By Guest: Mark Batterson
I want to be famous in my home.
That is the deepest desire of my heart and the greatest challenge of my life. Parenting our three children is far more difficult and far more important than the thousands of people I have the privilege of pastoring at National Community Church. Pastors are replaceable. Parents aren’t.
You’ll never be a perfect parent, but you can be a praying parent. Prayer is your highest privilege as a parent. There is nothing you can do that will have a higher return on investment. In fact, the dividends are eternal. Prayer turns ordinary parents into prophets who shape the destinies of their children, grandchildren, and every generation that follows.
The blood running through my veins is fifty percent Swedish. I trace my genealogy back through the Johansson family who made a decision to get on a boat and come to America in the late 19th century. That single decision set off a chain reaction that radically altered the destiny of every descendent to follow. That one decision impacted every descendent in our family tree in a thousand different ways.
Just as one decision can change your destiny, so can one prayer. If you were to map out your spiritual history, you would find countless answers to prayer at key intersections along the way. Before you were even born, even named, many of you had parents and grandparents who prayed for you. At critical ages and stages, family and friends interceded on your behalf. And thousands of complete strangers have prayed for you in ways you aren’t even aware of. The sum total of those prayers is your prayer genealogy.
One of the greatest moments in eternity will be the day God peels back the spacetime curtain and unveils His sovereignty by connecting the divine dots between our prayers and His answers. That infinite web of prayer crisscrosses every nation, every generation. And when God finally reveals His strange and mysterious ways, it will drop us to our knees in worship. We will thank Him for the prayers He did answer. We’ll also thank Him for the prayers He didn’t answer because we’ll finally understand why. And we’ll thank Him for the answered prayers that we weren’t even aware of.
My grandfather, Elmer Johnson, died when I was just six years old, but his prayers did not. Our prayers never die. They live on in the lives of those we prayed for. Some of the most poignant and providential moments in my life have been the moments when the Spirit of God has whispered to my spirit: Mark, the prayers of your grandfather are being answered in your life right now.
My Grandpa Johnson had a habit of kneeling by his bed at night, taking off his hearing aid, and praying for his family. He couldn’t hear himself, but everyone else in the house could. Few things are more powerful than hearing someone intercede on your behalf. His voiceprint left an imprint on my soul.
I’m following in my grandfather’s footsteps by getting on my knees and praying next to my bed. It’s a great way to start the day. My first thoughts and words are directed toward God. I pray for my sleeping beauty who is lying a few feet away. And I intercede for my children.
Not everyone has inherited a prayer legacy from their parents or grandparents like I did, but you can leave a legacy for future generations. It’s the greatest legacy you can leave. And only eternity will tell how your prayer genealogy will change the course of history!
Mark was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota and grew up in Naperville, Illinois.
Mark went to the University of Chicago on scholarship playing basketball and majoring in pre-law. After a prayer walk through a cow pasture, he felt called to full time ministry and ended up at Central Bible College in Springfield, Missouri. That’s the short story. Mark also holds a Doctor of Ministry from Regent University. He is the author of In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day, Wild Goose Chase, Primal: A Quest for the Lost Soul of Christianity and his most recent book, The Circle Maker, is a New York Times Bestseller.
Mark, and his wife Lora, moved to Washington, DC in 1994 to direct an inner-city ministry. He has served as Lead Pastor of National Community Church since 1996. Under his leadership, NCC has grown from a core group of 19 people to one church with ten services at six locations.
Mark and Lora live on Capitol Hill with their three children: Parker, Summer, and Josiah.
The Circle Maker ~
Dream Big. Pray Hard. Think Long.
According to Pastor Mark Batterson in his book, The Circle Maker, “Drawing prayer circles around our dreams isn’t just a mechanism whereby we accomplish great things for God. It’s a mechanism whereby God accomplishes great things in us.” Do you ever sense that there’s far more to prayer, and to God’s vision for your life, than what you’re experiencing? It’s time you learned from the legend of Honi the Circle Maker—a man bold enough to draw a circle in the sand and not budge from inside it until God answered his prayers for his people. What impossibly big dream is God calling you to draw a prayer circle around? Sharing inspiring stories from his own experiences as a circle maker, Mark Batterson will help you uncover your heart’s deepest desires and God-given dreams and unleash them through the kind of audacious prayer that God delights to answer.
Praying Circles Around Your Children
Mark Batterson shares a perfect blend of biblical yet practical advice that will revolutionize your prayer life by giving you a new vocabulary and a new methodology. You’ll see how prayer is your secret weapon. Through stories of parents just like you, Batterson shares five prayer circles that will not only help you pray for your kids, but also pray through your kids. Batterson teaches about how to create prayer lists unique to your family, claim God-inspired promises for your children, turn your family circle into a prayer circle, and discover your child’s life themes. And he not only tells you how, he illustrates why. As Batterson says, ‘I realize that not everyone inherited a prayer legacy like I did, but you can leave a legacy for generations to come. Your prayers have the power to shape the destiny of your children and your children’s children. It’s time to start circling.’
In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day
Ever been in the wrong place at the wrong time…several times? These memories leave you with an ill taste in your mouth, and nothing good seems to come from them. But what if the seemingly messy pieces of your life were actually strategically positioned by God? What if you’ve actually been in the right place at the right time every time? In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day will help you make sense of your past. You’ll begin to connect the dots to see clearly how God has been preparing you for future opportunities. With a God’s-eye perspective, you’ll soon be thanking Him – even for lions, pits, and snowy days.
Primal
Our generation needs a reformation.
But a single person won’t lead it.
A single event won’t define it.
Our reformation will be a movement of reformers living creatively, compassionately, courageously for the cause of Christ.
This reformation will not be born of a new discovery. It will be the rediscovery of something old, something ancient.
Something primal.
Soul Print
There never has been and never will be anyone like you. But that isn’t a
testament to you. It’s a testament to the God who created you. The problem? Few people discover the God-given identity that makes them unlike anyone else. Mark Batterson calls this divine distinction our soulprint.
God would like to introduce you to yourself.
In Soulprint, Mark pours the contagious energy he’s known for into helping you experience the joy of discovering who you are…and the freedom of discovering who you’re not. The wonderful fact is that your uniqueness is God’s gift to you, and it’s also your gift to God.
A self-discovery book that puts God at the center rather than self, Soulprint encourages you to recognize and explore the five defining moments in your life that will determine your destiny. Along the way, you’ll find that you’re not just turning the pages of a book. You’re turning the pages of your remarkable, God-shaped, world-changing life.
Wild Goose Chase
Most of us have no idea where we’re going most of the time. Perfect.
“Celtic Christians had a name for the Holy Spirit–An Geadh-Glas, or ‘the Wild Goose.’ The name hints at mystery. Much like a wild goose, the Spirit of God cannot be tracked or tamed. An element of danger, an air of unpredictability surround Him. And while the name may sound a little sacrilegious, I cannot think of a better description of what it’s like to follow the Spirit through life. I think the Celtic Christians were on to something….
Most of us will have no idea where we are going most of the time. And I know that is unsettling. But circumstantial uncertainty also goes by another name: Adventure.” –from the introduction
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