has provided for us. We must enrich our soil every year instead of merely depleting it. It is fundamental that nature will drive away those who commit sins against it. To me Nature in its varied forms is the little windows through which God permits me to commune with Him, and to see much of His glory, by simply lifting the curtain and looking in. I love to think of Nature as wireless telegraph stations through which God speaks to us every day, every hour, and every moment of our lives.”

When farmers did listen to Carver, they found themselves with a huge crop of peanuts and no market for them. Farmers were angry at Carver.

Carver writes, “Why, I just took a handful of peanuts and looked at them. ‘Great Creator,’ I said, ‘why did you make the peanut? Why?’ With such knowledge as I had of chemistry and physics I set to work to take the peanut apart. I separated the water, the fats, the oils, the gums, the resins, sugars, starches, pectoses, pentoses, pentosans, legumen, lysin, the ameno and amedo acids. There! I had the parts of the peanut all spread out before me. Then I merely went on to try different combinations of those parts, under different conditions of temperature, pressure, and so forth. The result was what you see--these 202 different products, all made from peanuts!”  Source: National Wildlife Federation, http://www.nwf.org/internationalwildlife/1998/esayso98.html

A Listing Of Products Developed from the Peanut by Dr. Carver:
George Washington Carver Foundation, Tuskegee Institute (University)

Foods:  salted peanuts, breakfast foods #1-5, bisque powder, peanut meal #1-2, chocolate coated peanuts, peanut cake #1-2, dry coffee, instant coffee, peanut hearts, mock oysters, worcestershire sauce, peanut food #1, peanut sprouts, peanut tofu sauce, cream from milk, buttermilk, milks (numbering 32), curds, vinegar, crystallized peanuts, peanut relish #1-2, peanut chocolate fudge, peanut and popcorn bars, peanut bar #1, peanut tutti-frutti bars, lard compound, sweet pickle, cheese cream, cheese pimento, cheese tutti-frutti, white pepper (from the vines), cocoa, peanut kisses, peanut wafers, peanut butter (numbering 3), butter from peanut milk, pancake flour (numbering 11), peanut surprise, malted peanuts, peanut meal, meat substitute, chili sauce, peanut brittle, cream candy, peanut flakes (numbering 2), chop suey sauce, mayonnaise, peanut meat loaf, shredded peanuts, cooking oil, salad oil, mock meat, mock veal cutlet, mock chicken, mock duck, mock goose, peanut sausage, flavoring paste, oleomargarine, dehydrated milk flakes, caramel, butterscotch, evaporated milk, golden nuts, substitute asparagus, cheese nut sage, cheese sandwich, plain pickle, peanut dainties, bar candy.

Stock Foods:  peanut stock foods #1-3, peanut hull stock food, peanut hull bran, hen food, peanut hull meal, molasses feed, peanut hay meal, peanut meal (numbering 3).

Beverages:  peanut orange punch #1-2, normal peanut beverage, plum punch, cherry punch, peanut lemon punch, peanut punch #2, beverage for ice cream, blackberry punch, evaporated peanut beverage, pineapple punch.

Medicines:  rubbing oil, tannic acid, emulsion for bronchitis, castor oil substitute, iron tonic, goiter treatment, quinine, laxatives.

Cosmetics:  hand lotion, face cream, face bleach and tan remover, shampoo, shaving cream, face ointment, face powder, fat producing cream, toilet soap, pomade for skin, face lotion, vanishing cream, oil for hair and scalp, pomade for scalp, glycerine, all purpose cream, dandruff cure, and antiseptic soap.

Household Products:  laundry soap and sweeping compound.

Dyes, Paints, and Stains:  leather dyes (numbering 18), wood stains (numbering 17), special peanut dye, dyes for cloth (numbering 30), and paint.

General:  fuel bricks, colored paper (from skins), newsprint paper (from vines), insecticide, gasoline, wood filler, plastics, lubricating oil, diesel fuel, writing ink, furnace coke (from hulls), white paper (from vines), paper (from hulls), coarse paper (from skins), glue, gas, metal polish, axle grease, illuminating oil, printers' ink, rubber, washing powder, hand cleanser, wall boards (from hull, numbering 11), sizing for walls, nitroglycerine, soap stock, linoleum, insulating boards (numbering 18), charcoal (from shells), soil conditioner, and shoe and leather backing.

Page created July 22, 2003
Updated November 29, 2003.