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The Prayer That Enlarges Your Territory … and the Two That Go With It
Jabez prayed a dangerous prayer.
Not dangerous in the way his colleagues might have warned him. Dangerous because God actually answered it.
“Oh, that you would bless me and enlarge my territory! Let your hand be with me, and keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain.” And God granted his request. 1 Chronicles 4:9-10
Bruce Wilkinson’s little book, “The Prayer of Jabez,” became a phenomenon around the turn of the millennium. And like most phenomena in Christian circles, it attracted its share of critics. A lot of my clergy colleagues at the time were quick to dismiss it as prosperity theology dressed up in Old Testament clothes. Health and wealth with a cross on the cover.
Most of them hadn’t read it.
What Wilkinson actually wrote was a straightforward case for praying specifically and boldly for God’s will. Not your will with God’s rubber stamp on it. God’s will, prayed specifically, with the expectation that God would actually do what God said God would do. That’s not prosperity theology. That’s just faith.
I was planting a church in the Seattle area when the book came out, and it wrecked me in the best possible way.
How the Jabez Prayer Creates Divine Appointments for Outreach
I started praying the Jabez prayer every morning before I went out into the community. My wife and I were planting from scratch, which means most days my office was a coffee shop, a park bench, or a diner booth. My job was to get into the community, meet people, build relationships, and expand the reach of a church that was still more vision than reality.
What I discovered was this: there was never a morning I prayed that prayer that I didn’t have at least one divine appointment before the day was done.
One afternoon I was sitting on a park bench in Kent, reading my copy of “The Prayer of Jabez.” A young man came walking down the path, glanced over, and stopped dead in his tracks. He reached into his bag and pulled out his own copy of the same book.
We talked for a long time. He wasn’t a Christian. He wasn’t churched. He was just curious … curious enough about the book, curious enough about faith, curious enough to stop and talk to a stranger on a park bench. I invited him to a sermon series we had coming up. He showed up weeks later. He stayed until he relocated.
That’s one story. I have more. Not because I’m particularly gifted at evangelism, but because I was praying every morning for exactly that kind of encounter. And God, it turns out, was glad to oblige.
The Luke 10:2b Virus: The Church Growth Prayer Most Pastors Never Pray
There’s another prayer worth pairing with Jabez, and it comes straight from Jesus.
In Luke 10:2, Jesus looks at his disciples and says, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”
That second sentence … the ask … is Luke 10:2b. And some church planters I ran with back in those days called it the Luke 10:2b virus. The idea is simple and a little bit subversive. When you pray for God to send workers into the harvest, the people he tends to send are brand new to the faith. And new believers are contagious in ways that long-time church members rarely are. They haven’t learned to be embarrassed about Jesus yet. They haven’t sat through enough committee meetings to get cautious. They’re giddy about what just happened to them and they can’t stop talking about it.
That’s a virus. It spreads.
So when you pray Luke 10:2b, you’re not asking God for more volunteers for the hospitality team. You’re asking him to send you people who will, the moment they encounter Jesus, immediately start infecting everyone they know. You’re praying for a harvest that reproduces itself.
Pray Jabez. Pray Luke 10:2b. Then get out of your office and into your community.
How to Prepare Your Pulpit for the Unchurched People God Sends
Here’s where the divine appointment goes to die.
You prayed for enlarged territory. You showed up in the community. God sent someone down the path. You had the conversation, issued the invitation, and they actually showed up on Sunday.
Now what?
If your sermon that Sunday was designed for people who already know the difference between justification and sanctification … if your application assumed twenty years of discipleship … if your illustrations only land for someone who grew up in the church … you’ve wasted the divine appointment.
Prayer gets you an opportunity. Your conversation and invitation get them in the door. Your pulpit has to be ready when they walk through it.
That’s not a knock on expository preaching. It’s a question about who you’re preaching to. Jabez prayed to expand his influence. The Luke 10:2b prayer invites new workers into the harvest. But if your Sunday message is built for the already-convinced, you’ve prayed for a harvest and then locked the barn.
Transformational preaching … preaching that actually reaches the unchurched person God sent you … requires a different approach than what most of us learned in seminary. It starts with knowing who’s in the room, or who you’re hoping will be in the room, and building your message from their world toward the truth they need.
That’s what we’re covering in this week’s Catalytic Conversations training, “Preaching for Reaching.” If you’re praying these prayers and expecting God to answer them, make sure your pulpit is ready for the people he sends.
You can get the details and register here.
Pray for the harvest. Show up in the community. Then preach like they’re actually going to come.