Peter Greer (Co-author of Lead With Prayer)

Today's episode will begin in three minutes. But first I want to tell you about something crazy I'm doing for my new book, five Mere Christians. I've never seen an author do this before, but I'm giving a money back guarantee on this book. I'm so confident you're gonna love this book that if I'm wrong, if you pre order the book, you don't love it, I'm gonna send you a $20Amazon gift card as a money back guarantee. Why? Two reasons. One, this is a different book for me. Right. I know this is a very different biography is what is Jordan Rayner doing? And I know it's risky, so I'm going to de risk it for you. Because, listen, in my other books, Redeeming youg Time, the Sacredness of Secular Work, Master of One, et cetera, et cetera, I am telling you and me how we can glorify God in our work. But in five Mere Christians, I'm doing something very different. I'm showing you what that looks like practically through these unforgettable life stories of five Mere Christians from history. These are the top men and women that I would love to have on this podcast today if, you know, they weren't dead, right? So that's the first reason this is a risk and I'm gonna de risk this book for you. Here's the second reason. I'm just confident you're gonna love this book. My friend Mark Batterson said, quote, five Mere Christians proves that biographies can be extremely entertaining, profoundly helpful, and mercifully short. If you're looking for a book that combines the punch of a great sermon with the pace of a great thriller, this is it. Highly recommended. End quote. But here's the thing. In order to qualify for this money back guarantee, you got to do two things. Step one, pre order five Mere Christians in any format, hardback, ebook, audiobook, whatever. And then step two, go to 5merechristians.com and fill out the form on that page. And that's it. But you got to do it by midnight Eastern Time on May 9 by filling out that form. You'll also get all of the pre order bonuses listed on 5merechristians.com and be entered to win this crazy, epic trip for two to Europe. So visit 5meerchristians.com right now to sign up. Now, please enjoy today's episode. Hey, friend. Welcome to the Mere Christians podcast. I'm Jordan Raynor. How does the gospel influence the work of mere Christians? Those of us who aren't pastors or religious Professionals, but who work as assistant principals, lifeguards, and scientists. That's the question we explore every week. And today I'm posing it to my friend, Peter Greer. He's the CEO of Hope International Co author of one of the very best books I read in 2024 called Lead with Prayer. I told Peter on this episode I have been waiting, begging in my prayers that somebody would write a book that shows what it looks like practically to work with God and not just for him. A theme you've heard a lot on the Beer Crush, that podcast. This is the book that shows you how I loved it and you're going to get so much of the value out of the book. In this episode, Peter and I talked about how to leave the phone off the hook with God when we would otherwise, quote, unquote, hang up after our morning prayers and communicate with God all throughout the workday. We talked about how to move from duty to delight in prayer. And you're also going to learn why I plan on showing up to meetings at least five minutes early from now on and what the heck that has to do with prayer. Trust me, you are not going to want to miss this terrific episode with my friend, Peter Greer. There is a short list of people who I cannot believe I have yet to have on the Mirror Christ podcast. Peter Greer is one of them. Peter, welcome to the show, my friend.

Thanks for having me. We did it. Here we go.

We did it.

We did it.

Here we go.

Hey.

So today we're going to be talking about one of the best books I read in 2024. I've been recommending it to everybody, this book you co authored called Lead with Prayer. And I doubt we're going to talk a whole lot about your role at HOPE International, but I do want you to share the basics of what you do with our listeners so that they understand the lens through which you're viewing this topic. What do you and the team at HOPE do?

Yeah, so we are on a mission to end extreme poverty and to share the hope of Christ in places we serve around the world. So we serve in 27 countries and we really use the tools of business and entrepreneurship and investment to help individuals create jobs expand. Yeah, just the opportunities to to fight poverty by creating jobs. Something that I know you care a lot about as well. So sharing the hope of Jesus, supporting the local church and doing it as we invest in entrepreneurs through tools of micro enterprise development, savings groups, and I could say a whole lot more. But yeah, that's what we are focused.

On and now our listeners are shaking their heads like, oh yeah, I get why Jordan and Peter are connected. This is great.

I love it.

Hey, but I want to make this clear. You wrote this book, co authored this book, lead with prayer for ministry leaders like yourself and the mere Christians listening. In fact, I love that many of the leaders that you interviewed for the book were not leading churches or donor supported missionaries, but for profit businesses, right?

