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We looked at a ministry model in our last lesson, and it had five basic steps. A condensed description of the model is:
Notice that step 3 is to select a prayer strategy. Some people find this step confusing because they don't know what options they have to select from. In order to select a strategy, you need to be aware of various types of prayer that are available to you. So that is what we will look at in our next few lessons.
Types of Prayer
There are many different types of prayers that we can pray. This list is not exhaustive, but it will give you some tools for your "ministry tool belt." Let's start by summarizing some of the major types of prayer, and then we will look in more detail at how to pray them in subsequent lessons.
This is praying for a person who is sick or injured to be healed or restored. It can range from something as simple as praying for a headache to go away to praying for arthritis to leave to praying for blind eyes to be opened to praying for a missing body part to grow back. In general, we need to start by praying for the smaller things (headaches, backaches, colds, etc.) and then as God heals and our faith grows, we are able to pray for bigger and bigger things. The principle of how to pray is pretty much the same for large and small infirmities, but our level of faith may not be strong enough at first for the bigger things.
Praying for healing is usually an interactive type of prayer where you check in with the person to see how they are doing and what is happening as you pray. Usually you try to establish a baseline before you start to pray, e.g., test out the person's condition to determine how bad the symptoms are or how much pain there is, etc. After we pray for a while we will usually stop and test again. If there is some improvement but not a complete healing, we will usually pray some more.
Some physical healings are instant, but others occur gradually as you persist in prayer. Some healings start while you are praying and continue after you stop praying until the healing is complete.
There are times when demons gain some type of influence or control over a person to oppress them. When that happens we say the person is demonized. This should not be confused with the term "possession." Possession implies total control of a demon over a person, where the demon seems to own the person. In most cases, the demon only has some limited control over the person. For instance, a spirit of lust may be able to sometimes (not always) influence the person in the areas of sexual fantasy, desire for sexual sin, etc. But that spirit is unable to control the person in other areas.
The purpose of deliverance is to set the afflicted person free from the demon's influence, to command the demon to leave the person. The authority we use in deliverance is the authority that Jesus gained over the devil on Calvary and through the resurrection. We never command a demon in our own authority, but only in the authority of Jesus.
If a demon claims to have some type of "legal right" to control or torment a person, we would typically deal with that before commanding the demon to leave. That way it won't have anything to hold on to that allows the demon to resist our authority. For instance, if the demon's right to the person comes from unforgiveness, we will walk the person through releasing forgiveness. Or if the demon's right to the person comes from a specific sin, we will have the person confess and repent of the sin and then renounce it. Once we have dealt with the things that enabled the demon to "set up shop" in the first place, we use the authority of Christ for the demon to leave the person.
And after the person is free, we typically teach them how to use their authority in Christ to command the demon to leave again if it tries to come back a few days later.
This is praying in the authority of Jesus regarding a situation that demons are empowering against a person, group or situation when there is not overt demonization. This can be certain types of physical infirmities, as some sicknesses are the result of spirits of infirmity. In those cases, we would command the infirmity to leave instead of praying for physical healing.
Sometimes demons can blind people to the Gospel or they can interfere in relationships, or they can oppress a person's finances, etc. These are a few examples of things we would address in authority prayer.
In authority prayer, we address the demons who are creating the problem and command them to stop doing it through the authority of Christ. If there is a demonic assignment against a person or group, we would cancel that assignment.
(Authority prayer can also be done over nature, such as calming a storm, turning a fire storm away from a given house, or commanding a tornado to change course and go back out to sea. However, we generally don't have opportunities to do that type of authority prayer in a ministry team setting.)
Curses are when a person speaks harm against another and a demon empowers the words to make them happen to the person. Curses range in severity from occult ritual curses to careless words spoken in anger that the enemy comes along and empowers.
We deal with it by explicitly addressing what was spoken and canceling those words. We "break" the curse. Typically we would also send back a blessing as Jesus commanded us to bless those who curse us.
There are different styles of curse breaking for different types of curses. In general, the ritual and repeated curses are harder to break than when the enemy empowers something spoken in anger or frustration against a person. And the greater the strength (or empowerment) of the curse, the more that most be done in prayer to cancel it.
Also, curses tend to have a boomerang effect on the person who pronounces them. In other words, the person who speaks the curse will often discover that the curse comes on them as well. Because of that, we usually plead for protection for the one who spoke the curse; we ask that God will help them to repent and forgive them and release them from the power of the curse they released. In the event of occult and satanic ritual curses, we may need to ask God to protect/spare the person's life when we break the curse. That is because occult and ritual level curses are usually empowered by a stronger, higher ranking demon. That type of demon tends to get very angry when its power to curse is broken, and they often retaliate by killing the person who evoked the ritual curse. Of course, we would much rather see the person get saved than for the demon to kill them. So we pray accordingly when we break that type of curse.
Inner healing prayer is prayer that addresses issues in a person's soul, emotions or spirit. These are often the result of some traumatic experience that happened to them when they were very young. But they can be caused by other things as well, such as personal sin or even sins committed by a previous generation.
Sometimes the conditions that require inner healing bring large amounts of emotional torment. Or they can effect a person's behavior in inappropriate and "out of control" ways, such as inappropriate rage or fear.
A lot of times there is a lie or misunderstanding or misconception that the person carries. For instance they may see themselves as worthless because they "don't do enough." Or they may see themselves as dirty or contaminated or evil because they were abused in some horrible way, such as being the victim of a violent crime or sexual assault. Inner healing prayer is not psychology, but it is healing them to bring their pain and misconceptions to God so they can experience His love and healing and truth.
If the person has committed sins or offenses, you will need to help them confess and repent. At times they may even have to make some sort of restitution. Then you can pronounce God's forgiveness over them and break off the power of condemnation.
This would include things like speaking God's blessing on the person's life. It could include encouraging prophetic words. Or you may simply invite God to come and minister directly to the person. It may also include the impartation of spiritual gifts.
At times, specific types of altar calls are given and you will pray prayers for the specific nature of the ministry call. At other times they simply come to you with a specific concern (maybe they are having financial difficulty or a close relative is sick). You would simply pray or petition God regarding the area they are concerned about.