The best thing about this stillness is that it gives God a chance to work….and when we cease from our works, God works in us; and when we cease from our thoughts, God’s thoughts come into us; when we get still from our restless activity, God worketh in us both to will and do of His good pleasure, and we have but to work it out. (A.B. Simpson).

[Christ] is risen and ascended and stands at the Door of your hearts and knocks. And if any man will hear His voice and open to Him – with His Grace and Light and Spirit, by joining to it – Christ tells you in Revelation III that He will come in and sup with you and you with Him. And here Christ sups with you and you in Him …(George Fox).

Transforming society through listening prayer

Back in 1975, God independently showed two Christian leaders, Loren Cunningham and Bill Bright, how society could be influenced for Christ through the action of Christians in the “seven spheres”(more often termed “seven mountains” today) that determine the nature of society. These seven spheres were named as, family, church, business, education, entertainment, media and government.

This prophetic calling was not widely known until the present century, but in recent years it has become increasingly popular. However, its different supporters do not entirely agree as to just how Christians are supposed to influence the different “spheres”. Some say that Christian influence is to be simply through our general witness; living the Christian life within those social spheres in which we are involved and refusing to be partakers in dubious activities.

Other Christians take a more revolutionary interpretation. They interpret the message as a call to Christians to take over the spheres, especially the sphere of government. The more extreme views call for a replacement of democracy and a strict introduction of the Levitical Law.

All of these approaches are, however, based upon the ideas and interpretations by individual Christians. They are what various human beings think the message implied and how it should be put into effect. But what does GOD want us to do? How does God desire the message He gave to brothers Cunningham and Bright to be interpreted and put into effect?

We can find out by putting our own ideas aside,  inquire of God what He wants done and then spend time quietly listening for His guidance.

But there is a “but”! We experience many “inner voices” which we may mistake for the voice of God. It is true that God does at times speak through a single prophet, but these are people specially gifted in hearing His word. Most of us do not have such acute spiritual hearing. Other inward voices can be mistaken for the voice of God and even the genuine Voice may be misunderstood, misheard or only partially heard.  

How can this be avoided?

The answer is the listening prayer cell. Let us now look more closely at listening prayer cells and the role they can play in bringing Christ into the spheres of social influence.

WHAT IS A LISTENING PRAYER CELL?

A listening prayer cell is a group of Christians who meet together in silence to seek God’s will by stilling their minds so that the “gentle whisper” of the Holy Spirit may be discerned.  (By the way, although we speak about “hearing” God or the voice of God, this may not necessarily be in the form of an inner voice. David John Smith lists over 30 ways in which God may communicate with us – and even that is not a complete list! See; 

awf.world/repository/david-j-smith-listening-prayer-listening-to-god-for-life-and-ministry/

This article is a “must read” for all who are serious about listening prayer.)

HOW MAY  LISTENING PRAYER CELLS BRING CHRIST’S INFLUENCE INTO THE SPHERES OF SOCIAL INFLUENCE?

As already mentioned, one person may be mistaken about hearing the voice of God. Smith compared our reception of a message to receiving water through a pipe. The message may be like pure water, but if there is rust in the pipe it will emerge discoloured.  Similarly, a true message from God may be “discoloured,” in other words distorted, by the “rust” of incorrect ideas in our minds.

There are also what Smith terms “Swiss cheese” messages. Swiss cheese is good and wholesome, but it is characteristically full of holes! The messages to which Smith gives this name are true messages from God, but they are not complete.  The “holes” must be filled before the full message can be known.

Both of these potential difficulties are overcome if the messages are received within the context of a small group of Christian people gathered for the purpose of seeking God’s guidance through listening prayer.  It is essential that a listening prayer cell seeks the will of God as a group, that is to say, it only accepts a thought or apparent insight from one of its members as a true message from God if each and every member of the cell is inwardly convicted as to the divine origin of the message.

The initial message may not bring with it this inward conviction. Further meditation and openness to the Holy Spirit will then be necessary and this may end with the message being completely rejected (possibly replaced by another apparent message to be tested in its turn) or else modified or altered in some way.  The latter applies if the initial message came through a “rusty pipe”, to use Smith’s analogy. Alternatively, the message may not be met with the cell’s inward conviction until other messages are given that complete the initial one. This is the “filling in of the holes” in Smith’s “Swiss cheese” messages. 

Of course, it hardly needs saying that any purported message must not conflict with biblical teaching. Nevertheless, we must not reject it until we are sure that it really does contradict the Bible and not merely our own ideas about  what the Bible  teaches on the subject in question! 

        We can be pretty confident, I believe, that if all the members of a prayer cell come to the same deep inward conviction as to   God’s will concerning a course of action, a subject of prayer or anything else of relevance, then the will of God has been correctly discerned and must be followed.

