A few years ago a friend of mine became pastor of a church located in a downtown transition area. Steeped in traditions and with little demographic growth in its location, the church was a classic case of the old, dying, downtown church.

The pastor struggled with the direction of the church. Should they relocate? Should they start a satellite church? Should they focus the church's ministry primarily to the inner city?

Because so many major decisions were on the horizon, he realized that only God could provide the answers, resources and strength he needed. Though the pastor already knew prayer was essential to the Christian, the moment of need at this church made him desire a touch of God's power more than ever. He turned to prayer.

Under his leadership, the church began various prayer ministries that became a vital part of the life of the church. Within weeks prayers, articulated and written, began to be answered. A new sense of expectancy enveloped the church. On one occasion, a leader in the prayer ministry decided to gather a list of recently-answered prayers. To the surprise of many, the single-spaced list covered 20 pages!

The church began to see people accept Christ as their Lord and Savior almost every week. Virtually every one of those saved were people who had been concerns of prayer for weeks and months.

Major decisions still await the pastor and the church. But now the people move forward in confidence that the future is in God's hands, not their own. This traditional church has indeed been renewed by the power of prayer.

The Statistical Evidence

In my earlier works on church growth, I cited prayer as the foundational growth principle. I also stated that prayer is a mandate for the church and the individual believer regardless of numerical growth results. Yet I wondered if a statistical relationship existed between prayer and numerical growth.

In 1991, C. Kirk Hadaway published a book that has become an invaluable resource for church growth enthusiasts. Hadaway statistically tested several church growth "principles" such as evangelistic outreach, Sunday School enrollment, exciting worship, pastoral leadership and others. Hadaway categorized the churches he studied into different groups, among them "plateaued" and "breakout" churches. A plateaued church is one that has experienced modest decline or growth for several years but, essentially, has changed little in numerical size. A breakout church was formerly a plateaued church, but is now experiencing significant growth.

The results of Hadaway's study were amazing. He found that "71 percent of breakout churches report an increased emphasis on prayer over the past several years as compared to only 40 percent of churches which continued on the plateau." Hadaway views the statistical difference as significant. He noted, "This rather large difference indicates that one part of the revitalization which has taken place in breakout churches came in the form of a renewed emphasis on prayer."

It is also important to note that the 71 percent figure may understate the role of prayer for growth. The churches represented by that number reported an increased emphasis on prayer. Other growing churches may have already reported strong prayer ministries.

I examined 576 of the most evangelistic churches in America in my book "Effective Evangelistic Churches". Unlike the Hadaway study, I looked at conversion growth only. But my conclusions were similar. A significant movement of prayer in these local churches preceded the evangelistic growth of the church. Indeed, prayer was consistently listed as one of the top three reasons for the renewed growth in the churches.

We do not need statistical evidence to confirm the importance of prayer in the local church; we need obedience. The biblical mandate is clear. May God raise up an army of prayer warriors in churches across our land!