Paraklesis – encouragement, exhortation, for life and ministry
JUNE 2026
Dear friends,
I am immensely encouraged by the example of Epaphras, in his ministry to the Colossians. He not only taught them the gospel of Christ Jesus, the grace of God in truth [Col 1:5-7], he also prays for them.
“Epaphras, who is one of you and a servant of Christ Jesus, sends greetings. He is always wrestling in prayer for you, that you may stand firm in all the will of God, mature and fully assured” [Colossians 4:12].
Here are some ‘big asks’, ‘big requests’ that I pray to our heavenly Father each week.
Each time I pray them, I do so with different groups in mind. Mine include the following: the Anglican Diocese of Melbourne; Gospel churches in Melbourne; all Gospel Christians and churches in Australia; Gospel Anglican Churches in Melbourne; Anglicans in England; for churches in other specific nations. You might like to think of the different groups of Christians and churches for whom you could pray prayers like these.
- Dear Heavenly Father in heaven, please make know your holy name, bring your kingdom, and achieve your saving will through Jesus Christ.
- Please increase certainty and centrality among your people about:
Your gospel of Christ’s atoning death and resurrection.
Your powerful Scriptures honoured, trusted, received and obeyed.
Your constant and powerful presence and activity in creation; in salvation and sanctification; and in our daily life, work, and in our ministry churches, and in all our ministries.
Your call to all believers to offer ourselves to you as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to you.
Your delight and joy in hearing our prayers of thanks, praise, confession of sin, request, grief and lament, dependence and hope.
- Please increase among gospel ministers:
Holiness, love, sacrificial servanthood, and personal integrity in life and ministry.
Richer prayer lives, and leadership in prayer.
Faithful and effective Biblical preaching.
Cultural and emotional awareness.
Protection from Satan.
Converting, discipling, and training other people in ministry.
The ability to train others for the many tasks of ministry in their church.
Wisdom in leadership, in management, and in decisions about priorities in ministry.
- Please grow churches in faith in Jesus Christ, love for all the saints, and hope in Christ’s return. Increase death to sin and lives committed to righteousness. Please increase love of the Bible, and obedience to its message. Please increase the giving and receiving of mutual ministry, in practical ministries, in teaching admonishing one another in all wisdom, and in mutual submission. Please bring churches to maturity in Christ, and in gospel generosity to their neighbours and to our world, which does not know Jesus. Please raise up gospel workers from every church, for Australia and for overseas.
- Please plant and establish, reform and renew, churches, denominations and net- works of churches:
Among immigrant groups, indigenous people, people of no religion, the ‘ordinary people’ who do not have university training, and people receiving welfare benefits.
In Gospel-poor parts of the world.
In all nations, ethnicities, people-groups, and languages.
- Please provide translated Bibles for people of all nations, ethnicities, people-groups, and languages. Please raise up people in every language group to work with specialists in the Bible and its translation to produce culturally and linguistically appropriate Bibles for all.
- Please reform and renew churches, denominations, and net-works of churches which have lost obedience to Christ, lively faith and love, obedience to the Bible, Christian distinctives, or contact and gospel outreach with their local communities or cultures. Please recover those who have lost the gospel, and frustrate the plans of those opposed to gospel ministry.
- Please raise up, nurture, train and equip gospel workers from all churches, for all churches, and for all the world. Please nurture and train them in their local churches, and in colleges and other training programs. Please use those churches, colleges, and training programs to train and equip a great army of gospel workers for your world, for your glory.
- For all believers in the world today, especially those who are persecuted for their faith in Jesus, and or who are in communities suffering poverty, famine, oppression injustice, or the effects of civil strife or warfare.
- Please rid churches in the Western world of the sins of the Western world: individualism, intolerance, self-centredness, the worship of money, happiness, progress, and success: and replace them with selfless service, self-sacrifice, and a passion for personal holiness, prayerfulness, Biblical obedience, and world evangelisation.
Heavenly Father, I pray that out of your glorious riches you may strengthen all believers with power through your Spirit in their inner beings, so that Christ may dwell in their hearts through faith. And I pray that they, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that they may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen [adapted from Ephesians 3:16-21].
You could also:
- encourage prayer warriors in your church or ministries to pray these prayers,
- use them in praying with church or ministry leaders,
- use them at prayer meetings,
- encourage people to use them in Bible study groups from time to time.
You are of course welcome to adapt them and make they your own!
With warmest greetings,
Yours,
‘Lord Jesus, please teach us to pray. Holy Spirit, please prompt us to pray. Heavenly Father, please hear and use our prayers for your glory. Amen.’