hope for us. What steps can
the Church take to repent on
behalf of America?
Repentance for a nation ideally
comes from the national leader.
If a President is not willing to lead
us in repentance, one important
action step for the Church is
to seriously pray for the President’s heart, that he would come
to see the need for nation-wide
repentance. Spiritual leaders
have an important role in this,
and many in the United States
have already begun to take this
seriously. In Atlanta on January
2016, more than 250 Christian
leaders came together to spend
significant time praying together,
especially around the themes
of repentance and revival. On a
local church level, pastors need
to preach on repentance, not
only from the individual aspect,
but the need and the how-to for
corporate repentance. I would
also encourage adaptation of
the National Prayer Accord, in
the appendix of my book, which
develops a long-term rhythm of
weekly, monthly, quarterly, and
yearly prayer for revival and
repentance.
You talk about Christians
being the “away” team. What
do you mean by that?
In sports, the home team enjoys
the advantage of a friendly crowd
and sometimes even friendly
officiating. The visiting team, or
the away team, sometimes has
to play with a vocal and antagonistic crowd trying to affect the
outcome. The Church in America has been the home team for
many years. But in recent years,
the shift in our culture has often
made us feel like the away team.
Instead of cheers, there are
jeers.
Sometimes people don’t pray
because they don’t see it really
making
a
difference.
What
would
you say to them? How can a
sense of urgency to pray be
created so we are not complacent?
I hear people say that they don’t
see prayer making a difference. We need to understand
that prayer is a mystery. It’s
tough to get your arms around
it. My response to people is, “I
wonder what we might be like
if we hadn’t prayed. If we are in
these bad condition s with our
prayers, can you imagine how
bad it could have been if there
had not been prayer?” Let’s
do what God tells us to do and
pray about everything. My own
sense of urgency is prompted
by looking around our nation
and world and realizing that no