Absolutely. No, I don't think this topic of prayer is just for those that have the title of, of pastor or, or professional, full time. No, I think this is something for all of us. And I really think our target audience for this book is anyone that would say, yes, I believe that prayer matters, but it's so hard to actually do it. That's our target audience.

Show me what this looks like practically. Right? I was joking with my buddy Sky Jotani. I loved his book With. It's one of my all time favorite books. But I was like, bro, I know you tried to get practical at the end, but like, you got to write a sequel of like with God practically and get even more practical. But your book is the answer to that. Lead with Prayer is the perfect sequel to with, because it does talk about what this looks like practically. And we're going to get to that in a minute. But how did this book come about? Give us the 62nd summary of the origin of it and the research behind it.

Yeah. And Jordan, you said co author and that absolutely is the right title for this and every other book that I've been a part of. But I love going on the journey with Friends. And this particular one, it was Ryan Skook reaching out and he said, I look at my bookshelf and he said, I've got all kinds of leadership books. And then I look on my bookshelf and I've got a separate section that are prayer books. And he said, but nothing that combines the two of them. What can we learn about the prayer lives of leaders? And he said, let's go on a journey. He and I both have a lot of global friendships in the work that we do and said, let's go and learn from these leaders that really have figured out how to prioritize prayer in their life and in the organizational culture that they've created. And my initial response to him, Jordan, was, that sounds awesome. That sounds amazing. That's exactly what I said, Jordan. And I said, I am out. That is not my book. And part of the reason for that is this is really hard for me. And not long before he reached out, we had this prayer day for Hope International and I just couldn't get my head and my heart to slow down. And so I felt like, interesting book, but I am the wrong. I've got a prayer problem. I'm the wrong person to be working on this. But crazy enough, Jordan, next day, this call with him was on a Friday, next morning, Saturday morning, I was like, well, at least I should pray about it on that a little bit. And it was, it was beautiful. I had just this, this, this very clear sense of don't miss the journey. And I am so enormously grateful that I didn't miss the journey. Writing this book, having these conversations has radically transformed my prayer life and the prayer culture that we have at Hope International. And I would say today there is a smaller gap between I say I believe about prayer and what I practice in my own life. And as you said, Jordan, it is all about the practical tools. How do we, how do we actually do this? And so the writing was not just a writing process. It was a prayer journey that we went on together as friends and with Cameron Doolittle and Jill Heisey as well. The four of us went on this journey together to explore prayer. What can we learn and what tools can we apply in our own life? And I think all four of us would say this was a transformational journey that we went on.

It's great. You talked about Ryan at the beginning of this project, looking at his bookshelf, seeing the prayer book, seeing the business books. And one of the applications in your book, clearly from the business world that I loved, is you started this book with every business leader's favorite tool. A two by two chart. Right. Breaking down the four common approaches to prayer and leadership. Can you walk us through those four approaches at a high level? Kind of where leaders fall in this continuum?

Yeah. Well, I mean, I love that you said that about two by two. Pretty much everything I'm involved with gets summarized in a two by two at some point. But yeah, no, that's really it. This is nothing profound in that one, but it basically looks at the way in which in our life, prayerfulness on a continuum, are we growing in prayer? And then also leadership on a continuum, are we going to prayer? And most individuals, if you look at that, are over time, as there is more influence, as there is more platform, as there is more responsibility, the research says there is less prayerfulness. That's the journey. So increasing in leadership, decreasing in prayerfulness. And what happens in that quadrant when we have significant influence, we have significant leadership roles, and we have a pretty meager prayer life. And what Tim Keller would say is, that is detrimental for a Christian, but it is death for a Christian leader. You try to lead without an abiding sense of prayer, and Jesus said, there's going to be no fruit. You try to do this in your own strength, you are simply going to have a bigger platform. And how many more significant leaders do we need to read about or are friends with that don't finish well? And if you trace those stories, they almost all are in that quadrant of significant influence, significant leadership, responsibility, and. And really a lack of prayerfulness in their life.

