Your Prayers Have Power: Rising in a Time of Fear

Your Prayers Have Power: Rising in a Time of Fear

by | Nov 11, 2025

The wide-scale injustices and breakdown of democracy we are experiencing today can leave you wondering if your prayers have power. I get it. When the news is heavy, and the future is uncertain, it’s easy to wonder. Is God even listening? The pain points are clear: fear, anxiety, a loss of basic safety and stability. I promise you this: Your prayers have power. In this article I want to share with you five principles for powerful prayer.

But first, let’s address a common myth about prayer that I often hear.

 

The Myth that Only Certain Prayers are Heard

A common myth is that only certain prayers are heard. Or that only certain people can enact real change. But here’s the truth. In the face of major systems of injustice, change is not a sudden, one-time event. Rather, change comes about through a tapestry of courageous actions and persistent prayer. In the words of St. Francis of Assisi “The deeds you do may be the only sermon some persons will hear today”.

 

Five Principles of Powerful Prayer

To transform your approach to prayer and rise from discipleship to apostleship, here are the five principles of powerful prayer. They come from believing like Jesus, not simply believing in Him.

1) Seek Divine Partnership: Jesus, being fully human and fully divine, regularly withdrew to lonely, quiet places to pray, seeking guidance, strength, meditation, renewal, and communion with God. Prayer is the most essential form of communication with the divine. Jesus invites us to believe that we too are in divine partnership with God.

2) Believe You Have Received: Jesus’ audacious advice is: “Whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours” (Mark 11:24). It sounds a little easier than it is. Because it means not doubting our own faith, or your own relationship with God. As you begin to believe like Jesus and believe your prayers have power, start by praying for something you can truly believe in, something you won’t actively doubt you can do. For instance, pray that you can be consistently kind toward others.  Rather than praying that you can stop unjust practices on the spot. Start small, build your faith, and work up toward the larger goals.

3) Practice Persistence: Jesus taught his disciples to always pray and not give up. Like the persistent woman who received justice from an unjust judge, your persistence in faith and prayer is a key ingredient. The scriptures counsel us to “not grow weary in well-doing.” Pray each day for God’s good and gracious will to be done. Then look for instances where it is happening. Tell others of the good that you are witnessing. Not as a way of ignoring evil, but to create a positive feedback loop and build the muscle of persistent prayer.

4) Align Your Beliefs (Intentionality): Your prayers can be hindered when you pray against your deepest beliefs. In other words, if you pray for a big blessing but deep down suspect you don’t deserve it, your beliefs are not aligned with your prayer. Align your prayers with your beliefs, as Jesus did, and watch miracles unfold.

5) Prayer is Action: Not all prayer is meditative or in solitude. Can one be truly blessed while turning a blind eye to the suffering of others? Don’t wait for the answers to your prayers to come to you – get out of your comfort zone! Put feet on your prayers by volunteering at a food bank, turning out for protests, or seeking the betterment of others. Powerful prayer is active.

 

How My Prayers Got Answered…Finally

By the time I was ready for children I was forty. I desperately longed for the experience of parenting, but nothing seemed to work. After investigating foster to adopt programs, domestic and international adoption, none of these paths felt right. I even prayed, “God, can’t the stork just ring the doorbell and drop off a child on the front steps?” I grieved and thought I had let the desire go.

Fast forward more than twenty years. I found myself in a deep existential crisis, burdened by a profound sense of absence and loneliness. The longing for a multi-generational family returned with a vengeance, leaving me sad and listless. Ten days into this crisis, a friend’s family was falling apart, and their two young children were in danger. I prayed for them that night. The very next morning, two little brothers lay fast asleep in the guest bedroom, having been dropped off late in the night by a social worker. Without forewarning, they were two children to care for, a sudden and unexpected disruption.

My surprise quickly turned to wonder and acceptance, as I knew in my heart this was God’s work. The existential crisis vanished; my heart soared. God had finally answered my “stork prayer”—just two decades later than I’d expected.

 

Next Steps/Takeaways

Your prayers are a thread in the tapestry of a new unfolding reality. Prayer is essential for both transforming systems of injustice and for bringing God’s answers into your life. So don’t give up hope. But you’ll have to surrender self-limiting thought patterns, and the desire for immediate gratification. Instead, actively adopt attitudes and beliefs that align with your prayers. Here are two next steps.

