MY FAMILY IS OFF THE CHART AWESOME! Each Monday night, over 20 members of my family (siblings, nieces, cousins, and others) call in on a free conference call from across the country for a time of prayer and brief fellowship. For our most recent call, the Lord led me to ask each person to take 20-30 seconds to say what family means to each of us. What a LOVE FEAST! So much affirmation and unity. What a MIRACLE to watch each week how God has turned a contentious bunch into a loving group that can hardly wait until Monday nights. Let’s just say that it hasn’t always been this way, y’all. But God!
If your family is struggling with disunity, I dare you to just get on a short call and start praying for the needs of each person. Somebody has to initiate the effort and keep it going. Why not be that person? Here is what to do:
1) Get a free conference call number and password. https://www.freeconferencecall.com/
2) Establish a convenient day and time for the call. Be consistent.
3) Get the phone number of all potential participants and remind them (via group text) 15 min before the call to join the prayer.
4) Set a duration time limit (important); 15-30 minutes max; this keeps folks coming back.
5) Remind everyone to mute phones.
6) The leader should issue a spiritual challenge to the group; anything that keeps them God-focused (e.g. pray 5 minutes each day, be a good role model on the job, etc.).
7) Pray for needs in the following categories: Spiritual, Relational, Emotional, Physical, and Financial–and whatever has been requested. Give others an opportunity to pray for each area, but ask them to keep it short (like a minute).
8) Don’t let ONE PERSON dominate. I normally ask for 20-30 second testimonies and prayer requests because of the size of our group.
9) Be a little flexible and allow 5 minutes or so at the beginning for hellos and chit chat. I’m a stickler for getting focused on the actual praying, so I ask everyone who wants to chat to call in 5 min or so (6:55 pm) BEFORE THE START TIME. This allows the group to laugh, reminisce, etc until 7:05 pm. YUP, I’M THE DRILL SARGENT AND THE PRAYER LEADER. THAT’S CALLED LEADERSHIP.
10) Inform those who want to keep chatting to stay on the line after the dismissal prayer and talk to their hearts’ delight or until the system cuts them off, which it will do! Hey, it’s free!
Okay, I’ve taken the time, by Divine mandate, to explain how this all works. I’m on a writing lockdown to finish my next book, LEAD LIKE A WOMAN, in six weeks, so I’m believing God will multiply the time back to me. Somebody out there is supposed to do this for your family. Let me hear from you if you plan to TRUST God to do it thru you.