Backstage Prayer at Barabbas Road Church in San Diego
There’s a story about a group of young men who went to visit one of the greatest preachers of all time, Charles Spurgeon. The young men wanted to visit the famous place that Spurgeon would preach, where thousands would be gathered to listen to him. When they arrived an old man approached them at the door and asked if they wanted to see the heating room of the church. Since it was a hot day the young men were not very interested in checking out the heating room; however, they did not want to be rude, so they followed the old man downstairs underneath the stage.
As the young men entered the room they were astonished as they saw 700 people praying in this room. The old man then whispered quietly to the guests, “This is where the heating room starts, and they are all praying for the service and they are going to pray through the service.”The man in this story was Charles Spurgeon himself. Spurgeon believed in prayer and many people that would listen to him preach would talk about him being the prince of preachers. Clearly, Spurgeon believed in the power of prayer and did not want to preach without being accompanied by people praying for God to do his work through the Holy Spirit.
This story inspired Pastor Matt Smith when Barabbas Road Church in San Diego first began. Backstage Prayer is an important distinctive at Barabbas Road Church. Martin Luther said, “Prayer is not overcoming God’s reluctance but laying hold of his willingness.” If we actually believe this then that means that we actually are praying for things that God has already willed. One of the things that we can be certain of is that God wants his word to do its work. This is a beautiful thing as we can pray with full confidence for God’s word to do its work. Inspired by all of this, when Barabbas Road Church in San Diego first started, Pastor Matt Smith wanted to make sure that every sermon that he preached had someone praying for him as he preached. Therefore, at Barabbas Road Church, there will always be someone from the church praying back stage during the service.
It can be a struggle for people to pray continuously for over an hour backstage. One of the challenges is that it can be easy to run out of things to pray for during the service. If you would decide to volunteer for this ministry, the church will provide you with a list of suggestions on what to be praying for throughout the service. However,we know that we can rely upon the promise that Paul teaches us in Romans 8 that if we don’t know what to pray for as we ought, the Holy Spirit intercedes for us with unutterable growing’s. This means that when it comes to praying backstage we do not have to worry about what to pray for or be worried about running out of things to pray about. Our job is to sit backstage and faithfully serve; being willing to be used by God as he does his work through us as we pray.
If you are a believer who believes in prayer, then you are qualified to be a part of this exciting ministry at Barabbas Road Church in San Diego. Backstage prayer is a great opportunity not only for the congregation, but also for you as you will train yourself for godliness, as you grow in the discipline of prayer. If you want to be apart of this ministry it’s very simple as you just need to sign up.