Answer the Call: Believe in your prayers as Jesus does. Believe that God has already said “Yes” to you. Then, allow God to answer your prayers in God’s own way and time.

Practice: See everything that happens in your life—that new opportunity, that unexpected gift, those sudden circumstances—as an answer to a prayer.

To deepen your understanding and capacity for apostolic prayer, I invite you to join me at an upcoming spiritual retreat, held at Epiphany, the twelfth day of Christmas. Learn more and register here:  Epiphany: Manifesting the Miraculous.

 

 

Copyright © 2025 rebekahsimonpeter.com.  All Rights Reserved.

Is it Possible to Love One Another as Jesus Loves Us?

Is it Possible to Love One Another as Jesus Loves Us?

by | Jan 26, 2022

Lenten Practices

 

During Lent, we remember Jesus’ command: “Love one another as I have loved you.” My question is: is it still possible to love one another as Jesus loved us? We live in a world of us versus them, a culture of contempt. We are broken into camps around politics, theology, and understandings of race. Don’t forget human sexuality, biblical authority, and denominational structures. Did I mention the pandemic? Frankly, some of us are too tired to even be patient, let alone loving. Even with all that said, I promise you we don’t have to give up on love. In this article, I want to share the top four ways to practice love this Lent.

 

Does Love Equal Approval?

First, I want to share one common concern. That’s the concern that love means approval. If I am called to love you, but we disagree about fundamental understandings of the world, am I compromising my faith? Am I sending the signal that I approve of what I believe is sinful or unjust behavior?

Here’s what I have found. Loving as Jesus loved does not mean acceptance of behaviors or beliefs. It does however equal acceptance of the other person’s humanity, and their inner divinity. No matter how misguided you think their beliefs and behaviors are. In the end, judgement is God’s domain, not ours.

Now, on to the problem and the solutions: the four ways to practice love this Lent.

 

Why Loving as Christ Loved is Hard

Polarization tends to beget polarization and it takes us farther and farther from Jesus’ command. Polarization is built on fear and judgement. “I am right, and you are wrong. In fact, you are so wrong that I can’t trust you, talk with you, or even be me when you are here.”

These victim stances have no place in the consciousness of Christ. He ate with sinners. He interacted with Pilate. He did not try to winnow out the “other.” He allowed Judas to remain. He set personal differences aside and, in their place, created community amongst his people.

 

Four Ways to Practice Love This Lent

1) Practice Looking for Common Value Polarizing constructs are only given life when we act on them. By letting go of “us versus them,” you take the first steps toward loving as Jesus loved, and to creating community. Instead, let polarization dissolve by embracing the opposites, or by finding, identifying, and focusing on common underlying values.

2) Practice Listening When you are with someone you don’t love, listen for their humanity. Put yourself in their shoes. Ask: how has your personal journey brought you to this place? How has it shaped your perspectives?

3) Practice Extending Grace The person you can’t stand to love may look at you the same way you look at them. Surprise them by extending grace. Give them grace to make a mistake, to be on a different journey, to grow in their own timeline, and to be recipients of God’s love, and yours.

4) Practice Praying If you can’t find love within you, ask God to show you how, to teach you how to love them. If that doesn’t work, keep praying.

 

It’s Possible to Love One Another as Jesus Loves Us

The pandemic has shown us that there is no us versus them. There is only us. People from every walk of life and every country on earth have been impacted by the pandemic. If we hope to come through it with any sense of unity, we have to practice loving one another as Jesus loved us. It’s not automatic; it takes intention. I invite you to take on these four practices this Lent: looking for common values, listening, extending grace, and praying.

We don’t know everything the post-pandemic future holds, but the more we trust God in our approach, the more that we can live by Jesus’ command. Then, the more confident we’ll be knowing that we can survive and even thrive once again.

Excerpted and adapted from Rebekah Simon-Peter’s upcoming book (Market Square Publishers, 2022)

Copyright © 2022 rebekahsimonpeter.com, All Rights Reserved.

