A Word from Sanmi Dawodu

If you're searching for how to pray for the church, you are stepping into one of the most powerful assignments a believer can take up. Week 5 of the 40 Days of Prayer turns the gaze outward — and it begins where Jesus began: the church He is building.

We enter Week Five — Intercession and Kingdom Advancement — by turning our prayer outward. The first four weeks have been inward: repentance, renewal, victory, and direction. All of it necessary. All of it the preparation for this week's work. Because the believer who has been cleansed, filled, purified, and directed by God is now ready for the most powerful activity available to a human being on earth: intercession — the act of standing in the gap between God's purposes and human need, between heaven's provision and earth's poverty, and through prayer drawing what is above into what is below.

We begin where Jesus began His own intercession — with the Church. John 17, the great high-priestly prayer of Jesus, is almost entirely dedicated to intercession for His people: for their unity (verse 11), their joy (verse 13), their protection from the evil one (verse 15), their sanctification (verse 17), and their witness to the world (verse 21). If the Son of God's most urgent intercession on the night of His arrest was for the Church — then praying for the Church is not a secondary activity of the spiritual life. It is the primary occupation of heaven's most faithful Intercessor, and the most Kingdom-advancing prayer we can offer.

Not Religion — Ekklesia: What Jesus Was Building

The Greek word ekklesia — translated "church" in Matthew 16:18 — does not primarily mean a building or a religious institution. It means an assembly of called-out people, convened for a specific purpose. In Greco-Roman culture, the ekklesia was a governing assembly with real civic authority. Jesus is not building a religious club — He is building a governing body that carries the authority of heaven into the earth.

This is why the gates of Hades cannot prevail against it. Gates are defensive structures, not offensive weapons. The church is the advancing force. Week 5 of the 40 Days of Prayer series trains the intercessor to pray from this position of authority.

Not Religion — Ekklesia: What Jesus Was Actually Building

Matthew 16:18 contains the most foundational promise in the New Testament about the Church: 'I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.' The word Jesus uses — 'ekklesia' — is not a religious word in its original Greek context. It was the word for the assembly of citizens called out of their homes and gathered for the governance of the city-state. Jesus is describing a called-out community — people gathered not by cultural affiliation or ethnic heritage but by a divine call, assembled for the governance of the Kingdom of God in the earth.

This Church is not a building or a denomination or an institution — it is a living organism, the Body of Christ on earth (1 Corinthians 12:27), animated by the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead (Romans 8:11), indwelt by the same Christ who ascended to the Father's right hand (Colossians 1:27 — 'Christ in you, the hope of glory'). It is the most extraordinary community in human history: a people drawn from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation (Revelation 5:9), united not by culture or geography but by the blood of the Son of God and the indwelling of His Spirit.

The Gates of Hades Shall Not Prevail: The Church as Advancing Force

The promise that 'the gates of Hades shall not prevail' against the Church is one of the most misunderstood promises in Scripture. Many read it defensively — as though the Church is a fortress under siege, barely holding out against the assault of hell. But the image is the opposite: gates are defensive structures, not offensive weapons. It is the Church that is on the offensive — advancing against the kingdom of darkness — and the gates of hell are what the Church is breaking through. The Church is not defending its turf. It is invading enemy territory and refusing to be stopped.

This is the intercession we are called to pray today: not 'Lord, help the Church survive' but 'Lord, release the Church into the full offensive advance You promised — the advance that the gates of hell cannot withstand.' The Church was never designed for survival mode. It was designed for Kingdom advance, for territory-taking, for darkness-displacing, for the transformation of communities, cultures, and nations by the power of the Gospel and the presence of the Holy Spirit.

“Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish.”

— Ephesians 5:25–27 (NKJV)

'S INTERCESSION

Strengthened in the Inner Man: Paul's Prayer for the Church (Ephesians 3:16)

Paul's intercession for the Church in Ephesians 3:14-19 is the most comprehensive prayer for the Church in Scripture — and it begins not with the externals of ministry, growth, or influence, but with the internals: 'that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man.' The Church that changes the world is not the Church with the largest buildings or the most polished programmes — it is the Church in which individual believers are being strengthened in their inner life by the Spirit of God. The visible Church is only as powerful as its invisible interior.

Praying for the Church means praying for this: that every member — from the senior pastor to the newest convert — would be genuinely strengthened in the inner man by the Spirit's power. That the private life would match the public presentation. That the prayer life, the character, the integrity, the love, and the holiness of the members would be real rather than performed. The Church that the world cannot ignore is not the Church with the most impressive external structure — it is the Church whose interior life with God is so genuinely powerful that the external impact is inevitable.

