What role does prayer play in your ministry? If you were asked about your marketing strategy, would prayer feature in it? Read more to discover some answers…

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Every time an Anglican pastor takes up a new role we are reminded of our faith and then called to “proclaim it afresh in each generation.”  I love that image of proclaiming the gospel afresh in our generation, and it is a significant inspiration in my ministry.  What does it look like to proclaim our faith afresh in this generation?

When we think about this we tend to focus on the new challenges and opportunities in our rapidly changing world.  Certainly, in my ministry that has often been my focus.  Our ministry at Burning Heart is all about “exploring God’s Word through film”, and we exist primarily online.  In many ways we are the epitome of a digital ministry, proclaiming faith in a fresh and new way (or at least we hope we are!). 

In recent months though, I have had a strong sense of God pulling my focus back to something far less new – prayer.  For me the prompt has been unexpected – my thinking and struggles with marketing and social media.  Hopefully most of us believe in prayer, but how many seriously engage with it as a core part of our marketing strategy?

One of my struggles in setting up a new ministry has been in this area of marketing and social media.  You would probably expect a ministry like ours to be particularly strong in those areas, but unfortunately you would be wrong!  It’s an area that I have always been weak in and, given that I am the only person working full-time on Burning Heart, that shows in our social media presence. Over the summer I was working hard on changing all that, and turning us into a slick marketing and social media phenomenon.  The result was more stress than followers! 

But I did also pray.  And one day, as I was praying, I had a strong sense that I needed to re-focus on prayer.  My sense was to worry less, focus less on social media, and pray more.  I don’t just mean spending some time each day in personal prayer, I mean making prayer a key part of my working life and ministry.  Almost everyone I know who is in ministry believes in prayer – but how many of us actually pray like we believe in it?  Is prayer really central in our ministry?  It’s a business cliché that if you want to know what an organisation really values, you should look at the CEO’s calendar.  If we applied that test to our churches and ministries, how significant would prayer be?

Since thinking those thoughts, I have tried to build prayer into my life and ministry more.  In my case, it means going for long walks most days, praying as I go and seeking God’s help and guidance in what we are trying to do.  I feel a work in progress, and to be honest think I should probably be praying much more than I do!

As I have prayed, I have begun to realise how key prayer is to success in so many ways.  As the prompt (and title of this article) came in the area of marketing, I want to finish by pulling out four lessons I am learning about prayer and success in marketing.

1. Prayer is the key to success

I realised one day as I was praying that God is the only person who fully and truly understands digital marketing.  Experts can spend millions on campaigns and strategies that completely fail, while a spontaneous post by someone with no expertise or following at all can suddenly ‘break the internet.’  I have no idea why some things go viral and some things flop – and I suspect you don’t really either.  But God does.

Not only does God know everything, he can do everything too.  We’re used to the idea that he can defeat ancient armies, do miracles or raise the dead – but do you realise he’s as powerful on social media too?  That may not mean that he always does what I want him to do (we haven’t gone viral yet…), but it does mean that prayer is much the most powerful digital marketing tool we have at our disposal.

2. Prayer is the key to defining success

In prayer we not only seek God’s help, we also seek his presence and guidance.  Often that looks like surrendering what we want to happen and instead discovering what God wants to happen.  This is particularly true in marketing our ministries – am I following my agenda, or seeking to discern and implement God’s?

There is a word of warning here in the age of viral communications though.  I think that God is much less excited about the large and outwardly ‘successful’ than we are, and a whole lot more excited about the small and personal.  Just think of how much time Jesus spent with twelve ordinary and unfamous people.

3. Prayer is the key to planning success

Sometimes our prayers can be quite nebulous and unfocused, and we miss the possibilities of prayer in the nitty gritty.  Prayer can be vital not just in helping us work out what we are looking to achieve, but in working out how to get there.

For me this has been a key lesson in recent months, as I have sensed that God is calling me to de-prioritise certain things (mainly social media) and focus instead on the core of our ministry (writing and recording film series) and on prayer.  There are times and contexts when I suspect God would lead in the opposite direction – but for now that’s our focus, and I can trust God knows what he’s doing.

Of course, I may have completely mis-heard God.  Maybe the examples I have given in the previous two points are completely wrong and my ministry is in for a shock… in which case the next point is crucial!

4. Prayer is the key to letting go of success

For me this has been one of the biggest lessons of them all.  I have big dreams and visions that I believe God has given me, and as a result can often end up taking huge pressure on myself.  I think many of us in ministry end up carrying the weight of that pressure on ourselves, when actually our call is to pass that pressure back on to God (I think of 1 Peter 5v7).  Prayer is the moment when we do that, placing the responsibility back on to God and asking him to achieve everything that he has planned and purposed. 

I have found that the result of handing the responsibility over to God in prayer has also brought some fresh perspective.  I have had a particular ‘light bulb moment’ recently over social media.  I realised that God knew all about my lack of social media brilliance when he called me into this ministry – so either it isn’t necessary (at least at this point), or I do actually have all the skills and gifts I need after all. 

Even more fundamentally, I have remembered that if God really does have plans and vision for Burning Heart then “he who has called you is faithful, and he will do it” (1 Thessalonians 5v24).  If those plans and visions are just the fond imaginings of my heart, then they may well not happen after all – but in that case, that won’t really matter anyway.