Prayer Connection January 2024
Prepare for Prayer – Our prayer focus is “Influence is borne from a tender heart.”
You can find accompanying outreach activities, a woman’s story, Bible study, and reflection questions in session 4, pages 68 to 80 of this year’s theme resource: Ordinary People; Extraordinary Influence. This resource is available at https://stonecroft.outreach.com/.
Read: Nehemiah 1:2-11 (Page 371, Tyndale’s NLT Abundant Life Bible, available at christianbook.com) Pray: LORD, sometimes it is hard to have our hearts broken, but we ask today that You break our hearts for the things that break Your heart so that we might rebuild and influence for You.
Prayer Points:
Please make us aware of needs that You want us to pay attention to in our community and break our hearts to pray and ask how You would like us to help rebuild broken “walls.”
We thank You that You care about it all—and even though we can only respond to a small part of the brokenness in this world, we can lay our prayers for all things at Your feet.
Pray for Your Group’s Outreach
Read: Nehemiah 2:1-5 (Page 371)
Pray: LORD, please show us how You may ask our outreach community to reach more women in our community by entering the broken places.
Prayer Points:
God, walls protect things, and broken walls leave people unprotected. Show us women who are unprotected. Just as walls protect a city, some women need to know You, Jesus and need friends who can love them toward You.
God, just as there was a king Nehemiah went to, there are people we may need to go to love unprotected women toward You. Please show us who these influential people are and give us the favor and courage to approach them.
Pray for Opportunities to Share Your Faith and Invite People to Your Outreach Read: Nehemiah 4: 1-2, 4, 6 (Page 373)
Pray: God, when we desire to share our faith, we can fear being mocked—or be mocked. But rebuilding the broken places by loving people toward Jesus matters. Hear us, our God, as we bring our hesitations, and give us obedience and enthusiasm to share You, Jesus.
Prayer Points:
Help us see the people open to a conversation about You, especially when believers demonstrate our caring, ask them about their spiritual journeys, and pray with and for them. Please silence the lies no one wants to hear about the Good News.
God, enthusiasm reminds us that it has those words inside– en theos, God in us. Please strengthen our enthusiasm to see our family, friends, and people we see in our neighborhoods, schools, and workplaces also experience the joy of “en theos,” God in them through Jesus Christ’s salvation.
Pray for God-Honoring Influence in Out City, State, Nation, and World Read: Acts 1:8, NLT
Pray: God, we pray for our witness in every relationship and your work in every place. Prayer Points: As we focus this month on “Influence is borne from a tender heart,” we pray: For our “Jerusalem” – For believers in our city to have tender hearts and influence for
You.
For our “Judea” – For believers in our state to have tender hearts and influence for You. For our “Samaria” – For believers in our nation to have tender hearts and influence for
You.
For the “ends of the earth” – For believers in our world to have tender hearts and influence for You.
Pray for the Stonecroft Family Read: Nehemiah 4:14 (Page 373)
Pray: God, please unite us here in this prayer time and unite Stonecroft family members across the nation and world to remember You, who are great and glorious. And please give us tender hearts to want to see the restoration of the places You have called us to influence. Prayer Points:
For opportunities for “nobles and the rest of the people” to gather—for every woman in Stonecroft to hear the word, not be afraid, to remember the lord, and to press on.
God, please help our memories of how faithful You have been for 85 years of this ministry to bolster our excitement for how much You yet want to rebuild walls and cities and women’s lives as we trust and “fight” for people and places to be rebuilt by Your power, God, and for Your glory.
Pray for Each Other
Share Personal Requests – Pray for each other’s needs and lift one another’s ways of loving others toward Jesus.
Closing Prayer
Thank you for all the ways you’ve been my good protector and provider. Please break my heart – give me a tender heart – for the people in my community. Please open my eyes to the needs around me. God, help me have enthusiasm, because of You living in me, to love others toward You again, this day. In Jesus’ name, the rebuilder of broken walls, I pray, Amen.