11 Practical Prods to Pray for Laborers

The command is clear—“Pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest” (Matthew 9:38; Luke 10:2). We know compelling reasons why we need God to thrust out more laborers. Most of those reading this are committed believers in Jesus and burdened for the lost. And yet, some of us still struggle to consistently obey Christ’s command to pray to the Lord of the harvest to thrust out all kinds of Gospel laborers into His harvest. Some may have never prayed for laborers before.

Prods to Pray for Laborers

Sometimes we just need a plan or practical prods to help us remember this aspect of prayer. Here are some ideas that have been a help to me and others:

• Pray for God to raise up laborers from your own local church.

• Regularly lift up the pastors/elders of your church to maintain a vision for God to raise up laborers and disciple others with that vision.

• When you pray for another church at home or on a mission field, include in that prayer that God would send out laborers from among them. Do this in both corporate and private prayer.

• When your local church gathers for prayer, always include prayer for laborers. Don’t be more diligent in prayer for the sick or provision for material needs than obeying Christ in prayer for the lost and for laborers to reach them!

• Consider prayer for laborers by countries or people groups, one by one, as a regular part of your prayer time. There are many helps for this kind of prayer available online, such as JoshuaProject.net.

• Determine that whenever you pray for a missionary that you will pray that God would raise up laborers to replace them, especially local leaders.

• Consider using the “9:36 challenge” as a reminder (taken from Matthew 9:36). This is a challenge to pray for laborers for God’s harvest every morning and evening at 9:36. Use a reminder on your device.

• During those times when you are especially aware of your own weakness and limitations, use that realization to remind you that God desires to use others, not just you. Pray for laborers!

• For cross-cultural missionaries, use home assignment meetings to pray with churches for laborers. God could use prayer like this to remind churches to pray for laborers and work in hearts.

• Consider using an app like PrayerMate to assist in staying focused and praying faithfully.

Quotes to Ponder about Prayer for Laborers

“We must teach ourselves and others to expect suffering, embrace risk, and care for those without gospel access. Most of all, we are to petition the Lord earnestly to raise up more laborers (Matt 9:38; Luke 10:2). Perhaps we have not because we ask not.”[1]

“If we look to the Scriptures—rather than to our culture—to determine our definitions of available leaders, then the number of leaders will increase. Regardless of our definition of available leaders, we must ask the Lord for the workers (Matthew 9:37-38), believing that he will make the provision.”[2]

ChatGPT gave this summary of the command of Jesus to pray for laborers:

If this prayer for laborers is indeed “the theological bedrock of missionary prayer,” then God have mercy on us for failure to pray!

May God help each one of us to lift up our eyes, not only to see the need of the harvest fields and do something about it ourselves, but also to pray for more laborers to join us. God’s plan is to use the prayers of His people to send out laborers.

Did you notice only ten in the list above?

Practical prod #11: Ask God to let you be an answer to this prayer.

[1] Vegas, Chad, and Koncan, Alex (2021). Missions by the Book: How Theology and Missions Walk Together, p.103. Founders Press.

[2] Payne, J.D. (2009). Discovering Church Planting: An Introduction to the Whats, Whys, and Hows of Global Church Planting, p. 340. Paternoster Press.

Photo courtesy peakpx.com.