“if you have faith as a mustard seed you shall say to this mountain. ‘Move from here to there’ and it shall move and nothing shall be impossible to you” Matt: 17: 20. “…if two of you agree on earth about anything that they may ask, it shall be done for them by My Father Who is in heaven” Matt: 18: 19. “…if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us” 1. John 5: 14. “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go to the Father. And whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it” John 14: 12—14. Formation and functioning of a Christian Prayer Cell based on the verses mentioned above and having born-again believers as its members is explained below. It is hoped that believers who happen to read this will consider setting up prayer cells in their places as suggested here and contribute to the fulfilling of Christ’s Great Commission [Matt: 28: 19—20]. The following is just a mention of some ideas which may be of use in the formation and functioning of the proposed Prayer Cell

MEMBERS

Members of this Prayer Cell are Christians who by a personal confession of faith before God have accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour. They believe that it is the sacrificial death of Christ and His resurrection on the third day that have enabled them to get all their sins forgiven. They believe that Jesus Christ who came into this world and became Man in order to save sinners will come again from Heaven to take His Church out of this world, all who have believed in Him will be taken to Heaven and after the Last Judgment all unbelievers will be thrown into Hell where each one of them will have to suffer eternal punishment in accordance with the sins each one has committed. They believe that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are one and that Jesus Christ, the unique Son of God has revealed the invisible Father to mankind. They should also believe that Jesus Christ is the only mediator between God and Man and that it is in the name of Jesus Christ that we should pray to our heavenly Father.

PURPOSES

The main purpose of the Prayer Cell is to enable believers to pray united and with one accord for the effective and thorough evangelization of the whole world, for the establishment of churches that function in accordance with the Word of God in all places and in all countries, for all people engaged in missionary activities and for the Lord’s coming again quickly. In accordance with Phil: 4: 6—7, the members of the Prayer Cell are expected to pray for all things considered to be their needs. Since they love all others, they consider others’ needs their own and so it is necessary for them to pray for the well being of the society they belong to. When we consider what all things we should pray for, in the Indian context we find some urgent unavoidable subjects which also are to be mentioned. So the most important subjects of our prayer may be listed as given below:

GENERAL SUBJECTS

1. Praising God, the Almighty, All-knowing heavenly Father Who is the source of all Life, Who is the Creator of the Universe, the source of Truth, Justice and all Goodness and Who has redeemed Mankind from Sin and Damnation by sending His Son into this world and letting Him suffer death and by raising Him from the Dead on the third day and also for the countless spiritual and material blessings we receive every day from Him. 2 Need of all born-again Christians to be seen as new creations in Christ—their necessity to bear the fruit of the Spirit [Gal: 5: 22—23] in abundance. 3. The need of every believer to achieve real greatness by becoming the servant of others as Jesus pointed out [Matt: 20: 26]. 4. Enlightenment of the eyes of the hearts of all believers in all parts of the world by the Spirit of God [Eph: 1: 18] 5. Need to convey the Gospel of salvation clearly and teach the Word of God correctly to every one in the world today; the necessity of Christians to be ‘ready for every good deed’ [Titus: 3: 1]; the desirability of believers coming together in every place and investing money on Non-profit making Medical Missions which will promote Evangelization and let people understand the love of God expressed in real life. 6. Need to give every one in every country a printed copy of the Bible in his/ her own mother tongue. 7. Need to translate the Bible and print it in all the languages of the world. 8. Transformation of all existing Churches into Churches of the New Testament pattern. 9. Need of unity among all who have accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. The necessity of Evangelists, including those who are going to be, to have the faith and obedience of Elijah so that they may get all their needs met by God; the need of believers to be faithful in giving at least a tenth of their income to God, by supporting evangelists and evangelistic activities. 10. Problems of Christians and Christian workers who are being persecuted in the various parts of the world, especially in Muslim countries. 11. Teaching of the most unreasonable story of Evolution as an unquestioned scientific truth in all the schools and colleges of most of the countries of the world—forcing the young generation to take utter falsehood for truth. The need to teach that the so called theory of Darwin is an unproven hypothesis and according to The Bible, the most ancient sacred book in the world, all living beings were created by God. 12. Completion of the task assigned to the Church [Matt. 28: 19—20] in the immediate future and for the coming of the Lord to take His Church out of this world.