I highlighted that, that Keller quote. I've actually got it right here. He said, quote, prayerfulness will kill you. It won't just hurt you, it will kill you. End quote. And he's talking. The context is he's talking to Christian leaders. Can you draw the line for me as a cautionary tale for me, for you, for the other Christians, like, how does a lack of prayerfulness lead to moral failure, lead to spiritual death? What is. What is connect the dots for us?

I mean, there was another study that we cite as well that looked at leaders that didn't finish well. And just kind of the stats in terms of biblical leaders is about one in three did finish well, which means two out of three did not. And the quote was, it's probably pretty similar today. And every single one of those leaders that didn't finish well had long before lost any sense of a personal sense of prayer. So the data is pretty clear. There is a lot at stake to a leader's personal prayer life. Not whether they pray on the stage, not whether they. But the personal prayer life is perhaps one of the greatest predictors of whether or not they finish well. And to your question, Jordan, so why? What's the connection here? Well, I think there's a really simple answer. Do you think your decisions, some of the biggest mistakes that we've made, do you think we might make different decisions if we paused before those decisions and said, not my will, but your will. What should I do? I'm thinking about this, and my guess is if we took just a moment, there are times that the Holy Spirit would whisper or shout if we just gave a little bit of room and say, that's a terrible idea, don't do that. That is not in alignment with the call that you have on your life. So I think that's one very practical way, but I think there's another one. I think prayer also is rooted in this belief that we do not have the Intelligence, wisdom, strength, ability to lead well. And I think prayer is this powerful way that we are declaring we can't do this on our own. And there's this one quote as well that said, in latter years of ministry, the tendency is to rely on one's own abilities, one's wisdom, one's competency, one's one's ability to get things done and less, less on Christ. And so I think we have a lot of leaders that are primarily just copying and pasting from the leadership tools that do work, doing it outside of a personal and vibrant relationship with Christ. And I think you do that for too long. And I just don't think that is a place where leaders will make good decisions when it is what I think is best, the tools, the tips, the tricks about leadership, separate from the Holy Spirit guiding us in the day to day decisions that we're making.

Yeah, you, you guys branded those leaders, the self reliant leaders. And I think many of our listeners, maybe most of our listeners can resonate with that. Right? Like as they get more experience, as they get further in their career, the temptation is to do more work for God and less work with God. And again, we're going to get really practical about the practical tools you guys share about prayer here in a minute. But I don't want to rush past the why of prayer. Right. Beyond the best reason, which is that we are commanded to pray. Right. Like this is not optional for a follower of Jesus. We are commanded, commanded and invited to spend time with our Heavenly Father. But you've thought a lot more about this topic than me. Make, make a, make a more compelling case here for why the Christian leaders listening need to be spending more time praying the busier that they get. You mentioned moral failure. You mentioned not finishing well. But what's the 3,5 bullet summary of the why of prayer?

Yeah, maybe I'll just give a one bullet point, which is apart from me.

You could do nothing.

Interesting. So interesting. Yes. And the person who exemplifies that in terms of really busy schedule, lots of demands, lots of speaking opportunities, lots of travel opportunities, literally lines of people waiting to be healed. Jesus, as we read in the accounts of the Gospels, as Jesus had more and more and more demands on his time in a way that almost confounded his disciples, we see that he often withdrew to lonely places to pray. Prayer was a priority in the life of Jesus. And if prayer was a priority in the life of Jesus, with all the demands on his time, with literally a small window of time to do this amazing mission, that he was given to do. And yet he says there's nothing more important than for me to pray. And so what did he do the night before he chose the disciples? He could have spent a little more time doing a few more reference checks, a few more interviews. He spends the night in prayer before he selects the disciples. And what does he do the night before he goes to the cross? He literally says, there's nothing more important. Even though there are only hours left, there's nothing more important for me to do than with a small group of my friends, go to a garden and spend some time praying. And to me, if I ever think that I am too busy to pray, I just look at the life and example of Jesus and said, no, we make time for what is important. We make time for what we prioritize. And in a way that I don't understand all of the why, I very clearly can see in the life of Jesus. It was a life that said, prayer matters. Time with my heavenly father matters. And I found it so interesting that when the disciples came to Jesus, they could have asked him to teach them anything. Teach us how to do these miracles, Jesus, teach us how to do all these things. Teach us how to speak and preach like you. And yet the only recorded request that we have from the disciples is they said, jesus, teach us how to pray. They saw that there was something different. They saw that there was a different type of prayer life that Jesus had. And so that's really, again, going back to why we wrote this book. It's just we wanted to learn. We wanted to ask that same question today. Jesus, teach us how to pray. And then we expanded our research to some amazing leaders in a variety of different sectors with that same posture. How do we do this? How do we practically learn how to pray more so it doesn't just feel like some duty that we have to do? But again, to Tim Keller ism, he talks about prayer moving from duty to delight. And I would say that's the. That's the journey that we wanted to be on. Feeling like we have to pray or we should pray to. I can't believe we get to pray. And that's the journey.