Walk the Path of Healing through Lent

Walk the Path of Healing through Lent

by | Jan 19, 2022

The Covid-19 pandemic has brought about a world of change. Many congregations have been weighed down with grief, resentment, and fear, unable to move forward. This year, I want to show you how to walk the path of healing through Lent. In this article, I’ll share how to move through the stages of repentance, remembrance, acceptance, forgiveness, gratitude, and embracing on each of the six Sundays of Lent.

 

A Day of Repentance

Repentance means to turn back to God. Recognize how you may have played a part in harming another. Did you push people away with acts of injustice or ignore a neighbor? Did you contribute to acts of polarization or lose the way of hope? Congregational acts of repentance include sending out the prayer of confession and pardon from the United Methodist service of Holy Communion, asking your congregation to read and reflect on it, and bring their contemplations to worship. Read the prayer slowly and deliberately to truly grasp the depth of each line.

 

A Day of Remembrance

Spend time as a congregation in active remembrance. Remember those who have passed and the gifts that they brought. Remember the ones you could not visit and their seat in the sanctuary. Remember your family members, neighbors, and loved ones who have died because of Covid or other causes. Acknowledge human loss, offer thanksgiving for their legacy, and joy that death is not the end of life. Celebrate Holy Communion as a congregational act of remembering, that at this sacred table we gather together with those on the journey of life and with those who are in our great cloud of witnesses.

 

A Day of Acceptance

Acceptance tends to be a touchy subject.  We saw this on the national stage as the country debated the existence of Covid and the legitimacy of the election process. In the church, acceptance is deeply connected with faith. Degrees of faith tend to be used as a measuring stick for whom we accept and whom we do not. The truth is, acceptance does not mean approval. Acceptance is simply the willingness to recognize what is so, whether you personally believe it is good or not. It is an act of surrender, a way to release control over what we never had control of in the first place. Congregational acts of acceptance include creating a personal or communal “bulletin” board that represents all the changes that have taken place during the pandemic: what has been gained and what has been lost. This “bulletin” board can then become a point for reflective prayer.

 

A Day of Forgiveness

Forgiveness is necessary when harm has been done. The pandemic has evoked many strong opinions and reactions among us. Whether it is the issue of vaccines and masks, politics and the presidential election, or social distancing and working from home, it feels like a thousand different harms pulled us further away from each other. I’ve spoken to many friends, family members, and colleagues whose sorrow has led to resentment, blame, and judgement. While blame and judgement seem understandable in extreme circumstances, the rancor that lives within is poisonous to your body, mind, and spirit. Forgiveness opens the way for healing to begin.  Forgiveness doesn’t mean that you condone someone else’s behavior. It means that you are willing to stop carrying the harm within yourself. Congregational acts of forgiveness include prayer for oneself, friends, and enemies, and the surrender of resentment and rancor to God’s loving care.

 

A Day of Gratitude

Gratitude is the heart’s response to the gifts of God. Although much has been lost during the pandemic, much has also been gained. Amplify the feelings of gratitude within your heart by counting your blessings. Take time to reflect on and recognize all that you can be thankful for, and what you have learned from the changes that have taken place. Congregational acts of gratitude include hymn sings, sharing of testimonies, and acts of service for others.

 

A Day of Embracing

Embracing is a positive, proactive act that allows one to move forward into a new future. It’s an open heart that can both pray “thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” and “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” This kind of embracing embodies the unconditional love of God that flows outward to all, no strings attached. Congregational acts of embracing include reciting affirmations of faith, anointing, and speaking new visions into life.

As we approach Lent, which of these congregational acts will prepare your people to receive the gifts of resurrection? Which will bring healing, wholeness, and a renewed awe on this gift we call life? Even though the pandemic is not over, it’s time to look ahead for what new plans God is unfolding. We won’t be ready to receive them unless we repent, remember, accept, forgive, express gratitude, and embrace.

While we can’t rush the process, once we walk the path through these six stages, we can be ready once again to co-create miracles with God.

If you’re ready to take the next step, please join me for Jesus-Sized Dreams for Small-Sized Churches, a three-session workshop where you’ll learn how to Dream Like Jesus and bring renewal to your congregation and community.

 

Copyright © 2021 rebekahsimonpeter.com, All Rights Reserved.

