List Intercessors

*much of this comes from the book " Intercessors" by T. Femrite - E.Alves- K.Kaufman
List Intercessors

When someone calls you for prayer, is your automatic response, to find a piece of paper to right down their prayer request and any other details around it? Then you are probably a 'list intercessor.' Do you have little pieces of paper with prayer requests kicking around your house, on your desk or in your Bible? Do you have lists of prayer requests on your fridge or tucked safely in your bible or journal? Then you are probably a list intercessor ! Remember tho: not all lists are prayed the same way!

Some jot their prayers down on paper, others use pocket tape recorders or MP3 devices. Others may make prayer walls, prayer lists or use a prayer journal – where they not only write down the requests, but go back and write in when the answers come. Some list pray-ers use pictures to remember to pray , and/or list the needs under each picture. Others simply have a bulletin board with pictures, notes or verses, that remind them during throughout the day to take a prayer stand for those God has assigned them. Other's use maps – maps of their neighbour hood or their city. Some people use the telephone books, and pray through a column a day! Others will comb through newspapers. Not all list intercessors will gather their sources the same way. See, not all lists are the same, nor are they prayed the same way.

Not only will list intercessors gather their sources and information differently, they may also sort that information in unique ways. Some divide their lists by topics: salvations, healing, finances, families, individuals. Some will assign one day to each topic. Others hold their lists before the Lord and ask for direction as to who or what to pray into for that day. Others still may pray scriptures over those the Lord has assigned them.

List intercessors are awesome! ( Aren't they all!?) They are known for their dependability and perseverance. They strengthen those they pray for with their loyalty and unwavering love and of course, their dependability. These prayer people are tenacious and consistent in their prayer support.

If you have a list intercessor praying for you, they will often know your schedule better than you know it. If you're on their list and they've said they are going to be praying for you, you know you will be getting prayer. Some list intercessors are so organized that they will pray for people every day at a particular time. A list pray-er will pray about any subject you give them , but they prefer having a list to follow. They find freedom in structure – it frees them up, once prayer needs are organized, to think about other things.

List pray-ers need to watch out that they don't fall into the trap of thinking only regimented prayer can be effective. It is important that tho you have a list to go through, that you also be willing to linger over any particular prayer request until you feel that it's done. List pray-ers tend to be more effective because of their particular style, when they are praying independently. Those who are created with a need for diversity can find list praying ( especially praying over someone else's list), inhibiting, confining and yes...boring. Also...list pray-ers can feel obligated to take on prayer assignments that are given to the 'on the run' – people who just stop in the moment and ask them for pray. They can learn to pray 'in the moment' .

“ Many Christians have erroneously decided that because they don't pray lists, they are not intercessors.” from Chp. 2 of “ Intercessors” This of course, is simply not true! Those who pray, need to know their prayer style in order to be effective and also to be encouraged!

Right now, in the Body of Christ, I am seeing a shift happening. Where we have spent a lot of time learning how to hear from God on an individual basis, and we've learned how to pray in our prayer closets – it is time to learn again, how to pray corporately. So..despite all the different styles we are learning about, we also need to know how to make those styles work in a corporate prayer meeting!

Here's some things to look for to tell if you are a 'list pray-er' and also pitfalls to be aware of, if you are! Remember, every strength also has a weakness – so be aware of yours!

Pitfalls:

*Burnout! What for it! We can get so many people on our lists, that we are not able to properly pray the way we want to. We can also have such long lists that we start to feel guilty about not being able to pray for them all. The key here is to know how long your assignment is and be able/willing to hear God say your assignment is done.
*Becoming judgmental towards others who either deviate in a meeting, from your list or a list.
*Believing there is no other way to pray, and in doing so can find it hard to fit in to a corporate prayer meeting.
*Lack of compassion when praying over a list complied by another person.
*Allow the lists to become more important than what is on the Father's heart at the moment – again important in corporate prayer meetings.
*Being determined to pray thru the entire list each time you pray.
*Experiencing condemnation when you don't pray the entire list.
*Letting the list become so long that futility causes you to give up prayer.
*Becoming overwhelmed and frustrated when your lists grow without seeing answers to prior requests
*Lacking boundaries to say 'no' to those whom has not asked you to put on your list ( assignment)

Remember, God is more interested in your heart attitude than in your performance in prayer.

Are you a List Intercessor?

*Do you find freedom in structure?
*Would regimented prayer inhibit you or release you?
*Have you recorded the dates of prayer requests?
*Do you pray over the same people consistently?
*When called to pray for someone, do you start by making a list?

Remember: to honor your relationship with God and others on your lists. It's really important to let the love of God shape your prayers for His people! Set priorities for your times of prayer, and be disciplined. Record what you receive in prayer – including dates and details. Be open and flexible to God's call to add or delete the people, places or issues that are on your list. Understand too, that not everyone is committed to, or finds life in lists – even yours!