Be real with me right now, sitting here recording this. January 7, 2025. Would you describe prayer as a delight?

I would describe it as much more of a delight than January 2024. And yeah, yeah, no, that's what I want to hear.

That's what I want to hear. And by the way, I've actually set goals around prayer this quarter. So these are Very selfish questions, but I'm sure our audience can resonate with them. All right. How did you move from duty to delight in prayer? Because I think every Christian leader listening wants that. They don't know how to get it. Nobody's put the cookies on the bottom shelf for him, Peter, to show them what this looks like practically. So guide us here.

Yeah. So, I mean, one of the very practical things you say, what is life like for me today? That was different from a year ago. One of the things that we did after writing the book, it was Ryan, and he basically created these prayer prompts. And so it's a. I have a physical copy. These, like, little prompts. It's a. Almost looks like a deck of cards. It's like 52 cards in that. And this morning I was using one of them to have a guide because my mind wanders, Jordan. My mind is so easy to look and to think at something. And this is one of the practical things, taking all these tools and in a very concrete way to say, I'm just going to pray through some of these. And so that's one of the tools that has been extremely helpful for. For me, when I sit down to pray. It's not just where does my mind go, but actually to having some guiding scripture, some. Some guiding thoughts, some guiding prompts in that.

All right, so take it. Take us into this more granularly. So you have a deck of cards sitting on your desk.

Yeah. Again, a time and place. So there is a chair in my house. I. You hear people talk about this. I never did it. I never had, like, a place, but I got a place now. I got a place.

You have a place. You have a chair in your office.

It's at home. Yeah. Okay.

At home. There's a deck of 52 cards there. And by the way, you guys, if I'm remembering this correctly, you allow people to download these and print these for free, right, Jordan?

Everything that we could do to make this. Our goal is to equip individuals that want to learn more how to pray. And so, yes, everything that we have. If you go to lead with Prayer.com, you can download that, Jordan. This is an unopened pack right here that I'm holding in my hand that I'm going to send you if you don't have it.

Come on. I don't have it. I want.

All right, there we go. I'm putting this in the mail to you today.

Read me one of the cards. Told you we're going to get practical.

Well, here we go. No this is it. So the one that for today, here. So on the one side, it's praise and awe. There's so much about awe, and I think we lose that in our world. So it has some verses. Psalm 65, 8. The whole earth is filled with awe, your wonders. Where morning dawns, where evening fades, you call for songs of joy. Personally, I found it so amazing when we are having these conversations to realize the gift of nature and to realize just being more aware. I set my background screen of just amazing pictures that fill me with awe at this amazing world. Do you realize the creativity of God and all that he did? So it gives these prompts to think about scriptures that talk about awe. And then on the back, these are the prompts. Think about each with wonder. And so in prayer, look at the vastness of creation, the beauty of nature, the depth of forgiveness, infinite love of God, who cares about the smallest details. And so that to me, like, this is just today, this is just the prompt here, but super simple, super practical. But it fills me with a little more awe when I go in prayer and am reminded at the creativity, at the greatness, at the goodness of the one that I am praying to. And the more that I'm captured with just a little bit more of a picture of the God that created all this and then invites us into relationship. It's not this distant God who created all this and then walked away, but a God who did all that. And I get to have a time communing with being in conversation with, as a father delights, I delight with my kids to believe that there is a God who delights when we come and spend time in prayer. Like, that's just, that's a different experience in prayer.

You mentioned this word prompt. And I'm a big fan of languaging, right, of giving names to things in a book that have otherwise taken, you know, seven, eight words to describe before. And you guys took all the practices that you heard from all these plain leaders and really organized them, at least as I understood it, into two buckets, prompts and plans. And I love that language. So before we go any further, can you explain what you mean by the difference between plans and prompts as it pertains to prayer?

