In the early 1990s, I became aware of the power of prayer and how God was using our prayers to impact our family, ministry and business networks in remarkable ways.

My story started when I was beginning to know Jesus in a very personal way. I was attending a group called Bible Study Fellowship (BSF) in 1992. There we learned about the power of prayer and how we could impact ourselves, our families and every place that we have spiritual authority.

At this time, I was working for a mid-sized manufacturing firm that produced water conditioning equipment. It was a great company but there was some activity in the business that was very disturbing. One issue concerned management meetings and the lack of respect for others. I saw many leaders constantly backbiting, lying, and undermining each other for the benefit of promoting themselves up the corporate ladder.

I felt the Lord had a strategy to shift the atmosphere in the meeting rooms prior to start times. I was to simply enter the meeting room about 15 or 20 minutes early and pray for the Lord to have dominion over the meeting room.

As I prayed, I would repent for the ways that we’ve dishonored each other and actually partnered with the demonic to accomplish ungodly purposes. Then I would renounce the spirit that had control of the meeting room, and in its place, I invited Holy Spirit to have complete control. I would invite peace, joy, strategic direction, and all of the heavenly realm’s resources needed to support a healthy culture. The results were mind blowing – I received constant reports about how well meetings were going. Honor was being restored within all ranks of management.

From this point, I began to also pray for the health of the business, as I knew the Lord was for us and not against us.

Through trial and error, I learned how to pray strategically and that praying specific prayers is extremely important. 

I asked the Lord for a Christian president for our business (surprisingly, this was not a smart prayer, and I’ll tell you why).

At the time we were between presidents and this just seemed like it was the right request to pray. Within a couple of months, we had a brand new president and I found out he had placed a Bible down on the corner of his desk. Yeah, God!

The problem was, although he had godly character like I had asked God for, he didn’t have any business sense. Over a 2-year period, he almost ruined the business. As a result of his practices, more than 50% of the administrative team left the business, including me.

However, I never stopped praying for the company. My prayer changed to asking for a God-fearing man who was skilled in leading our type of business to great increase.

A year and a half later, I received an offer to return to the business – they were beginning to rebuild and wanted leaders with my level of experience. As I inquired about the new leadership, I learned that the new president looked to be exactly what we needed. My prayer had been answered as he was indeed a God-fearing man, and very gifted in how he was able to manage operations. Overall, we gained a great leader and he was effective in all that he did.

In the next few years, our market increased tenfold. Much of it was due to him bringing in new connections to markets and great development of new products that were ahead of the competition.

I faithfully served that company for over 35 years, retiring in December 2022. As I neared retirement, I worked with a team from Dare to Believe Ministries to develop a prayer group that would tend to smaller businesses. Soon a number of small businesses were very interested in learning how to pray effectively to both glorify God and to sow results into Kingdom. Some results were financially-based, but many others were relationally-based, including helping people to develop a Godly character.

This is what we call the Business Intercession Network (BIN). We have now been in operation for about three years and have experienced some very exciting things in answered prayer.

Our BIN group meets twice each month, one in the evening and the second around lunchtime.