Both posts pulled. Before the merge, one problem you need to decide on.
The best material in the newer post is your life, not Kyle’s. The park bench in Kent, planting in the Seattle area, your wife, the young man with the same copy of Wilkinson’s book. That’s the strongest writing across either post, and it cannot be moved into Kyle’s voice. Doing that would put your biography in another man’s mouth.
Three ways to handle it. Cut the story and keep only the teaching. Keep it as a clearly attributed block inside Kyle’s post. Or leave it behind on the old URL, which defeats the consolidation.
I’ve built the merge with the story kept as an attributed inset, because losing it costs you the most memorable 200 words on the page. Say the word and I’ll cut it instead.
I also dropped the “Preaching for Reaching” CTA from the newer post. That was a specific week’s Catalytic Conversations, and it’s four months stale.
Here’s the merged post. Title, slug, H1, and meta description all stay exactly as they are.
I have a plaque on the wall of my office that I look at often. On it are two verses most people breeze right past in one of the least-read books of the Bible.
“Jabez was more honorable than his brothers. His mother had named him Jabez, saying, ‘I gave birth to him in pain.’ Jabez cried out to the God of Israel, ‘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
Nine chapters of genealogies. Thousands of names. And then … this. One man. Four verses. A prayer God answered.
Bruce Wilkinson’s little book, The Prayer of Jabez, made these verses famous around the turn of the millennium. It also attracted critics who dismissed 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 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 will do what God said he would do. That’s not prosperity theology. That’s faith.
I’ve spent years wondering why Jabez gets singled out. I think I finally understand it. His prayer contains three things God looks for in every leader who wants to do something significant for his Kingdom.
He Asked God for Greater Influence
Jabez wasn’t asking for more real estate. He was asking for more responsibility. More opportunity. A bigger platform to make a mark for God. He left the specifics entirely up to God. Where. When. How. That part wasn’t his call.
It’s the same prayer every pastor I know carries somewhere in their chest, whether they say it out loud or not. Lord, I want to matter. I want my church to matter. I want what we’re doing here to actually reach people and change lives.
That’s not ambition. That’s faithfulness.
Many pastors never see their territory expand, not because God won’t answer, but because they haven’t built the kind of presence in their community that creates the opportunity for God to work through. The church stays invisible. The pastor stays busy. And the prayer stays unanswered.
He Asked God for Presence
Jabez knew something important. Living large for God takes more than willpower or a good plan. It takes God’s power working through you. He prayed for God’s hand to be with him, knowing he couldn’t pull this off alone.
Jesus put it plainly: “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.” Matthew 7:7
Paul pushed it even further in Ephesians 3:20, reminding us that God can do more than we can ask or imagine. That’s not a greeting card. That’s a promise with legs. You can’t out-dream God. Whatever you picture for your church, God’s capacity for your church is bigger.
He Asked God for Protection
Here’s something worth sitting with. If your territory is small, you don’t have much worth attacking. The moment you start expanding your reach, making real inroads in your community, pursuing the people nobody else is pursuing, you become a target. Jabez knew that. He prayed for protection before he needed it.
“Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.” Jesus taught us to pray the same way.
What Happens When You Actually Pray It
From Bill Tenny-Brittian:
I was planting a church in the Seattle area when Wilkinson’s book came out, and it wrecked me in the best possible way. I started praying the Jabez prayer every morning before I went out into the community. My wife and I were planting from scratch, which meant most days my office was a coffee shop, a park bench, or a diner booth.
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 book. 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.
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 Second Prayer Worth Praying
There’s another prayer that belongs next to 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. Church planters have a name for it: The Luke 10:2b virus. The idea is simple and a little 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 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 meet Jesus, 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.
Where the Answered Prayer 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 morning was built 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 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. Luke 10:2b 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.
The Result
Combine a God-sized dream with a growing faith and a genuine prayer life, and you get what Jabez got. God granted his request.
That’s still how it works.
If your church is going to enlarge its territory, it starts with asking. It continues with building the kind of community presence that gives God something to work with. It requires a pulpit ready for the people God sends. And it grows when your congregation catches the same vision you’re carrying.
I’ve written more about these factors and how they apply practically to church leadership and growth in my book, Church Turnaround A to Z. You can grab a copy on Amazon.
Want to Enlarge Your Church’s Territory?
It starts with being known. Most churches assume their community knows who they are and what they stand for. Most of the time, that assumption is wrong.
Bill Tenny-Brittian at The Effective Church Group put together a free mini-course called Build a Reputation: Becoming Known in Your Community. It’s a practical guide for pastors who want to turn the Jabez prayer into a Monday-morning strategy.