Yeah. Well, I love what you said earlier, Jordan. You said, I, I created goals around prayer. I never did that. I until starting this. Like, never, never, never. And I don't know, I felt like prayer is just something you're supposed to feel motivated or feel equipped. And that's not like any other part of our Life. What part of our life just naturally gets better without intentionality? Right. No. Every year, we create plans about things that matter to us. And again, this is nothing new. For over 1500 years, this has been the practice that there has been a rule of life that individuals have had to say. I want to structure my day around things that matter. And so, for the first time in my life, talk about plans. I've got practices that I do every day, every week, every quarter, and every year. Never had that before, but that is simply call it a rule of life, call it a plan, whatever you want. It's a way to say, if it matters, I'm gonna plan for it.

So you would define plans, Planned prayer contrasted with prompted prayer. Plan prayer would be set times and places at a set cadence in which you plan to commune with the Lord. The Lord. Is that right?

Yeah, that's right.

I love prompts, and I'm. I've become a little obsessive with experimenting with different prompts throughout my work day to better commune with the Lord as I do the work of the Lord. It's something we've talked about in this podcast a little bit. And I loved you guys talking about Brother Lawrence in the book. I think the quote was, it was almost as if Brother Lawrence refused to say amen after his planned prayer in the morning. Right. It was spontaneous prayer attached to physical prompts or situational prompts throughout the day. So as you guys interviewed leaders, particularly in. Outside the four walls of the church, in the marketplace. Right. Mere Christians working out in the world, or some of the prompts that you found coming up that helped them to commune with God throughout their work days.

And one of the great ones, Jared, we heard that same thing from a lot of different people that we interviewed that had basically the same. The same idea as Brother Lawrence, but it's an ongo conversation as opposed to just a once and done. And one individual said, close my Bible.

I'm done. See you tomorrow.

One of the individuals that I loved, he said, we leave the phone off the hook all day. He said, we don't hang up. We start our day in prayer, then we leave the phone off the hook for the rest of the day. And I love that ongoing conversation as opposed to just kind of the. Yeah. And Brother Lawrence, his book, the Practice of the Prince of God, is so good. Good at exploring what that looked like for him as he was doing his work. Washing dishes, making shoes, doing the work. He was doing it with a prayerful attitude and posture throughout the day. And again, nothing new. Under the sun. We're just trying to discover what that looks like in our own life as well. One of the other ways is oftentimes for prompts and having it an ongoing conversation is actually just several individuals started doing it around physical places. One individual, like, like, literally when there was a meeting, a board meeting, or any other kind of leadership team meeting, they just made it their practice to go show up early before anyone else in the room, in the physical room and say, God, would you fill this place and just have a few minutes dedicating the place and conversation and asking that they would be attuned to God's prompts and leading in that moment, but physically being in the space and praying over that, I thought that was a creative way.

I love that I didn't see that in the book. I'm not sure if it was there or not. Maybe I missed that. I love that practice.

Yeah. Yeah, that. That was a great one.

I love the picture of keeping the phone off the hook for the day. I think, you know, most people listen this podcast are spending time with the Lord daily. Most of them are doing that in the morning. And I love the idea of, yeah, the phone's off the hook for the rest of the day. I find for me, I need physical reminders around me to remind me that the phone is still off the hook and I still have access to my heavenly fire. So, for example, I think I mentioned this on the show before. Right above my door, I have a replica of a sign that hung in Fred Rogers's office for the 30 years he was doing Mr. Rogers Neighborhood. It's the Hebrew. Hebrew rendering of a verse in Song of Solomon. Say, my beloved is mine and I am his, right? It's reminding me of the love I have from God. And it's a reminder to pray every time I walk through the door. Do you have anything like that at home in the office? What are you holding up? What is this?

I mean, this is about as low tech as it gets, but I literally have this.

Peter's holding up. I have a crumbled up piece of paper. I love this.