Preparing for Lent

Preparing for Lent

by | Jan 11, 2022

Let me guess.  You read the title of this week’s blog post and thought to yourself, “Preparing for Lent?! I have almost 2 months of worship to prepare for before I even think about Lent.” While that is true, the Lenten season will be here before we know it. And I believe that, considering the past two years, we have a lot of work to do to truly be ready to rise at Easter.

So much has changed.  We’ve missed celebrating birthday parties, graduations, wedding anniversaries, even weddings themselves.  We’ve watched as people have turned on one another and experience heartache as friendships are lost, damaged, even destroyed.  Fighting across the aisle has been turned up to a level that borders on uncivilized.  What happens in our world tends to make its way into the church, as they watch their numbers dwindle, some as a result of relocation or a specific political view, others who have moved from this life into the next. The whole matter of loved ones dying and family and friends not being able to grieve in the usual ways, mourn communally, or mark their passing has slowed down people’s ability to rebound.

Not being able to grieve the losses of the pandemic has left us stuck, feeling incomplete and even isolated. Many people have died alone, without family or friends to visit, without pastoral calls or prayer. This has weighed heavy on churches and their leaders. Grief in and of itself is hard to bear. Weighed down by unprocessed grief, it’s hard for churches to move forward. Indeed, it’s hard for the world to move forward, as we are all grieving something or someone. When mourners are unable to share stories and be comforted by one another or have a place to go long afterwards, it creates a deep sense of displacement.

A May 2020 study on grief published in Psychiatry stated, “Funeral and burial rituals are important for the affective adjustment of people grieving the loss of a loved one and mourners who drew comfort from planning and participating in the funeral were shown to achieve better outcomes in later grief. From this perspective, being prevented from holding a proper funeral for their loved ones might prevent COVID-19 mourners from gaining awareness of the reality of the death and from understanding and framing their loss, besides eliminating a significant important occasion of social support.”

Preparing for Lent

How does the church move on from this experience? The time between now and Lent is our opportunity to do so. Below are five ways that you can help your congregation move forward.

1. We would do well to look at the Jewish traditions for grieving. In traditional Judaism, funerals happen as soon as possible after a death occurs and the following week is spent solely at home with family and members of the Jewish community. Customary prayers are recited daily to honor the dead. This week is intended to focus on accepting loss and to encourage healing. A longer, formal mourning process lasts 30 days, where mourners slowly reintegrate themselves into the world. Prayers continue to be recited daily. If a parent is lost, this formal mourning lasts eleven months. In the eleventh month, an unveiling ceremony takes place, wherein the gravestone is revealed. In the years that follow on the anniversary of death, a candle that burns for 24 hours is lit in memory of the deceased. Setting precedence for a longer mourning process will help those that are grieving create expectations and know that they are not leaving their loved ones behind.

2. Draw comfort from your faith, focus on your wellbeing, and set boundaries. Being church leaders, we’re sometimes expected to have all the answers. I’m sure you’ve had members of your congregations and communities ask how they are supposed to navigate these times. You may be lost, feeling like you’re trying to figure that out right now too. Not having all the answers can make you feel inadequate, or like you aren’t doing “enough.” This isn’t true. Trying to do everything only leads to burn-out and emotional fatigue.

3. Acknowledge that we are living in a different time. Be resourceful with how you can bring people together. Now, more than ever, it is so important that we make social connections a priority. Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Facetime, and other video conferencing platforms are great for bringing people together, while still maintaining social distance.

4. Create emotionally safe spaces for people to share their hurt without feeling judged. Do your best to listen to those that feel comfortable enough to share these deeply personal feelings with you. Oftentimes, listening and truly being present is more consoling than offering advice or explanation.

5. Encourage those that you support to create their own rituals. Journaling, doing activities that remind them of their loved ones, or planting a tree in their memory are all healthy and effective ways for others to express their feelings and continue in the healing process.

It goes without saying that we aren’t going to be able to change everything, but we do have the power to change certain things. These changes will make a difference in how those in our congregations and communities experience and grapple with grief. Addressing these now will allow us to truly be prepared for Lent and to rise for the resurrection.

Excerpted and adapted from Rebekah Simon-Peter’s upcoming book, Growing the Post-Pandemic Church (Market Square Publishers, 2022)

Copyright © 2021 rebekahsimonpeter.com, All Rights Reserved.

