The traditional function of a town’s central bell tower was to encourage residents to practice the presence of God. In AD 604 Pope Sabinian officially sanctioned the ringing of church bells to announce times of daily prayer.¹³ For centuries, bell towers sat in the center of towns across the world, ringing to remind believers to lift their hearts to the Father multiple times per day, ringing out the reminder of God’s love and presence hour by hour. “Every hour I need thee” was not just a poetic hymn: It was a concrete reality built into the center of towns throughout the Christian world. 

Those who practice the presence of God have learned to build “bell towers” in the center of their daily life. Certain tasks, moments, people, and even landmarks serve as “bells” throughout their day to prompt them to stop and pray, lift up a praise, or whisper a prayer to the God of heaven.

In the prayer lives of the leaders we interviewed there were many different kinds of bells prompting these leaders to return to Jesus, but some of the more common prompts were meals,  meetings, moods, and moments.

Meals

In the same way that Jesus looked up to heaven and prayed at meals, all the leaders with whom we spoke use meals as a prayer prompt.

Meetings 

We’ve seen many ministries that pray before meetings. This is quite common. But our interviewees tended to also pray during meetings, pausing to listen to God when they lacked clarity or needed wisdom. Mark Zhou, who is the second-generation leader of a major church planting movement in China, said:  When we start a meeting, it’s so natural. You start with prayer. As the meeting progresses, we’ll say, “Let’s pause a little bit to experience another perspective. Let’s pray in the middle of meetings and see if the Lord’s given the favor to do [the thing you’re discussing].”  People will experience that and say, “There’s definitely a change.”¹⁴ The reason for integrating prayer during meetings is clear: The Spirit exists, the Spirit speaks in ways we can understand, and God has insight into the situations addressed in our meetings that we do not. For Mark and many other praying leaders, it would be unsettling and unusual to not address the smartest, wisest One in the room.

Moods 

Feeling a big or deep emotion is a prayer prompt, both for praying leaders and in Scripture. Here’s a partial list of the moods that Scripture identifies as prayer prompts: 

■  In trouble (James 5:13) 

■  Happy (James 5:13) 

■  Sick (James 5:14) 

■  Stuck in sin (James 5:16) 

■  Concerned about politics (1 Timothy 2:1–2) 

■  Anxious (Philippians 4:6-7) 

■  Mistreated (Luke 6:28) 

■  Facing persecution (Matthew 5:44) 

■  Unsure what to say (Romans 8:26)

Mark Zhou acknowledged that it isn’t just good things that should prompt us to prayer: 

I learned that part of our prayer is to talk to God about our disappointment. Lord, why? Lord, I put my trust in You. But then, through brokenness, I learn a new perspective. God brings us into  alignment with Him.

The apostle Paul makes a similar point in Philippians 4:6 when he says, “In every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God” (emphasis added). Prayer and petition. Why did Paul use two words here? In Greek, the word for “petition” is what we often think of as “prayer”: asking for things. When we run through our “prayer list,” those are petitions. The other word here is actually the more common Greek word for prayer, proseuchomai, which has two parts: Prós means exchange. It’s a market place word, like trading money for chickens. The second part, euxomai, means “to wish.” Prayer is an exchange of wishes.¹⁵ 

We hear it in Jesus’ prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane: “Not my will, but yours be done” (Luke 22:42). God, here’s what I want, but what do You want? The most common word for “pray” in the New Testament isn’t about prayer lists and endless requests. The truer, deeper concept is “trade my wishes for God’s wishes.” Regardless of our mood or how we might be feeling, we are invited to exchange wishes with God in prayer.

Moments 

A prompt that has deeply affected me (Ryan) personally is merely seeing strangers in crowds. When I’m in a line, I’ll pray for those in front of and behind me. In an airport, I’ll pray for whoever is around me. I’ll pray silently for my Uber driver. I’ll pray for people around me on the street. And sometimes I’ll practice just listening to see if the Holy Spirit shares with me something specific to pray for these strangers.  Commuting, waiting in line, and walking down the street are all opportunities to pray for others. Sometimes I’m deeply moved to love those around me, but most times it helps change my mood from annoyed to a bit less annoyed and more loving .. . and more connected to Jesus.

Leaders use particular moments to prompt themselves to pray: like hiring a new team member or making a major financial decision. One leader shared, “I wouldn’t make any decision without prayer. When in a meeting, I ask God to guide me. When you’re doing the right thing, your heart is light, not heavy and slimy.”

Another leader, when writing his task list, begins each line with “BILJ,” as a reminder that everything he does is “Because I Love Jesus.” One leader of a Canadian petrochemical company explains that he’s praying on a minute-to-minute basis. “ ‘Father, what do You think? Father, what do You want?’ That sensitivity to the Spirit is so central for me.”

Staying in tune with the Spirit is often not about doing different things but just doing them with God. Brother Lawrence wrote that becoming more like God “did not depend upon changing our works,   but in doing that for God’s sake, which we commonly do for our own.”¹⁶

One-Sentence Prayers 

One of the most famous examples of the power of a few brief words comes from the Hemingway Challenge. Ernest Hemingway, the groundbreaking twentieth-century author, was known for packing intense meaning into tight, punchy language. According to literary legend, Hemingway once bragged to a group of fellow authors that he could write a story in just six words. They reflexively balked. Then Hemingway uttered the words: “Baby shoes. For sale. Never used.” The group was awed by this six-word story that evoked incredible emotion.

If a six-word story can pack such power, imagine the power of a similarly brief prayer. One-sentence prayers help us practice the presence of God amid busy days, in the middle of meetings, or absolutely anywhere we find ourselves. Brief prayers may seem trivial, but research and practice show that a single sentence can reorient our mind, will, and emotions, pointing them back to Jesus.¹⁷

The leader Nehemiah offers a biblical example of a one-sentence prayer. He was far from his Jewish homeland, working as cupbearer to the Persian king, when word reached him that Jerusalem’s walls had been broken down and its gates burned, leaving his cherished city defenseless.  He wrote that he “quickly prayed to the God of heaven” in the seconds before answering an important question posed by the king (Nehemiah 2:4 NET). We imagine this wasn’t the time for verbosity, yet the prayer was noteworthy to Nehemiah, and out of that moment with God flowed the conviction and courage Nehemiah needed to make a bold request to return to and restore the city.

Again and again, Jesus Himself changed lives and history through a single sentence: 

■  “Father, forgive them” (Luke 23:34). 

■  “Father. ..not my will, but yours” (Luke 22:42). 

■  “Lazarus, come out!” (John 11:43) 

attribute ■  “Be healed!” (Luke 5:13 NLT) 

■  “Come out of him!” (Luke 4:35) 

■  “Little girl .. . get up!” (Mark 5:41)

One-sentence prayers drawn from a deeply rooted relationship with God carry the power and grace of heaven. 

Looking for help in their own leadership, Skoog, Greer, and Doolittle spent three years researching and logged over one hundred hours of interviews with leaders in six continents who collectively serve in over one hundred countries. They researched or spoke with global entrepreneurs and business executives as well as some of the most influential pastors and ministry leaders in the world—leaders such as Joni Eareckson Tada, Francis Chan, John Mark Comer, Christine Caine, David Green, Mark Batterson among many more. Check out their book Lead With Prayer here to be encouraged!