It is. But it's on my desk here. And this was one of the great ones, one of the prayers, but I just was so struck by it. But St. Teresa of Avila, again, many, many years ago, this was her prayer. But what wonders we shall see if we keep before our eyes our frailty and folly and recognize how unworthy we are to be servants of so great a Lord whose marvels are beyond our comprehension. I just think that's this beautiful way of reminding ourselves, like our frailty, our folly. We can't take ourselves too seriously, George. We make a mess of things all the time. We lose sight of what is most important. But isn't it amazing that we get to be known as servants of a God whose marvels are beyond our comprehension? So that's the prayer that I have right there on my desk on this used. I wouldn't call it crumpled up, but I would say well worn piece of paper. That is a. Yes.

Well worn piece of paper. That was a compliment. The crumpled up was a compliment. And I want to talk about one more other practical thing from the book that I think might be helpful for our listeners. You talked about this investment banker who plans, makes plans to, quote, waste time with God, end quote. And I gotta be honest, this, like, created anxiety in me as I read it. Like, I. I'll just be like, real transparent. Like, if somebody reaches out is like, hey, man, can we just, like, grab coffee just to catch up? I'm like, what do you. Please send me an agenda? Like, I. Or I'll see you on the new Earth, right? Like, we've both got work to do. Like, we'll grab coffee on the north. Wasting time is tough. Me, I need to get better at it. I recognize that. What did it mean for this guy to waste time with God in his very high profile job? And what did that look like, practically?

Yeah, no, that's John Kim. And that was one of the early interviews and it was interesting. We heard something similar, similar idea from some of the other interviews that we had as well. The same idea. And I guess I would say, Jordan is when you look at the closest relationships that you have with your family, if you show up every single one of those times together. I'm having dinner with my wife tonight. If I pull out an agenda as I gather over dinner tonight and I say, all right, here's what we're going to cover over our meal. We're going to do this. Like, I can tell you how well that would be received. And I can tell you that the relationships that matter most to me, yeah, there are things that we want to do, to learn, to grow. And there is a structure to certain things. And there is the beautiful gift of just being together. And I know that is true for Laurel and me. I know that is true with my kids. Just being together and delighting at this idea of being together, just abiding. Yeah. And my guess is you have those relationships as well, Jordan, that don't have an agenda attached to them. And that's really. That's what he was saying, is that should be part of our relationship with. With the one who knows us. And if every time we go, imagine what kind of relationship, if every time we show up, it's. And this is what most prayer is for me. Like, here's what I need God. Here's why I think it's important. And that is important. I think we do have this privilege of coming and presenting our request to God with Thanksgiving, but I don't think that's the only way to pray. And so I think this idea of wasting time is to see it a little bit more like a relationship, to slow down a little, a little bit more. And again, John Kim would say to waste time with God, to actually just delight in being in the presence of Almighty God.

Okay, I'm going to ask the question my listeners want me to ask. What does that look like, practically? Is the wasting time piece of that literally just silence? Is it listening to Holy Spirit? What did John mean? I don't want you to put words in his mouth that he didn't say. Of course. Right. But as you guys talked to John, what. And the other individual who said they wasted time with God, what did that waste time component actually look like?

Yeah, so it's. I won't speak for John on that. And when I look at the practices of the book Jordan, that I am still learning and growing, I'm in the kiddie pool of this particular practice. So just to be clear, I am still in the league. But I will say that there have been moments, I think for me, the attitude of how quickly can I get through the things that I need God to do? For me, that attitude has changed. And it is a slower pace. It is a little bit aware of heart rate going down, and a little bit more. For me, one of the things we haven't talked about is just the importance of physical posture in prayer. Again, I never experimented that. But again, for the first time in my life, like physically taking my hands and what do I need to release? What is God inviting me to release? What am I carrying that is not mine to carry? And then what do I need to receive? And just given a little bit more time and space in a different physical posture as opposed to, here's my agenda, here's my list. How can I rifle through this as quickly as possible? And yeah, so maybe that's one very simple thing. It's. It's a slower pace. It is a more. Yeah, listening posture. And I have had moments going Back to the previous point, that, that has been a delight to actually, actually feel like. Yeah, the belovedness. Like, like you have to actually feel that we are the objects of divine, unmerited favor and grace, like on us. And to receive that, to actually believe that we are children of God, fully known and fully loved, I mean, that changes your prayer life. When that, when that is the posture, when that is the experience. Fully known, fully loved. I mean, come on, that's. That's pretty amazing.

