Keys To Successful Prayer: understand your spirituality

One of the ways I find that helps me to keep focused on who God is and who Satan is, is by the way I pray. On point, aggresive, focused, repeated prayers, clothed with the word of God which act as a sword to the enemy. The weapons of our warfare are not carnal but they are mighty to the pulling down of strongholds.......

The bible clearly encourages us that our war is not physical but spiritual, "for we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against powers, rulers, principalities........ ephesians 6: 11

The following keys will aid you in leading a successful prayer life. 

1.  Know you are a spritual being.

This may seem obvious but it is not.  We need to consiously develop our spiritual man and begin to see ourselves more as spiritual beings than physical beings.  Once we perceive our spirituality, then we will begin to act more like spiritual people.  Man is made up of body, soul and spirit.  

• The body is what we see physically: the home of the soul and the spirit
  
• The soul is where the emotions of man reside
  
• The spirit is where the life of God or the breath of God resides.
  

When we get born again the spirit of man indwells in our spirit    

This is the part we give the least of our attention and it is the most important.  It is the part of us that will live forever.  The spirit is a being with facilities like our physical bodies. ephesians 6 says put on the full armour of the lord, the helmet of salvation(head), the breastplate of righteousness(chest), the belt of truth (loins), the preparation of the gospel on our feet, take up the shield of faith and the sword of the spirit(hands), garment of praise(body)isaiah 61:3)

One of the tactics of the devil is to let us view our spiritual man as an obscure and unclear thing which only the pastor and God seem to understand.!!

Your spirit man is like your physical man with ears, eyes, feet, body, hands, mouth, head, etc.

Internalise this one point and your prayer life will take an upward turn for the better.  You will be able to perceive and understand that the devil is also spiritual, and God is spiritual, and thus you must employ the weapons that are spiritual to defeat him( the devil).

Many things that manifest in our physical bodies begun way back in the spirit, but because we pay little or no attention to it, the progression to our physical is then made possible.   Victory must first be attained in the spiritul realm then be made manifest in the physical.  

In every level of our life whether we are seeking for healing for our bodies, solutions to problems that plague us, we must first conquer in the spirit before we see results in the physical     

We could live here on this for a  time, but for now we will leave it at that when you pray begin to visualize yourself as a spiritual person, close your eyes and see what you are saying.

As you put on the full armour of God in your prayer see yourself in your inner eye putting it on your spiritual man.  Your words are life and are being listened to in the spiritual realms, by both God and the devil 

       

Prayer points  that I pray continuously to activate my spiritual man are:

•  open my spiritual eyes and ears that I may see, (ephesians 1: 19 open the eyes of my understanding that I may know the hope of my calling)  
  
• let every deaf and dumb spirit blocking my eyes and ears, die now in Jesus name
  
• I operate a 20/20 vision in my spirit man in the name of Jesus
• My ear will hear clearly and distinctly the voice of God in the name of Jesus 
• Arise Oh God! and scatter every evil spirit that is blocking my vision  and my hearing in the name of Jesus  

Next we look at understanding our weapons  

Leadership: 10 qualities any worship and praise leader should have

Invariably, every praise and worship team member is a leader in some way or another. The worship leader then is a leader of leaders. People tend to put those in the limelight at a pedestal, and have an expectation that they should be able to perform to their expectations .


What then are the qualites that a leader should aspire to posess to enable them function effectively


1. Be a Prayerful Person

This is one of the most challenging areas of any christian. The Devil who knows the power of prayer often puts many people in the place of prayerlessness. The power of prayer cannot be overemphasised, sufficient to say the prayer life of any worship leader directly affects his ministry. The scriptures encourage us to pray without ceasing. Jesus himself who was the son of God, spend many nights in prayer. How much more should we pray?.