Biblical example of a list pray-er? Ezra ! Book of Ezra he lists all those who returned to Jerusalem, the heads of clans, those involved in mixed marraiges. Basically God used him to spur a great revival! He's know as 'Ezra the scribe'. He's believe to be the author of most of 1 and 2 Chronicles, and this noble man of God records lists in all of his writings!

Issue Intercessors

*These intercession-types can be found in more detail in a book by 'Tommi Femrite-Elizabeth Alves - Karen Kaufman' called " Intercessors"

Issue Intercessors

Those who pray over issues will find that the Holy Spirit imprints an assignment on their souls/spirits. Sometimes issues flow out of their own hurts; other times the Lord simply drops a burden, like a seed, into the heart's soil and then pours out prayers to water it.

An 'issue' of intercession can be a lifetime assignment. Some intercessors who get burdens to pray for certain issues, will become involved in ministering to the very people involved in those issues: eg. Sex-trade workers, homosexuals, run-aways, pornography, violence against women . Othertimes, an issue of intercession can last just a season. The key is to be able to hear the Lord when we are to carry on, or when we are done and can release the burden.

Issue intercessors are those who stand against injustices. Their gift mix ( or as it can also be known, ' prayer-power mix) is often combined with mercy or warfare, to fight for those who can't fight for themselves. Only when LOVE is the driving force behind an issue intercessor is there enough passion to finish the assignment. Also..coming from a motivation of 'love' will help an issue intercessor from falling into cynicism, judgment or criticalness.

All issues eventually effect the family, and whatever affects the family will ultimately affect the nation and vice versa. Issue intercessors, therefore, will often prayerfully ban together to fight for changes in the laws that govern the nation .

Whether the issue is children, widows, singles, blended families, abortion, pornography, eduction, political concerns, gang violence, prostitution, or something else – the key to prayer for issues is to align with those who have the same focus and walk in agreement with those that are like minded. Otherwise, an issue intercessor can often themselves in prayer meetings whose goal is something different, and they become frustrated that no one is seeing the bigger picture OR they begin to feel isolated and out of 'sync' with the other prayer people around them.

One of the keys for an issue intercessor besides finding others who share the same burden, is to learn to adapt their gift of being seeing the bigger picture ( or the issue) in any prayer meeting, and being able to pray in that vein. How does the burden they carry, fit into the context of praying for their church, or city?

Pitfalls of Issue Intercessors:

-Focusing on the positive side of our prayer burden is only one way to discover your anointing. Have you noticed that our positive attributes also have a negative side? That is true of intercessors as well. The very strengths that can cause us to ride the wave of victory, can also be used to plunge us into discouragement and other problems. Align with the wrong people: those that have lost the love and redemption aspect of their prayer assignment and have fallen into negativism and criticalness – is just one of things we need to be aware of.

-Becoming frustrated or angry with others who do not share the burden over the same issues.
-Thinking our issue is the only important issue.
-Wearing the issue has a 'red badge of courage' that can lead to or turn into pride.
-Allowing the issue to become so consuming that the Lord begins to take second place.
-Wanting to rescue based on soulish love rather than a call of God.
-Exceeding the boundaries God has set for helping.
-Becoming so filled with gravity surrounding an issue that your spirit becomes dry and parched.
-Succumbing to guilt and confusion when the issues outweigh the number of laborers.
-Isolating from, rather than aligning with others who have the same call/issue to pray for.
-Praying for the praise of people rather than the praise of God – the one who assigned the issue in the first place.
-Losing your identity as first a son/daughter of God – and getting identity from the issue.

Are You an Issues Intercessor?
-Do injustices against others cause you to want to pray?
-Do you see people crying out in hopelessness and despair, when others don't?
-Are you a defender of any or all of the little children of the world?
-Can you think of something that makes you want to pound the table and weep?
-Can you think of something worth prayerfully fighting for, that flows out of your own, or someone else's hurtful experience? ( eg. Rape, violence, hunger, prejudice etc.)
-Has God provided you keys to open doors, into tightly locked hearts? If so, do you realize that you may be called to pray for those people?
-Do you find yourself hearing or watching things on the news ( or in the newspaper) that sends you into prayer?

Choose to spend time at Jesus' feet, speaking for those who cannot speak for themselves. Ask Him to fill you with love as you pray. Remember, that everything about God is 'redemption' – so even those who are a part of the problem, God may require of you to also pray for. Keep 'love' always in your heart as you pray...and He will fill your mouth with the prayers that move mountains: Ps.81:10 “Open wide your mouth and I will fill it.”

Types of Intercessors

Our group has found, two things over the years, that have helped us to understand the gift of intercession that we love: 1. the different types of intercessors and 2. the different languages of God. When we learned the different ways God speaks to each of us, and also the different type of intercessor we are - the better we have been able to grow in the gift of intercession, with more confidence. First, let's look at the different types of intercessors.