Hey, so we've been talking about leading with prayers individuals, but before we wrap up, I do want to touch on leading with prayer as teams. You lead a ministry that frequently prays together, prays corporately. Most of our listeners are working with Christians and non Christians alike. Right. And I know you interview Christian leaders who are in the same boat. I'm curious, how did they think about praying with their teams? You mentioned the Fortune 100 CEO who was doing this kind of out of office pre work hours. What were some other best practices you saw in terms of corporate prayer in teams that were a mix of believers and non believers alike?

Yeah. So if you search for images of prayer, almost all of them are going to be individual alone. The images of prayer, it's going to be individuals alone. When we started having conversations with individuals, especially outside of the US Prayer, it was just assumed that it has an individual component and a corporate component. And yet in our life, in our experience, I think we are missing out on the beauty of actually praying together. And just, I would say that is the biggest thing of the book going through with Ryan and Cameron and Jill. We prayed together a lot on this. And I think I rediscover the gift of corporate prayer. Not just individual, but, but like actually making time. And for me, it's. I love starting meetings in prayer, but that's a different prayer experience than actually giving a little more time and space to experience that together. And then we started changing things. At Hope International, we used to have prayer times, but we intentionally have redesigned them so that every day is a different theme. And, and sometimes it's praying with your particular team that is physically together, and sometimes it's intentionally connecting you to other parts of the world and, and having these prayer experiences. And again, it's just intentionality. It's saying, if this matters, let's plan, let's be thoughtful, let's be prayerful about how we can orchestrate our corporate rhythms and patterns. And it's just been great. I think about IJAM as well. Never forget visiting their office and they start with individual prayer. But then every day before lunch, they gather together. And it is not optional. Maybe technically it is, but it's just everyone shows up, everyone. And there's power of example. If the leadership team says this matters and we're going to show up, my guess is that sends a pretty powerful message to the rest of the team as well of saying this is an organizational priority. Don't miss this, be part of this, come join us. And that's been so fun to just have this experience of, yeah, let's go on the journey together.

I've talked to some of our listeners and some of our guests on the show before who are leading for profit ventures with Christians and non Christians on the team who feel very comfortable doing prayer as an entire company. And when I look back at my days as a tech startup CEO, you most recently running Threshold360 day to day about six years ago, that was not me. I was not comfortable asking the non believers on my team to join me in prayer. What would you say to me, like, if you were to go back six years ago, how would you coach me in that? Would you say that's okay? Would you say there's a biblical mandate to pray with the non believers on my team and how the leaders that you interviewed who were in that context think about this?

Peter yeah, so Jordan, I feel like in the conversation so far, and even in the way that we've been talking about checklists and we've been talking about plans and structured and rule of life and all of those things. And to me, those have been helpful. Those have been enormously helpful in growing in my own life and in the organizational prioritization of prayer. But I do not want this podcast to end without matching that with the incredible grace that we find. And I love this quote from Brenda Manning, he said something essentially like, no child can bring a coloring picture to their parent and their parent can say that's a bad coloring. Like, no, no, you can't do as my kids, when they're young, they could not do a bad coloring. And I think in a similar way, we, we cannot do a bad prayer when we come and desire on that. And I think there is grace upon grace. And so I would just say if I were to counsel you, I would not give you specifics, but I would be invitational on try some things. I would be invitational on saying not do you pray in front of the whole company? But are there a couple individuals you can pray with in that? I would not say this is what it should look like, but I would ask you when you spend time in prayer, like, what are those things? And maybe. Maybe it's just a little more spontaneity, that when you hear a colleague that's going through a terrible time following up with them and saying, hey, I would love to pray for you. How can I pray for this particular issue? And my guess is that might open some important doors.

Oh. And it did. And those were the. Those were the magical moments when I was running that company. And by the way, I figured that was going to be your answer, and I asked it because some of our listeners needed to hear that today. That was really helpful and gracious. All right, Peter, four questions I ask every guest before we wrap up these episodes. Number one, look ahead to Isaiah 65. We're on the new earth for billions of years. What work would you love for the Lord to give you to do for at least a million years? Maybe not a billion.

Oh, I want to be the greeter. I mean, if I get. I just. I. I mean, come on. Like, yeah, the greeter. That. To me, I just.

