Overview
A 30-Day Prayer Calendar is one of the best Prayer Tools for developing a daily habit of praying for others. It only takes about five minutes a day, but it can easily multiply and turn into a cascading movement of prayer that eventually grows into hundreds of hours of prayer each month. Introduced by David and Paul Watson in their book Contagious Disciple Making, the 30-Day Prayer Calendar has proven to be a very effective tool for developing and multiplying prayer within Disciple Making Movements around the world.
How It Works
1. Number each line on a piece of paper to correspond with the days of a month.
2. Write the name of a person on each numbered line, beginning with those closest to you, who would be most likely to answer a phone call or return a text. Include those who might join you in disciple making efforts or might make their own prayer calendars sometime in the future.
3. Each day, look at your list or calendar and pray for the person noted for the day. For example, if it is the 12th, call the person on your list whose name is on line 12.
You can say something like, “I have a prayer calendar, and I pray for you on the 12th day of every month. I am going to be praying for you throughout the day today. Is there anything specific that I can pray about?”
Once they share their requests, ask them, “May I pray for you right now?”
End by asking them, “When God answers your prayer, would you please let me know?” The whole exchange could take less than 5 minutes.
If you cannot reach the person by phone, text them and ask the same question. Once you get a response, you can text them your prayer or send them a voice message.
How It Can Multiply
After a few months, invite three or more of the people on your list to start their own prayer calendars. Teach them how you set your prayer calendar up and then follow up by periodically asking them how it is going. Don’t forget to ask if they have any great stories of how God is working. By sharing stories of what God is doing, we encourage and inspire one another.
If three of the people on your calendar start their own calendars, and they each invite three more people who also start calendars, you move from 2.5 hours of prayer to 32.5 hours of prayer and from 30 to over 300 people being prayed for each month. Can you imagine how this increased prayer could transform a local church?
The discipline of a prayer calendar helps to create connections between people in the body of Christ. More people will be interested in starting a prayer calendar when they hear about answers to prayers. As relationships develop and answered prayers are shared, a prayer calendar can create more and more momentum for prayer.
The prayer calendar is a small habit to start, but it can have a profound impact over time. As people continue to reach out to others, ordinary miracles will begin to happen. Their hearts become more and more oriented toward impacting others for Christ. When this happens, you have the beginning of a prayer movement!
Variations
Additional calendars can be added that focus specifically on non-believers, extended family members, people in your neighborhood, or co-workers. Prayer calendars can also be used to develop prayer teams to support ministries.
More Information
The 30-Day Calendar tool was first introduced by David and Paul Watson. You can read more about it in their book Contagious Disciple Making.
