Liberty University

Book Review on Prayer: The Timeless Secret of High-Impact Leaders

A Paper Submitted to Dr. Jonathan Bishop In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Course Spiritual Formation PLED 520 Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary

BY James Carter L22428181

Lynchburg, Virginia JANUARY 29, 2012

Table of Contents
Introduction ................................................................................................................................................... 2 Summary ....................................................................................................................................................... 2 Critique ......................................................................................................................................................... 6 Personal Application ..................................................................................................................................... 8 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................................... 9 Bibliography ............................................................................................................................................... 10

Introduction Prayer: The Timeless Secret of High-Impact Leaders by Dave Earley is an extremely challenging an inspirational book. The pervading call throughout the book is for leaders of all types to give themselves to prayer of greater duration, more frequency, and meticulous detail. Earley has researched 77 high-impact spiritual leaders and recognized one pervasive common denominator: prayer. He emphasizes this by writing, I doubt that you can find a maximally effective spiritual leader in the Bible or in history who was not a person of prayer.1 The contents below will discuss provide a content summary, a critique section, and personal application segment in response to reading this book. Summary The book is ten chapters in length and the first nine chapters provide the reader with nine essential prayer disciplines. The tenth and final chapter helps the reader to conduct an introspective analysis of their prayer lives based on the first nine chapters. This book is built on biblical truth and the lives impactful spiritual leaders. Numerous quotes are extracted from the lives of the leaders and skillfully inserted throughout the book. These quotes move the text from theoretical to practical. This helps the reader clearly understand the main points of each section and subsection contained within the chapters. Each chapter identifies a specific characteristic or discipline for having an impactful prayer life. The following paragraphs will provide a concise summary of each chapter. Chapter 1, Value The Power Of Prayer, is the foundation of the book and emphasizes the need for all levels of leadership to be actively engaged in the spiritual discipline of prayer. Spearing heading the discussion is statistical research focusing on how infrequently pastors

Dave Earley, Prayer: The Timeless Secret of High-impact Leaders (Chattanooga, TN: Living Ink Books,

2008), xi.

pray.2 This lack of a prayer life leads to pastoral discouragement, burn out, and occupation change.3 One of the most profound quotes found in the chapter is from John Wesley, who stated, God will do nothing on earth, except in answer to believing prayer.4 Early eventually comes to an essential point about prayer under the subsection heading Pray or Quit!5 He builds into the section by quoting from the gospel of Luke, Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up (Luke 18:1). Early wants his readers to know that prayer is not an optional discipline but is unequivocally essential. Chapter 2, Make Time to Pray, points to Jesus as the example for prioritizing our prayer lives. Early quotes S. D. Gordon by writing, Jesus prayed. He loved to prayHe prayed so much and so often that it became a part of His life. It became to Him like breathing involuntary.6 Early also makes this observation about Jesus, Prayer was the first of Jesus daily activities and appointments, the number one item on his calendar each day. If nothing else would get done that day, prayer would get done.7 This chapter serves to eliminate all excuses a leader could make for not engaging in prayer. Chapter 3, Pray for Those You Serve, places emphasis on praying for others. Highimpact leaders must engage in prayer on behalf of their people. Intercessory prayer is not optional and is essential for seeking the best interest of others.8 The author illustrates how great biblical leaders such as Moses, Jesus, and Paul prayed for their people and in a similar manner a leader needs to be praying for theirs. Early comments, Spiritual leadership takes on great power
2 3

Ibid., 1. Ibid. 4 Ibid., 8. 5 Ibid., 13. 6 Ibid., 18. 7 Ibid., 19. 8 Ibid., 33.

and authority when leaders so tightly link their heart with Gods that it beats in rhythm with his and they feel his burdens. Often, tears will be the result.9 This chapter creates urgency and necessity for intercessory prayer. Chapter 4, Train Others to Pray for You, is the complementing sister to Chapter 3. There is not an impactful leader who does not have people praying on their behalf. A leader understands the necessity for having others pray for them but they can have difficulty asking for it. Leaders need prayer and the statistics quoted within the chapter are startling. The statistics alone illuminate the apparent need for leaders to have a dedicated prayer team. He provides personal accounts from various historical spiritual leaders, such as Charles Spurgeon, Charles Finney, and D. L. Moody, who had experience what others praying for you can accomplish. This chapter concludes with learning how to develop and train others to pray for you. Chapter 5, Turn Your Problems into Prayer, accents how numerous pastors ministries have been severely debilitated because of the inability to cope with severe levels of stress. Looking at the stress a leader faces Earley writes, Every leader deals with pressures and problemsFor the leader, dealing with difficulties is part of the territory. In one sense, if there were no problems then leaders would be unnecessary.10 A leader must learn how to change the burden of their worries into prayer. Earley brings attention to the fact that Jesus had to deal with more pressure than any other human in history. At the moments leading up to his crucifixion Jesus knew he would soon be arrested, tried, beaten, and killed.11 He also knew he would be betrayed, abandoned, scorned, and rejected by a

Ibid., 41. Ibid., 72. 11 Ibid., 76.

