Category: The Daily Prayer Project

The Daily Prayer Project>Online

~ Scott Fowler ~ Leave a comment

cropped-copy-of-the-daily.pngWhat is it?

Typically, it is a five week program designed to help those who struggle to maintain a meaningful daily prayer time to establish a beachhead in the Secret Place.

What is the process?

 There are a couple of foundational “lectures” based on the principles found in the book Contending for the Habit of Daily Prayer, and then a twenty-one day period begins in which you make every effort to:

  • Pray every day
  • In the same place
  • At the same time
  • Pursuing intimacy with Jesus first and foremost

Every seven days, in a group of people who also are in the project, you answer the questions:

  • Did you pray every day last week?
    • (If not, what hindered you?)
  • When you did pray, was it in the same place?
  • Was it at the same time?
  • Did you pursue intimacy with Jesus first?

How will we do this online?       

What about the 21 day period?

For the 21 day accountability period we will either access a free conference call, Zoom, or perhaps create a text group. We’ll cross that bridge when we know who is participating.

So Excited!

~ Scott ~ 2 Comments

This was the close of Week 5 of this round of The Daily Prayer Project (though I still have Monday’s group to conclude tomorrow), and I must say, I am so blessed by what I see God doing!

This morning I heard about a beautiful breakthrough in one person’s struggle against a spiritual heaviness. She said last Wednesday God revealed something to her that she has been hurting over for a very long time (didn’t even know it!) and He just took the heaviness away! Boom! That’s what I am talking about–spiritual surgery! Another person shared victories she is having in her prayer time and in her workplace, another about how she is becoming established in her “set place” and “set time”! Still another, and another, and another! There’s not room to tell you all that has happened the last five weeks!

Remember, the weekly project meetings may have concluded but the project is not over. I’m looking for all of you to find your way to the “accountability page” every Monday to answer the four questions, to give us a report, and to encourage others and be encouraged!

 

 

DPP>Into the Future

~ Scott ~ Leave a comment

As The Daily Prayer Project continues to grow, here are some things I expect to develop:

LEADERS

I am even now watching for those in the project who have the potential and the passion to shepherd their own five week events. This will involve training and working closely together so that the new leader is confident once he or she steps into the role.

THE DPP/NEXT LEVEL

I expect to develop DPP/NEXT LEVEL for those who really take cultivating the Secret Place seriously and make its guidelines their habit.

FURTHER WRITING FOR THE PROJECT

I have in mind to write two more books to be used in the project.

Passages

This book will explore in depth passages of Scripture that show us how to increase our intimacy with Jesus. This one is already in progress.

In Search of the Secret Place

This may or may not be the title of another book concerning the reality of a place called “the Secret Place.” In truth, the Secret Place is the Holy of Holies!

 

 

 

 

 

A Common Room Made Uncommon

~ Scott ~ Leave a comment

Matthew 6:6 says,

But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

“Go into your room”

The word for room is ta-meh-ee-on (ταμεῖόν), “room, store room, barn, etc.,” suggesting that it refers simply to a common room. And yet, when we make it a place for prayer, it becomes a common room made uncommon by the fact that the Father is there! He sees what goes on there in secret and rewards us.

“Sometimes we talk about waiting on the Lord. How long has He been waiting for you in the Secret Place?”

God’s Confidant?

There is precedent in Scripture for this concept of God meeting in secret with His children.

In both Psalm 25:14 and Amos 3:7 we get insight into God’s desire to confide in those with whom He has a covenant. Have you ever considered that Almighty God might want to confide in you?

Psalm 25:14 says,

The LORD confides in those who fear him; he makes his covenant known to them.

In the Hebrew, the word here for “confide” is Strong’s (5475) “sode” which means, “a session, i.e. company of persons (in close deliberation); by implication intimacy, consultation, a secret:—assembly, counsel, inward, secret (counsel).”[1]

So, we could rephrase this verse to say, “The Lord is intimate with those who fear him” or “The Lord consults with or shares secrets with those who fear him”

Amos 3:7 says, Surely the Lord God does nothing unless He reveals His secret counsel to His servants the prophets. In this verse, “sode” is translated “secret counsel.”

The Secret Place

The Secret Place, far from being simply a place where we share our laundry list of needs with God, is a place of intimacy and secret counsel with God! Sometimes we talk about waiting on God but how long has He been waiting for you in the Secret Place?

Get started now in the Secret Place!

 

NOTES

[1] Strong, J. (2009). A Concise Dictionary of the Words in the Greek Testament and The Hebrew Bible (Vol. 2, p. 82). Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software.

 

The Daily Prayer Project

~ Scott ~ 2 Comments

This June I will begin…

…a “perpetual” offering of my prayer class based on my book, Contending for the Habit of Daily Prayer (Revised and Expanded). The class has always borne fruit, in some way helping someone who was struggling to maintain a dynamic, meaningful, genuine, daily time in the Secret Place to begin doing so. The class has not been offered very often. But, starting on June 4, that is going to change!

The class will be titled The Daily Prayer Project. It is a five week class so my intent will be to have the class, break for three weeks, and then do it again with a new group. There will be sign-ups and only six people will be allowed in the class per five week cycle.

Click here for the calendar with dates and locations of the classes.

As I said above, the text for the class will be my book, Contending for the Habit of Daily Prayer, and it will be required reading. It will be made available at an affordable price to all who start and finish the class. All monies received from the book will be used to promote and carry out various goals of The Daily Prayer Project. The book will need to be in before class begins so that you can come to the first class having done the initial section of reading. It can be purchased from Amazon (allow three weeks or so), on Kindle from Amazon, or at the SGT church office.

Class attendance for the entire five weeks will be mandatory so please sign up for a class cycle that you know you can complete. Prayer is that important!

Once we are underway, we will expand the class to our CLM Online site so that those whose schedule’s don’t permit them to attend the class on Sunday and Monday mornings can participate. Also, those outside the Long Island area will also be able to sign-up and participate on line.

So, why the ramping up of prayer class offerings?

I am convinced more than ever that our chief goal should be to cultivate the Secret Place and pursue intimacy with Jesus. Everything else we do , everything else we pray about should flow out of that place of intimacy with Christ.

Here’s a timely excerpt from the Revised and Expanded version of Contending for the Habit of Daily Prayer:

We have been granted a purchase in the Secret Place. Our experience of it at the first is that it is very small. Not much room to stand. In fact, however, it is not small, but large and significant. The problem is that it has not been cultivated for our use. The reason it is uncultivated is because we have spent little time there, or we have not known what to do when we are there. We have much important work that needs to be done in the Secret Place. We have petitions, we have intercessions, and we feel these things to be very important. And so they are. But we don’t have much room for our feet to find leverage so that we can do the hard work of petitions and intercessions. We need for the Lord to increase our purchase in the Secret Place!

Offering many petitions and intercessions won’t increase our purchase in the Secret Place. Only one thing can do that—increased intimacy with Jesus. Jesus is our Secret Place! As our intimacy with Jesus increases, we go higher and deeper in Him. We find room to run in Him!  Room to flow in the Holy Spirit. Now, our petitions and intercessions flow out of our intimacy with Him and with the power that comes from knowing Him.

So, when we pray, “Father, increase my purchase in the Secret Place,” we are committing ourselves to pursuing intimacy with Him first and we are trusting that He will lead us by His Spirit into the petitions and intercessions that He desires us to offer. Now we can make petitions and intercessions with anointing and compassion!