2. Be bold
A worship and praise leader must be bold and courageous. Bold to encourage the congregation to embrace God and seek for new ways to praise him. Bold to encourage non traditional methods of worship like the use of dance in praise and worship, use of flags, introduce new songs,

3. Be creative
Be creative in your worship. Let not words become words but mean them from your heart or spirit. many times after leading for a long period you may find that some words become pat words, words that you say without meaning, and you say them repeatedly, e.g "come & lift your hands", "worship him" or "this is the day that the lord has made let us rejoice and be glad" yet your mind and heart are far from what you are saying. Ask the lord for a creative way of bringing the people to him

4. Possess leadership attributes from titus 1.6-9

• Have one spouse
• be a man/woman of integrity
• Be hospitable
• do not be a drunkard
• not greedy for money
• manage your family well
• be just
• have self control

5. Be a worshipper

Worship God in private and in public. If you are not a worshipper you cannot lead people into the presence of God, you have not been there!. A worshipper is not necessarily a musician, but a person who loves to worship God and stay in his presence. God loves those who worship him in spirit and in truth. He is seeking for them.
6.Have a basic understanding of music
To lead in worship and praise songs or lyrics, one has to have a basic understanding of music or have an ear for music. It can be quite challenging to lead worship when tone deaf!!!!
7. Pay attention to details
This often is what seperates mediocracy from excellence. Pay attention to details of your music, the notes, the way you arrange the lyrics, the song lists, the flow of the songs, the way different keys work either together or not, the way different musicians( your musicians) play the songs. If you will talk between the songs, what will you say, how will you say it, when will you say it,your backup singers. The difference this will bring to your leadership is simply amazing!

9. Listening to the Holy Spirit

Many times in the services the praise and worship leader may stay long on a song but he already has lost the people. The annointing is not in the song, and he does not seem to sense or know it. He just goes on for another 5 mins singing the same song, while the congregtion's mind wander away and only come back when another song is sung. A good worship leader should pray and ask the Holy Spirit to let him know when the annointing is on a song, when to stay on a song, and when to move away from a song when to allow the people to lavish their worship on God without a song. The key here is being senstive to God

10 Ability to inspire your worship team and the congregation you are serving
In other words have an annointing. Where when you lead, the glory and the presence of God comes down. When the annointing of God is upon you your words inspire both your team and the listeners.

-until next time when we shall examine the role of worship leader!!!

In his service
chrysty

5 Keys to sucessful leading of praise and worship

Prayer, praise and worship are my passion as should be for any worship leader. Having been a worship leader for the past 12 years, every time I know that I will be leading the service, thoughts like, is my preparation adequate?, will the presence of God come down?, am I sure these are the songs that will draw the glory of God? pass through my mind.
The following keys will aid a worship leader to sucessfully lead a congregation in praise and worship

Holiness
As a worship leader you must leave a holy life, i.e a life where Christ is glorified in and out of the
public eye. Out of the heart the mouth speaks, if you fill your heart and your body with ungodly stuff, that is what you will be pouring out as you sing, and speak to people. If you have an area that is not under the blood of christ, and you minister to people you are liable to release the same annointing over their lives. Your life must be one that is glorifying to the Lord. The annointing that comes from a man/woman of God who has been living a holy life cannot be faked, or substituted.

Prayer
This cannot be overemphasised. A poor/weak prayer life leads to poor, annointless, unspritual leadership. Right here there is a whole lot more that can be said, but the long and short of it, is that the effective, prayer of a righteous man availeth much. Note the word effective prayer
Many of us pray prayers that are not on target, not effective, we are not even sometimes sure what we are praying is the will of God! God's will aligns to his word, anything outside hiS word most likely may not be the will of God!!

Preparation
Practise makes perfect. What you practice you perfect,
practice, practice, practice!!!!!!!!
Prepare yourself untill the ministration comes out of your heart and not your mind. There is no substitute for good preparation.
Get the song list ready early and let everyone on the team know what, when and how you will sing

Be a team player
A good worship leader is a good team player. A team player who knows that the result of the praise & worship is team work, not individual skill and talent. Acknowleging your team will motivate your team members to give their best.

Be a leader
This may mean different things at different times, but essentially, it is taking responsibility of what is happening when you are holding the microphone. Doing that may mean changing what needs to be changed as the Holy Spirit leads, corrrecting and or guiding your team, stepping up boldly and moving the congregation where God wants them to go, trying out new ideas etc.

These are just a few keys that have personally aided me in the past and even now as I endeavour to fight the good fight.

untill next time
chrysty