 The foundation for this assertion is found in Jesus’ words as  recorded in Matthew 18:19-20. There He states that “if two of you agree on earth about any request you have to make, that request will be granted by my heavenly Father.” He then gives the reason why our agreed-upon request will be granted by God the Father, viz. “For [= because] where two or three meet together in my name, I am there among them.” If, while gathered in the name of Jesus, we are inwardly led to agree by the Holy Spirit, what we agree upon is necessarily God’s will and therefore will be granted. When we gather in worship of Jesus, He intercedes for us that our requests are all one and at one with the will of the Father. Through the guidance of the Holy Spirit we become “united in heart and soul” (Acts 4:32) with one another and with God.

Although Jesus was speaking of agreement as to what to pray for (especially, on that occasion, concerning a disruptive member of the believing community), Jesus did not restrict His presence to “two or three” gathered for prayer. He said “where two or three meet together in my name” without specifying that the purpose of their meeting must be for intercessory prayer. Surely the same “rule” also applies to the delivering of prophecies or the awareness that God is calling the members of the cell  to perform some activity. For instance, the report of the Jerusalem Council stated that its conclusion was “the decision of the Holy Spirit, and our decision” (Acts 15:28), signifying a Holy-Spirit-inspired agreement. 

A contemporary example of this procedure is the Quaker “worship meetings with attention to business.” These meetings approach business matters relating to the church (even such seemingly mundane matters as whether to purchase a carpet for the Meeting House) by placing them before God and silently waiting in an attitude of listening prayer for God’s leading. Only when agreement is reached will the meeting conclude that God’s will concerning the matter in question has been correctly discerned and must be acted upon. The listening prayer cells being proposed here are, broadly speaking, similar to these Quaker meetings but applied to all spheres of social influence, not exclusively to church business. 

(There is an excellent article on Quaker business meetings at;

oikoumene.org/resources/documents/eden-grace-on-quaker-business-practice 

It is strongly suggested that this article be carefully and prayerfully studied).

The meetings proposed here would be similar to the Quaker worship meetings with attention to business. As with Quaker meetings, they would be held in silence until  one person feels led by the Holy Spirit to deliver a message. The group would then hold this message before God until they all feel an inner conviction to accept, reject or in some way clarify the message.  If nobody is moved to speak, the cell group remains in contemplative silence. 

As the number of cells increases, combined meetings (either physical or virtual) of many cells from across all spheres of society could be formed to seek God’s will on wider and more fundamental issues, for example, how a business should be structured (should it be more in the form of a co-operative for instance?) and even how society itself would appear if restructured according to the supreme will of God.

I believe that the type of cells being envisioned here could grow within businesses of all types, even within governments. Eventually, maybe the United Nations?!

Such groups will not only deepen the relationship between the individual Christians and Jesus, as well as between one another, but they will also act in a role not unlike that of the Prophets of Old Testament times in speaking for God to managers of business enterprises, government and other spheres of influence within society. Imagine business board meetings and government senates and parliaments seriously setting aside times of  listening prayer and seeking God’s will concerning both specific and general issues through the reaching of inwardly convicted agreement. This would literally be bringing the rule of Christ into such institutions.  The possibilities seem endless!

A SUGGESTION FOR A LISTENING PRAYER CELL

The following is a suggestion for a possible form that the proposed cell meetings may take:

Opening of meeting with spoken prayer, asking God for discernment and clarity of mind and asking Him to direct thoughts according to His will. Ask God to reveal to the gathering what He desires them to pray for or what other action He desires them to take concerning the organisations in which the different group members are involved (or even organisations other than the specific one in which members of the group are involved). Does He desire special prayers for somebody in a business, or a church or some other organisation in which one or more members of the group are involved (or about the listening prayer ministry in which they are all involved!)? Best if only one, or at most two, people pray aloud and that prayers be short and specific.

The meeting then moves into a quiet period of listening prayer. This will probably be about 15 – 30 minutes initially, but may be longer as the members become more familiar with this type of prayer. (Personally, I find it beneficial to begin the silence by calling to mind the promise made by Jesus as recorded in Matthew 18:20 and then pray a silent prayer of thanks to Jesus for being present at the meeting).

Some members of the cell may have nursed a thought since the previous gathering that they suspect may be a message from God. In the silence, they hold this before God asking for clarification as to whether this is correct or not. Other members may have a sudden thought or hear an inward voice during the silence, which they likewise hold before God.

The silence is then followed by a time of sharing of any possible messages from God. Each possible message is held before Him in silence and is only accepted if all the members are inwardly convicted of the divine origin of the purported message. Then, like the Apostolic Church they will be able to say “It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us”. If no initial agreement is reached, holding the message before God may result in new insight which “corrects” the earlier message.

If no agreement is reached, the message is either rejected or held over until a later meeting and once more held before God in silence. Such messages may be clarified by further words at a subsequent gathering, especially if the initial message was one that had been misunderstood and/or wrongly reported.

We must remember, however, that it is God’s decision whether He speaks or not. We enter the silence to clear a mental place to experience His voice if He chooses. We dare not suppose that we can force Him to speak. If no message is received during the silence, it should always be remembered that the very act of gathering together in the presence of Jesus is truly a form of worship and one that brings all who participate therein closer to the Lord and more inclined to walk in His ways. That, by itself, brings the influence of Christ into the various organisations through the lives of those who are growing more Christlike through the participation in the quiet worship of the listening prayer gatherings.