Somebody else said that recently. I love that answer. Be the greeter. It's a great answer. Hey, if we opened up your Amazon order history, which books would we see you buying over and over and over again to give away to friends or colleagues at work?

Oh, I mean, redeeming your time. Is there a question, Jordan? Come on. No. To me, you'd see a lot of Tim Keller. I think in our day, he put his. Yeah, he captured some truths in a really, really special way. So counterfeit gods, you look at Prodigal God. Yeah. Anyway, you'd see a lot of Keller.

Yeah, I'm always rereading Keller. I'm rereading Encounters with Jesus right now. I forget how much I love this little book of his that's often forgotten in the Keller conversation. So good. Hey, who would you most want to hear on this podcast? Ideally, somebody not leading a ministry, but somebody working out in the marketplace. Talk about how the gospel is influencing the workplace. They do.

I have been so truly inspired by Alan Barnhart and what he has done with Barnhart Crane and Alan and Catherine live lives in a beautifully uncommon way and hands and heart open. They're a pretty extraordinary couple.

I have never invited Alan onto the show. I even wrote about him and called to create. I need to get Alan onto the podcast. I think that'd be really, really fun. All right, Peter, you're talking to this global audience of mere Christians, many of them leaders, many of them not. Some of them just Working as baristas and marketers and programmers within large companies. What's one final thing you want to leave that audience with before we sign off?

Yeah, I think just, I mean, related to this conversation, I think if you would say consistency in prayer has been something that I have struggled with, I would say make it one of your goals this year to grow in prayer, to go on the journey, and to invite a couple other people to be on the journey with you. My guess is that might have a real benefit in your life and in your relationships this year.

So good. Peter, man, I want to commend you for the exceptional work you do every day for the glory of God and the good of others through hope, through your books, through this book. Lead With Prayer. Thank you for giving us. Thank you for. Seriously, like, like I have been begging for this book. I've been begging for somebody to write an uber practical guide to working with God and not just for him. And you, Cameron and Ryan and the whole team did it. And man, on a personal note, thank you for your constant support of my work. You, you probably don't remember this. I remember this very well. After Called to Create was released, we hadn't connected before and I think you emailed me like six months after, after it was like, hey man, this is like amazing, like such a great book. And I'm like, Peter Greer is a big freaking deal. Like, why is Peter Greer emailing me? Right? Like, that just showed such grace. It was so generous of you to do that because very few readers as a percentage write the author. But for you to do it with such a big title and big experience and I had so much respect for you having read your stuff, man, like I'll never ever forget that. Like you're a gem of a person. Hey friends, listen, go pick up a copy of this book, Lead with Prayer and Peter, the cards, all the free downloadables and stuff, where can people get that? Leadwithprayer.com you got it.

That's exactly right.

That's it. Peter. Thanks for hanging out with us today.

Thank you, Jordan.

Man, I found that episode so helpful, especially with the context of the book. Seriously, if you haven't read this book, go pick up a copy of it right now. Hey guys, thank you so much for tuning in. I'll see you next week. Hey friends, this is your last chance to claim all the amazing pre order bonuses for five mere Christians before they go away at 11:59pm Eastern Standard Time on May 9. I've never offered this many pre order bonuses on a book before, so when you fill out the form@5merechristians.com Number one, you're going to be entered to win an incredible trip for you and a friend to tour CS Lewis's favorite spots in Oxford, explore Ole Kirk Christiansen's former stomping grounds at Lego headquarters in Denmark, and much more. Number two, you'll be invited to join my first ever interactive reading, culminating in a zoom call with me and my co author on this book, Kaylee Cox. Number three, you're going to be getting a money back guarantee to try the book risk free. And number four, you'll also get access to a free course I'm not selling anywhere called how to Write a book 10x faster and better with an affordable co author author. You can claim all these bonuses in just two simple steps. Step 1 Pre order 5 mere Christians in any format you want. It can be hardback, ebook, audiobook, whatever. And you can order it from wherever. It doesn't matter to me. Step 2 Go to 5meerchristians.com and fill out the form of that page. And that's it. I'll send you all those bonuses. You'll be entered into the sweepstakes with one simple form submission. But hey, don't wait all of these off. All of these offers, all these bonuses. They're going away at 11:59pm Eastern Standard Time on May 9, so visit 5merechristians.com right now to claim your bonuses.