10

myriad of people and yet he took all of those issues to his Father in prayer.12 This chapter can be summarized by saying all worries need to become prayer requests. Chapter 6, Fast and Pray, accentuates the significant role fasting has on a leaders prayer life. Earley uses numerous biblical passages identifying how prayer and fasting played a significant part in the lives of historical biblical leaders. He also used stories from the last two centuries to illustrate that prayer and fasting are still pertained for the modern high-impact leader. This chapter can be summarized by stating that fasting is an essential disciple that needs to accompany prayer. The chapter is concluded with practical hints to help with the fasting process. Chapter 7, Possess a Bold Faith, challenges a leaders very confidence and approach to God through prayer. Earley quotes Hebrews 4:16 Let us the approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. The key to coming boldly to God is praying his promises. Spurgeon notes, A promise from God may very instructively be compared to a check payable to order.13 Having a promise from God is like having a check in hand, all that is needed is for it to be cashed. When a man has a check in his hands he is bold and ready. This conversely represents the promises of God and should create boldness in the leader to come before God in prayer. Earley also provides numerous examples of men who have come boldly in prayer before God and received what was asked for. This chapter is designed for leaders to be bold in prayer but boldness comes from claiming the promises of God. Chapter 8, Build on the Basics, is built around the acronym T.A.C.S: Thanksgiving, Adoration, Confession, Supplication. This chapter builds upon the previous seven chapters and

13

Ibid. Ibid., 113.

12

provides the stated acronym as a template consistent implementation. Earley also uses the Lords Prayer as the complementary foundation for coming to God in prayer.14 This chapter demonstrates that a systematic acronym can be used as a prayer road map when we bring our petitions before God. Chapter 9, Adopt Best Practices, is the most helpful for taking abstract principle and making it concrete. There are multiple practices for implementing the disciplines of prayer and this chapter spotlights a few of the major examples. The most exciting segment is on how to take a personal prayer retreat.15 This section inserts anticipation and excitement into the workings of a prayer retreat. A prayer retreat is a necessary discipline for a leader to get disconnected from the world and reconnected with God. This chapter can be summarized in saying that there are multiple avenues to having a successful prayer life, choose one and employ it immediately. Chapter 10, Putting it all Together, is the conclusion of the book. This chapter takes the essential components of the previous nine chapters and turns them into an introspective analysis of the leaders prayer life. This chapter gives more focus on prioritizes areas for continued development and growth. The entire chapter can be encapsulated by saying, assess your prayer life and make necessary changes. Critique This book is difficult to critique and hard to look for disagreements or challenges to Earleys book. The strength of the book is the massive amount of research done on 77 different spiritual leaders. The survey sample crossed denominational and church / parachurch boundaries. If the author would not have done this it would be difficult to accept the validity of

14 15

Ibid., 147. Ibid., 158.

this topic. It could have been said he was trying to emphasize the greatness of one particular denomination or organization over another but he was not. An additional strength of the book is the examples. His personal examples provided pin point clarity to many of the subtopics but the book was not limited in scope to only his example. He pulled examples from the lives of the 77 high-impact leaders to drive the ideas and concepts home. His use of characters from the Old Testament and New Testament were the foundation of his stories. An absence of the biblical characters would have been significantly depreciated the credibility of his work. Earley did an excellent job of collecting all of the pieces of the puzzle and putting them into an understandable form for the average reader. It is hard to find negatives about the book. Chapter 11 could be the most difficult aspect of the book. Earley at times seemed to border the idea of a name it claim it faith. Highlighting Scriptures as promises directly from God to you can be extremely tricky. He attempts to minimize some of the ambiguity of receiving a Scriptural promise from God but does not explain enough. He needs to identify how this type of promise claim differs from the prosperity gospel movement. Helping the reader delineate between the two ideas of claiming what God has said would have provided much insight into coming to God with boldness. Also the sheer need to attempt to apply all the content can be overwhelming and almost counterproductive to the book. From each chapter there is some much application that the reader can become overwhelmed at trying to apply it. It is not until the end of the book that the author states the need to isolate and apply only a few of the disciplines at a time. He wants us to work through them because the need to for a leader to have a deeper and more meaningful prayer life. The reader does not need to walk away with the feeling of it being impossible to apply the essential disciplines of prayer.

Personal Application There are three personal applications from this book. The first application is creating a consistent time and place for my time of prayer. Jesus prioritized his life around prayer and as one how is attempting to be more like him; I need to prioritize my prayer life. My current location and time fluctuates. On certain days of the week it will be in the morning and on other days it will be in the afternoon. This instability creates internal tension because as the day progresses more stressors are introduced and the peace and intimacy that results from my prayer life becomes less. I want to imitate how Jesus did it and get up early in the morning and execute my discipline of prayer before the day hits. My second application is to come bold before God. Currently in my prayer life Scripture is not used very frequently when I talk with God. It is my goal to use 10 Scriptures per prayer time as I talk with God. This number will help me to focus on the things that are important to God and allow my heart to begin to beat in sync with His heart. This will be a difficult task because I do not always readily have my Scriptures available during my prayer times but printing off a sheet of Scripture to pray through every day will be equally as beneficial. The third application is to train others to pray for me. I know that intercessory prayer is needed on my behalf but requesting it from others is a difficult task. I think pride is the biggest obstacle for allowing others to pray for me. I also think that others are not praying for me because I have not listed out a specific number of items that I need prayer about. Having a prayer team will force me to write down the specifics. These specifics with their accompanying verses will be transferred to my prayer team. Having others pray for me is an essential part of becoming a high-impact leader.

Conclusion In conclusion, Dave Earleys book is one of the best books on prayer I have ever read. His book is practical, challenging, and inspirational. It captures the essence of what every leader should strive to become. Once I started reading the book, it was difficult to put down because prayer must captive those who aspire to watch over and feed the flock of God. The use of biblical examples and personal examples complemented the leader research perfectly. This book may allude to being only applicable to Leaders but is a work that is a must read for all Christians.

10

Bibliography Earley, Dave. Prayer: The Timeless Secret of High-impact Leaders. Chattanooga, TN: Living Ink Books, 2008.