Center the Ministry on Prayer

Jack Miller writes to a discouraged missionary in Uganda:

Make the whole ministry center on private and corporate prayer. Do not expect bigger victories in tough areas until corporate praying becomes the complete center of the ministry. The reason? It is in prayer together that we find the grace to give up control to the Father, rely exclusively on the Spirit, and see the demons subdued. It is here we get our life, vigor, zest, and authority for the battle. Lesslie Newbigin said in Honest Religion for Secular Man that "Christian missionaries have been one of the most secularizing forces in the world." Without constant adoration, thanksgiving, intercession, and confession together, we are going to teach people to rely on our traditions, plans, technologies, and methods rather than on grace. Such converts will simply be switching their idols from the witchcraft stuff to the tools of modernism. (The Heart of a Servant Leader, p. 158; italics his)