Last week I wrote about how I believe God wants the Body of Christ in geographic regions (meaning who share the same mission field) to plan united events – calendared events where they come together for prayer, worship, and vision casting.

Spontaneous Christian Events

Equally important are “spontaneous united event” – events that are called by ministry leaders in response to something God speaks to them as they pray together.  These are seen throughout scripture too.  The following people at various times called all of Israel or Judah to gather together for special times of united fasting, prayer, and repentance: Samuel, Elijah, Joel, Nehemiah, Ezra, Hezekiah, Jehoshaphat, and Josiah.

They called these gathering in response to a realization of sin among the people and/or in response to an enemy attacking them (perhaps both are the same reason even).  Josiah read the Law for the first time and realized how far Judah had fallen from the Lord’s ways so he called the nation to unite for a time of repentance.  Samuel saw the imminent threat of the Philistines and called Israel to confess their sins and unite in prayer for victory.  Elijah was fed up with the people following Baal, so he challenged the prophets of Baal and the people of Israel to come to Mount Carmel to see whose god was really God.

Unite When God Calls You To Do So

When leaders in the Body of Christ are united in prayer (what CRM calls a Fusion Group), God will often speak to them, leading them to host an event to deal with a specific issue.  As they pray and talk with one another, perhaps they realize students in their ministries are ill-equipped to share the gospel, so they sense God leading them to host a “spontaneous united event” aimed at training believers to share the gospel.  At the University of Texas for instance, after realizing the staggering statistics about how many Christian men are addicted to pornography, we hosted a “spontaneous united event” called the Power of Porn that reached thousands of students.

Bottom line:  The Body of Christ should calendar times to unite in worship, prayer, and vision casting, and they should also be attentive to the Holy Spirit when He calls them to unite for specific reasons and seasons.

Justin Christopher is the director of Campus Renewal Ministries at the University of Texas and author of Campus Renewal: A Practical Plan for Uniting Campus Ministries in Prayer and Mission. He gives leadership to the Campus House of Prayer and the misssonal community movement at the University of Texas.