SPECIAL SUBJECTS

[These subjects vary from place to place, country to country] 1. Road accidents in India the rate of which is ten times as high as in most other countries, especially western countries. 3 2. Crimes against women and children— an average of about ten children get abducted or stolen every day in our Capital New Delhi alone. Most of them become slaves of beggars, the most unfortunate human beings on earth. Reports say, thousands of women, victims of flesh trade in the Indian subcontinent languish in brothels, unable to escape from the slavery they are thrown into. 3. Abortion and female infanticide on the rise in several states in India 4. Indifference of Government and lawmakers to, even very easily avoidable tragedies like children falling into unprotected bore-wells while playing and getting killed in the most fearsome manner. 5. Lakhs of people being homeless, forced to sleep on pavements and Railway platforms; miseries of slum dwellers and scarcity of drinking water in many parts of India. 6. Hartals, Bandhs and lightning strikes [strikes without notice] by Trade Unions causing great hardships to innumerable people, especially travelers. Problem of Ragging especially in professional colleges. 7. Persecution of Christians and Christian workers in states like Orissa, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh Jharkhand, U. P and Karnataka 8. Evangelistic activities of different organizations like O. M, Campus Crusade for Christ, E. U, India Bible Translators, Coimbatore, missionary activities of various churches and the Services and functioning of the Bible society of India. 9. Need of a Constitutional Amendment by the Parliament of India giving recognition to Non-- Episcopal Churches also as Christian Churches. 10. Peaceful solution to the border dispute between India and China, solution of the Kashmir problem, solution of all problems of violence, unrest, terrorism and violations of human rights in India’s neighborhood—Tibet, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

FUNCTIONING OF THE PRAYER CELL

A Prayer Cell consists of five, six or seven individuals or preferably, families and the functioning of it in a particular place is guided by the person who takes initiative for its formation. This person may be considered the convener of the Prayer Cell. A list of all members—individuals and heads of families --- is prepared in the alphabetical order and prayer meetings are held at the residences of these members in accordance with the serial order of names in that list. Regular weekly or fortnightly meetings of the Prayer Cell are to be arranged so that one round of meetings will be completed within two or three months. Day, time and duration of the prayer- meetings should be decided by the members in consultation with the convener. Preaching or Bible study is not to be a part of the Prayer meeting; time is to be spent for praying, occasional singing of songs and for giving introductory instructions only. Members should not talk about problems in their churches or other churches in any manner criticizing any believer who is not present at the prayer meeting. A Prayer meeting should never be permitted to become an opportunity to show unnecessary 4 hospitality to the participants; sugar---free biscuits at the most, may be served at the end of a meeting. [Hospitality is good, but its display is not in keeping with the spirit of ‘fervent’ prayer. Duration of individual prayers may be regulated in such a manner as to give every participant at least one opportunity to pray. Participants should be given the opportunity to mention their specific needs of prayer, so that they may be prayed for specially, at least once. It should be understood that an ideal prayer consists of giving thanks to God for the blessings we have already received, praying that sins or shortcomings on our part may be forgiven, and submitting our requests in the name of Jesus Christ trusting that they will be granted and thanking God for answering our prayer. Participants should take care that they do not repeat in their prayers the subjects others have already prayed for. The convener of the Prayer Cell should see that all the subjects are prayed for, prayers are made with thanksgiving [Phil: 4: 6], all take part in the prayer and all think about whatever is true, honorable, right, pure, lovely and is of of good repute [Phil: 4: 8] and all pray believing that “The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much” James: 5: 16.

FREEDOM TO MODIFY

What is stated above is just a set of general guidelines intended to help the formation and fruitful functioning of a Prayer Cell. Members who form a Prayer Cell in a particular place have the freedom to add to or delete from these guidelines in view of their needs and conveniences. However it is desirable to let every member of a prayer Cell to have in his own mother tongue a copy of the General Subjects as well as Special Subjects of prayer considered most important by the members of his prayer cell..

SPECIAL REQUEST

Since the formation and functioning of Prayer Cells is desirable, it is the will of God that believers who happen to read this should lead their fellow believers also to read this. So those who agree with the idea of believers praying with one accord as stated in Acts: 1: 14, may please make the necessary modifications in this exhortation and send this to others as their own message, from their own IDs. [Those who want only to forward this message without any modification and without any introductory word of their own are free to do so].