Weakened Democracy Makes for Weakened Churches

Weakened Democracy Makes for Weakened Churches

by | Jan 4, 2022

We are one year out from the insurrection at the US Capitol building in which riotous crowds did great damage to the building, threatened US Congresspeople—both Democratic and Republican—beat Capitol police, and tried to stop the counting of electoral votes. Moderates are retiring, leaving more extreme voices at the forefront of leadership. This trend results in weakened democracy.

A recent piece in the Wall Street Journal, a conservative, no-nonsense newspaper, notes that in the year past, the unthinkable has happened. Instead of former president Trump’s influence waning through this obvious attack on the institutions of democracy, as of late 2021, 81% of Republicans have a favorable impression of Trump while 57% continue to believe the false story of stolen elections. His standing among many Republicans is stronger than ever as he continues to trumpet the falsehoods of a stolen election. Meanwhile a sustained investigation by the Associated Press has shown that less than 475 votes of the millions cast during the 2020 presidential election might be potentially fraudulent.

When truth is attacked, questioned, battered, and simply negated through the repetition of falsehood, and the false is lifted as true, democracy suffers.

 

How Weakened Democracy Weakens Churches

Meanwhile, this degradation of democracy has not stopped at the doors of the church. Rather, skewed narratives of true and false have infiltrated, fractured, and polarized congregations. This divisiveness shows up in the partisan-inspired debates over COVID-19, masks, vaccines, and safety. Managing this internal opposition has stretched pastors to the limit as they add this to the long list of dramatic changes to manage.

In the polarized environment in which we live, weak democracy makes for weak churches. Of course, it’s not just weak democracy that weakens churches. As I note elsewhere, congregations have been in decline due to other internal factors.

Even so, government has not always had such an outsize influence on churches. For example, during the early days of the church, under repressive Roman rule, the church flourished and thrived. At that time, Jesus was not equated with political processes. Rather, he stood in opposition to the powers that be. His rule was a countercultural one of love, inclusion, hospitality, miracles, and the Kingdom of God.

 

When Jesus is Equated with Political Identities

That’s not always the case now. When Jesus is equated with political identities the church suffers because the followers of Jesus are now asked to serve a lesser power. Instead of the ultimate command to love God, neighbor and self, they are subject to the whims and manipulations of partisan politics. The common good is pushed aside for monied interests, power grabs, self-serving falsehoods, and even coup attempts. Jesus’ followers, blessings, and Kingdom are easily manipulated by leaders who are not necessarily aligned with the Gospel message.

 

What Can the Church Do?

As we approach the Day of Epiphany—the day in which Jesus is recognized as the incarnation of God, we also approach the anniversary of the Capitol insurrection and a failed coup attempt of the US government.  On the Day of Epiphany and beyond we are faced with two opposing images of power: one that manifests the love of God in humble human life, and one that selfishly attacks civic institutions that safeguard democracy.

Which image of power will the church choose to recognize? To follow? To emulate?

Even more important are these questions: How will we separate fact from fiction?  How will we tease apart lies from truth?

The church would do well to teach people how to hear each other, to respect each other, and to discern the truth. For the bottom line is that, in these polarized times—when democracy is weakened—the church is weakened too. This dual weakness does not serve our communities, our message, or the Kingdom of God.

 

Putting Jesus First

When the church puts Jesus—not politics—first, true strength can grow. This strength is borne of love, forgiveness and humility. This kind of strength is good for everyone. It’s the soil in which the Kingdom of God, the Beloved Community, can take root. That is good for the church, for society, and for democracy.

We must seek to strengthen the church and the communities we serve through love of God, neighbor and self to navigate polarizing times.

May God be with us as we seek anew to follow Jesus.

 

Copyright © 2021 rebekahsimonpeter.com, All Rights Reserved.

Looking Back in Order to Move Forward

Looking Back in Order to Move Forward

by | Dec 29, 2021

It’s that time of year again.  It’s time to look back and reflect on the year past in order to move forward into the new  year. In these last few days of the year, I want to encourage you to finish strong. I recommend that you hit the pause button to reflect on your growth as an apostle of Jesus over the past 12 months. A new year brings new opportunities for spiritual growth, but first, it’s important to reflect on what you have accomplished in the last year. Offer yourself the gift of looking back as the year draws to a close.