The best book out there that talks about different types of intercessors is a book by Tommi Femrite- Elizabeth Alves- Karen Kaufman, called " Intercessors". They list 12 different types of intercessors:

1. Issues Intercessors - Standing against injustices. The 'issues' are what make you weep and pound the table!

2. List Intercessors - You find freedom in structure! As soon as you hear a prayer request, you're looking for a pen.

3. Soul Intercessors - God's Midwives - you love to pray for people to choose everlasting life.

4. Personal Intercessors - Spiritual Guardians - You are a personal intercessor who can be trusted with confidential information, in order to pray for another person.

5. Financial Intercessors - Faith for Finances/Funding - You've been anointed by God to summon funds on behalf of others.

6. Mercy Intercessors - The Heart people - you are God's living stethoscopes. You can hear/feel the pain of others and want to extend the mercy of God to the root of that pain.

7. Crisis Intercessors: Paramedics of Prayer - You rush in and out of the throne room with urgent requests on behalf of others - acting as watchman for God's people.
You are the ones He can wake up in the middle of the night to pray for someone you may or may not even know!

8. Warfare Intercessors - The Military Might of the Kingdom - You fight to usher in truth by establishing God's authority in places where the enemy has a 'strong' hold on people, places or situations.

9. Worship Intercessors - Sacred Romancers - You access heaven's power, thru worship and bring hope to the hopeless. You silence the voice of the enemy and release the voice of the Beloved over people and situations.

10. Government Intercessors - Watchmen for Politics and the Church - You are the watchmen who prayerfully uphold the leaders in the church and political arenas where destinies are forged.

11. People- Group and Israel Intercessors - Prayer Shepherds for Ethnic Groups.
God is calling intercessory shepherds to lead the way in prayer for entire people groups. You're heart leaps when you think of certain nations or ethnic groups and you find yourself praying for them to be touched by God as a nation or group.

12. Prophetic Intercessors - Trusted with the Secrets of God - You pray the things on God's heart; then, under His direction you report the words, thoughts, images and actions He releases you to share - at His discretion.

Over the next couple of weeks, I'll go in depth into the different types of intercessors - the strength and the pitfalls.

The last few points....

7. Be committed& Submitted:

If you are praying for your local church, it’s very important that those involved in that prayer meeting are committed members of a local church. (It's hard to pray for something you dn't belong to or believe in! )

Remember also that the enemy will send plants into prayer groups to ‘hi-jack’ or ‘disrupt’ with disunity or distractions etc. Also, as you earn a pastor’s trust, you will find yourself being able to pray more and more effectively into the life of your church – that will require trust and confidentiality on your part to be able to pray without judgement or agendas.

Also be willing to submit to the leadership of the group, if there are issues or disagreements. Remember, we’re only human, and things will come up. We’ve had to deal with many things over the years – even some of our best and senior intercessors having to be asked to NOT pray quite so long. Their committment to pray and their submission to the leadership of group, made talking about those things, easy – and they adjusted themselves to make room for the others, rather than get offended. We’ve had to address where people felt cut-off during a prayer, or that people felt they’d been spoken to rudely – it happens. But again, because our commitment is to pray and love one another, we can address issues in love!

8. Maintain the Integrity of the Group

Again this pertains both to local church prayer groups, and groups gathering for larger city-wide church issues.This requires you to not allow the prayer group to be used to ‘discuss’ people’s issues about their pastor or leaders, criticisms with the local church, or gossip etc. . It is very important that the group maintain Jesus heart towards whatever prayer issue (mandate) He has called your group to pray for.

Also, don’t take issues that God has given you to PRAY into, out into daily conversations with others. Many times what makes sense in an atmosphere of prayer, can be taken completely out of context over a casual coffee. Try to maintain a sense, not of elitism or secrecy, but one of integrity and confidentiality.

9. Be a Source of Confirmation – NOT direction:

Intercessory prayer groups, should seek to be a source of support for the local church and it’s leaders, NOT a source of power and direction. Remember our job is to pray for leaders to HEAR from God – not to hear God FOR them!

If you do feel you have something that needs to be shared with a leader, we advise our intercessors to give the word, and ‘leave it’. That means, once you have delivered what you ‘sense’ the Lord is saying – your job is done. Now it’s up to the leader to weigh and judge whether the word is accurate, or what the Lord is saying to him thru it. Remember, don’t over-explain a word either – you could be putting your interpretation on it, thus confusing the issue IF the person receiving it is actually to hear from the Lord for themselves.

For example: say your ‘word’ is like a pizza. You’re job is to simply deliver the pizza. You don’t stand around and watch the person eat it. You don’t ask for a tip. You don’t ask for part of it. You deliver the pizza, and go back to the source to see what’s else is assigned to you. You don’t get offended if they don’t like it, don’t finish it, or throw it away – it’s not YOUR pizza, you only deliver it.

