Praying

Here’s a radio-minute that aired nationally this week on Q Place’s Walk the Way: This is Walk the Way. Brought to you by Q Place. I’m Jeff Klein. When it comes to sharing our faith and reaching out to the people in our lives who don’t know Jesus like we do, often the Church’s default is to try to figure out our next program or event that we hope will “crack the code” and get people into our buildings where they will hear the gospel. I wonder if we get ahead of ourselves. What if we began with prayer? What if you and...Read more …

When it comes to loving people toward Jesus, prayer is not optional. Prayer is the primary way we can shift from relying on our own strength to relying on God’s power in our spiritual engagements. It is the means by which our good efforts can unlock spiritual effectiveness. Loving someone leads to praying for them In his book Prayer: Finding the Heart’s True Home, Richard Foster writes about the practice of intercessory prayer and how it flows first from a spirit of genuine humility and compassion: If we truly love people, we will desire for them far more than it is within...Read more …

This is Walk the Way. brought to you by Q Place, I’m Jeff Klein. And I’m Pam Klein. Just recently a friend of ours whispered to me that she was so happy that her brother had finally come to church with her. And I was happy right along with her. This was a big step for him! We also knew it wasn’t the end game. In the movie Evan Almighty, Evan, on his way to his new job at Congress one morning, sees God everywhere: God is sitting in the back seat of his car. God crosses the road in...Read more …

It is always good–and necessary–to pray for those we are walking alongside in the hope that they’ll get to know Jesus as we do. After all, God is the one–the only one–who will make any seed of faith we have had the privilege of planting or watering in someone else, grow. We’re reminded of this in 1 Corinthians 3:7: “So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow.” But here’s another necessary reminder. If you have a heart to share the gospel, you also need to be praying for yourself. Prayer’s...Read more …

This is Walk the Way. Brought to you by Q Place. I’m Jeff Klein. And I’m Pam Klein. This fall, Jeff and I decided we had to finish re-siding our garage before the bitter winter would hit Chicago. Our boys had made a valiant effort over the summer, but it was time to get the rest of it done. Between cleaning the interior, pulling the old siding off the last side and removing an old window, it was a family effort. Was everything perfect? Could some professional contractor have done it better? Maybe. But it was good—on so many levels—to...Read more …

American ingenuity and its accompanying, vigorous spirit of entrepreneurialism are both very empowering notions. But it’s interesting when the church—or the Christian—attempts to apply some of these same clear business principles to our ministry, missional, and evangelism efforts. Although there is absolutely nothing inherently wrong with working hard, setting goals, and strategizing to systematically achieve even our spiritual goals, functioning this way can cause us to think we have a measure of control that we actually don’t. We exist in what appears to be a somewhat manageable and apparent visible world, but we need to look again. Our mistakes Priscilla Shirer writes this...Read more …

This is Walk the Way. Brought to you by Q Place. I’m Jeff Klein. And I’m Pam Klein. RA Torrey, a turn-of-the-century pastor and evangelist wrote the following: “The most important human factor in effective evangelism is PRAYER, Every great awakening in the history of the Church from the time of the Apostles until today has been the result of prayer. There have been great awakenings without much preaching, and there have been great awakenings with absolutely no organization, but there has never been a true awakening without much prayer.” Torrey goes on to point out the Awakenings in history...Read more …

This is Walk the Way. Brought to you by Q Place. I’m Jeff Klein. When I was a kid, I was lucky enough to see Barnum and Bailey’s Circus more than once. My favorite—the clowns. My second favorite—the elephants. But the most nerve racking were those crazy acrobats who would perch on that small platform at the top of the stadium, ready for some death defying stunt. I remember the tension. No one was sure where to look, but then, all at once, a giant spotlight would direct our eyes to the ceiling where the acrobat was perched. The light...Read more …

I’m not a morning person. But there’s something about summer that gets me up and moving. I love the warmth and the light. It’s my season. (Don’t want to even think about the fact that it’s just about half over!) And this summer, I’ve been trying something new. Every day. Well, certainly trying every day. Old habits die hard. I’m a doer. Doers do. But before I hit the ground running to do all my doing, I’m attempting to have a conversation with God so that I can give Him my day.  A day, actually, that He laid out for me. Psalm...Read more …

It was unsatisfactory, my prayer life. It had been that way too long. No amount of sincere desire had yet caused me to set aside the time I needed to in order to do what every Christian should be doing. (Shouldn’t they?) Times intended for prayer got interrupted with phone calls I suddenly remembered to return, or errands that were urgent. Prayer was neglected. It was Stephen Covey’s book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, that gave me the impetus to renew my effort. I scheduled the “big rock” of prayer into my calendar so that it didn’t get lost...Read more …