Why bother? Reflecting on and completing the year past clears an open space from which to freely jump into the next year. Avoiding or refusing to pause and reflect won’t allow you to truly recognize how far you’ve come, or to note prayers that God answered.

In doing my own year-end reflections, I like to use the “5 Quantum Leaps of Faith” to see where I grew. These leaps are grounded in the Bible and exemplified by Jesus Himself. Best of all, each leap moves you from discipleship to apostleship.

As you read through the following five leaps, score yourself, on a scale of one to five, so that you can quantitatively see what you can celebrate and where you can stretch. Give yourself 1 point if you can answer “yes” to a question, 3 points if you can say “yes” for multiple instances, and 5 points if you feel that you consciously made a point to do each on a continual basis. Then we’ll tally up the results at the end.

This is a great model to use to engage your leadership team or church committee.  Remember to include and acknowledge the leaps your people have made as well.  Like a long-jumper, measure even the smallest advances and remember that gradual growth leads to exponential gains.

Finally, I recommend that you document your growth. Creating a visible record of your progress solidifies the gains you made and clarifies gaps you can close in the coming year. Get creative and have fun celebrating how far you have come.

leap of faith

Now, let’s take a look at the 5 Leaps of Faith I’m talking about.

 

Leap #1: Be fruitful and multiply like Jesus

There’s more to following Jesus than emulating the spiritual principles He taught. You are also called to emulate Him by multiplying yourself. This comes by passing on your Kin(g)dom vision and values to the people you lead.

  1. Did you delegate to involve people in new ways?
  2. Did you contribute to the growth of the kin(g)dom by sharing power and authority with those who wished to grow?
  3. Did you freely share a vision and employ those around you to help move it forward?

 

Leap #2: Be empowered like Jesus

One of the most Jesus-like practices that a Christian leader can embrace is to be empowered and empower others. Lord knows we all need it. Jesus shared His authority freely and authorized His followers again and again to do the very things He did.

  1. Did you feel empowered to act?
  2. Did you say yes to Jesus and accept the freedom and authority He gives?
  3. Did you follow the promptings of the Spirit?

 

Leap #3: Be accountable like Jesus

Jesus was accountable to the one He called Father for fulfilling His call and He was rewarded mightily. When we become accountable for our own giftedness and potential, we can begin to live fully into the gifts we’ve received.

  1. Did you recognize and use what you’ve been taught?
  2. Did you employ your spiritual gifts?
  3. Did you maximize the gift of time by saying yes and no to the right things?

 

Leap #4: Believe like Jesus

Jesus makes it clear that He wants us to have the same kind of faith He Himself has.

He teaches His followers to not only have faith in Him, but to have the faith like Him. Every time we participate in miracle-making, just as the apostles did, we are demonstrating Christ-like faith.

  1. Did you act on the belief that your life has purpose?
  2. Did you live in partnership with God?
  3. Did you contribute to any miracle making?

 

Leap #5: Love like Jesus

Jesus practiced the holy trinity of love: love of God, love of neighbor and love of self. Love is an action and a commitment, based on being Christ-like. When we practice self-hate, self-neglect, self-abasement, or self-denigration, we harm and damage ourselves.  When we practice self-love, we increase our ability to love others.

  1. Did you grow in self-love this year?
  2. Did you offer love and grace to others, even when you didn’t want to?
  3. Did you surrender negativity to God?

Now that you have inventoried your growth, let’s add up your points to see where you stand.

  • 60 – 75 points: Rock on! You’re in the zone.
  • 40 – 59 points: You’re on the right track, keep going!
  • 20 – 39 points: You’re getting there; look for places you can stretch in the coming year.
  • 0 – 19 points: Are you giving yourself enough credit? If there’s room for improvement, what better time to start than today?

No matter what your score is, this is the time to celebrate and to stretch. A great way to stretch in the new year is to grow in self-awareness. Expand your emotional intelligence by joining me for the timely Platinum Rule Leadership for Changing Times workshop, where you’ll do just that. The first session begins on January 6.

Happy New Year! Here’s to a year of quantum leaps of faith for us all.

 

Copyright © 2021 rebekahsimonpeter.com, All Rights Reserved.