Christ Dwelling in the Heart: What Fullness Looks Like

Paul prays that 'Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith' — the word 'dwell' being 'katoikein' in Greek, meaning to settle down and be permanently at home, as opposed to merely visiting. Christ can be in a life without being at home in it — present but not settled, acknowledged but not governing, invited in but not given the full run of the house. The prayer for the Church is that Christ would be fully at home in every heart — that every room of every believer's life would be surrendered to His governance and His presence.

Above All You Can Ask or Think: The Scope of God's Answer

The climax of Paul's prayer is astonishing: 'that you may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height — to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge.' The love of Christ is simultaneously knowable and inexhaustible — it can be known and yet never fully known, experienced and yet always exceeding the experience. Paul prays that the Church would be collectively immersed in this love — not as a private, individual experience but as a shared, corporate reality that is comprehended 'with all the saints' together.

The Church that is filled with the love of Christ is the most powerful force on earth — not because it is organizationally efficient, theologically precise, or culturally relevant, but because 'by this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another' (John 13:35). The intercession for the Church that will produce the greatest Kingdom impact is not prayer for better programmes or larger buildings — it is prayer for the love of Christ to fill, overflow, and characterize every relationship in the body.

How to Pray for Your Local Church Specifically

Any intercession for the Church that is limited to the comfortable, resourced, free church of the Western world is a severely truncated intercession. The majority of the global Church exists in conditions of poverty, persecution, and restriction that the average Western believer cannot imagine. Open Doors estimates that over 360 million Christians worldwide face high levels of persecution — in North Korea, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Somalia, Libya, Pakistan, Eritrea, and dozens of other nations, believers are being killed, imprisoned, tortured, and dispossessed for their faith in Jesus Christ.

Hebrews 13:3 commands: 'Remember the prisoners as if chained with them — those who are mistreated — since you yourselves are in the body also.' The persecuted Church is not a distant abstraction — it is our family. The same Spirit who dwells in the comfortable Western believer dwells in the Nigerian pastor shot on his way home from church, in the Pakistani woman imprisoned for refusing to deny Christ, in the North Korean believer in a prison camp for possessing a Bible. Their suffering is our suffering. Their need is our intercession. Their faith shames our comfort and calls us to the prayer closet on their behalf.

🌍 Praying for the Global Church: The five regions with the most severe persecution: North Africa and the Middle East, Sub-Saharan Africa, South and Central Asia, East Asia, and Latin America. Pray specifically for believers in these regions — for protection, for boldness, for the miraculous provision of God, and for the advance of the Gospel through the very suffering the enemy intends for the Church's destruction.

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Altar Call: How to Intercede for the Body of Christ with Apostolic Power

Day 29 of Week 3 calls you forward — not into intellectual agreement with what you have read, but into actual surrender. Pray For The Church is not a topic to study; it is an invitation to receive.

You are part of the church Jesus is building — and it cannot be stopped. Tomorrow in Day 30: Pray for Leaders, we intercede for those God has placed over us.

Receive what God has been speaking to you today. Pray the prayer below from your heart.

A Prayer for Pray For The Church

Father, I kneel before You today as Paul knelt — not as a formality but as an act of surrender before the One from whom all authority flows.

I pray for the church — globally and locally. Strengthen every believer with might through Your Spirit in the inner man. Let Christ dwell richly in every heart. Let the body of Christ know the love that surpasses knowledge. Fill Your church with all the fullness of God.

Raise up a generation of intercessors who stand in the gap for the ekklesia — who pray until the church looks like what Jesus died to build. In the name of Jesus, Amen.

The gates of hell cannot prevail against the church Jesus is building. Pray for it. Fight for it. It is worth everything.

Continue the 40-Day Journey

Access all 40 daily sermon packs, 30-point prayer sets, and Spirit-led devotionals at Sanmi Dawodu Ministries.

Explore the Full Prayer Series →

Continue the 7-Day Week 3 Series

Each day of Week 3 builds on the one before. Read the full Spiritual Renewal series at sanmidawodu.org/40-days-prayer.

• Day 30:How to Pray for Leaders: Interceding for Those God Has Placed in Authority
• Day 31:How to Pray for Nations: Standing in the Gap for Your Nation and the World
• Day 32:How to Pray for Revival and Spiritual Awakening: Crying Out for the Outpouring That Transforms Generations
• Day 33:How to Pray for the Lost: Interceding for Those Who Do Not Yet Know Christ
• Day 34:How to Pray for Children and Youth: Interceding for the Next Generation with Prophetic Faith
• Day 35:How to Pray for Peace and Unity: Interceding for the Shalom Only God Can Give

Building on Week 1: Repentance & Cleansing

This week’s journey of renewal stands on the foundation laid in Week 1. If you missed it, start here:

• Week 1 Day 1:How to Return to God After Backsliding (Biblical Steps That Actually Work)
• Week 1 Day 7:Create in Me a Clean Heart, O God: The Full Hebrew Meaning & How to Pray It

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