Also, we have found thru discussion with many pastors that prayer people can end up inundating them with words – warning words, battle words, and prophetic calls – to the point where they are overwhelmed. One pastor told me that he actually began avoiding his ‘head intercessor’ because all she ever had to tell him was ‘bad news’, or to tell him what the Spirit of God was wanting for the church – that he must do or miss opportunities for blessing, growth etc. It’s your job to ‘pray thru’ most of those kinds of word. If God is showing you where He wants to ‘bless’, then pray for protection over what’s coming, and preparation for hearts to receive what God is wanting to do.

If God is showing you where an attack may happen, it’s SO THAT you pray protection over that area – that’s your job. You don’t need the pastor or leaders acknowledgment every time you wage war on their behalf – if you do, then you need to take a look at your motives for praying.

Lastly, we’ve found on the average that 9 out of 10 words you get in a prayer do not need to be shared – they need to be prayed! So…use your accessibility with your leaders with discretion – don’t burn them out. This way when you do come, they’ll listen because you’ve a proven track record of not coming with everything your ‘getting’ in prayer.


Blessings on your adventure in prayer! Remember, we have only shared some common boundaries that have helped our group stay together, and functioning in prayer for an extended period of time- it will be 15years this year! We do not presume to think we know all the ways God would teach a prayer group, but we do hope that some of what has ‘worked’ for us…will help your group also ‘go the distance’ and find the joy of intercession, that we have.

If you have any questions or comments, I'd love to hear them!

MOre

4.Agreement to not Get Offended with Styles:

These days, whether it’s a church prayer meeting or an inter-faith gathering, there are always people coming with different backgrounds on prayer and experiences.

Some people will pray in tongues, some will not. Some will stand, some will sit. Some will be loud, others will be silent. Some people get scriptures, some people get pictures - some people get songs.

It’s all important – and alright if it’s all different.

Don’t try and make everyone ‘hear’ from God the same way. Acknowledge that we’re all gifted differently and this is a time of blending those gifts together to work for the greater good of the The Body. Before a prayer group even starts, everyone must agree that they will not be intimidated by different styles or judge one another. We agree ahead of time that we are there IN UNITY to pray together for a specific need, and we release everyone to pray however they are comfortable.

Now, having said that, I must also remind us that we are to be preferring one another. That means that if someone’s style is very loud and dominating, they need to, out of love for one another be willing to ‘dial it down’ a bit, so that their style doesn’t dominate the flow in the room or intimidate others. In no way does that mean they should not pray, but we agree to be sensitive to one another, and not demand our own way! Look for ways to flow together in the Spirit – to find ways to be ‘one voice’. Remember that being united doesn’t mean all being the same – but it does mean flowing with one heart, one voice and in the same direction.

5. Be God focused

Be careful, when engaging in spiritual warfare in a prayer group that you do not become ‘enemy focused’, instead of God focused. By this we mean, do not engage your prayer group into focusing and speaking to the enemy and his forces, instead of God and His might!

Many prayer groups have been exhausted taking on battles that the Lord has told us are His. If a person in the group is continually calling down Satan, telling him this and that – the group needs to discern whether that is fitting in with their mandate, and IF that type of prayer is leaving a sense of refreshing or exhaustion.

Prayer that leaves a group feeling exhausted or defiled in any way, needs to be looked at again. Remember we call God down into the battle, call on Him to release His hosts to fight, and remind Him where the enemy is! He takes care of the rest! Speaking too much in a prayer meeting directly to the enemy or his demons, can often cause problems in that can eventually hurt the health, strength and unity in the group. ( We never want it said that we spent more time addressing the enemy, than we did talking to God!!)

If you need examples or teachings on this, there is a great teaching called “Warfare Praying in Psalms”. This teaching gives the examples that out of (approx.) 850 verses in Psalms that directly or indirectly deal with warfare, only 6 times does David rebuke the enemy for what he’s doing and only 3 times does David directly address the enemy. Yet 227 x’s he tells God where the enemy is, and calls God down into that! God does the battle. He calls God into the battle 75x’s more often, than he ever directly addressed the enemy himself. Often our prayer groups can get this statistic the other way around. We need to be alert to the enemy drawing us into battles that we should be calling God down into!

6. Be Willing to Learn

No one person knows everything about prayer. Be willing to learn from each other. Be willing to be instructed by those in the group, or by bringing people into the group. Be willing to share information, but give people the right to not always ‘get’ what you get out of book, or a teaching series. Be willing to develop your intercessory gifting – don’t get locked into thinking that your way of praying is the ONLY way.

More points to follow...but don't worry, I'm just about done now! If you have any comments or questions about points 1 - 6 that I've shared thus far - let me know!