What Are Some Effective Ways to Pray for Missionaries and Missions Work?

What are some effective ways to pray for missionaries and missions work? 

So, how do we pray for missionaries and missions work?

I would say that we want to begin by prayer, first and foremost, in the pulpit, so that on Sunday mornings, we're teaching our congregation how to pray. We're praying for missionaries by name. We're praying about the work that they're currently doing. We're asking the Lord to give them help, to give them perseverance, to cause them to be faithful.

We want to pray specifically for unreached peoples—people who've never heard the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is not in their language. There is no church for them. There is no Bible translation for them. Making our people continually aware of that.

I would also encourage that, at your church's prayer meeting—in the case of my church, it's Sunday evening—that you're praying for the nations, that you're praying for specific missionaries. It's even good to bring a missionary in, to bring one in on furlough, pray specifically for them, have them give an update.

You just want to really bring it into all the ministries of the church. Maybe in your small groups, you pray for them. In family worship, if you have the pictures of your missionaries, the support cards they've given, that you have your children each take one of the families or missionaries in the church, and you pray for them in your family worship—just trying to bring it into all of your church life.