My monthly BLOG is focused on the new innovative Garage Gym Church construct being pioneered between Faith and Fitness Magazine and Freedom Fitness America, especially in terms of integrating physical fitness with spiritual, mental, and social fitness training based on lessons learned in implementing this approach inside the military community. In particular, as an active duty US Marine with 15+ years on active duty I articulate new concepts of Christian ministry outreach and discipleship centered around physical fitness and integrating warrior ethos with the Christian faith based on my personal experience living out my faith while in the service of my country. Chris Reardon, Founder/Executive Director of Freedom Fitness America
In October of 2022, my longtime friend Thomas Bush; a man with 2+ decades of Christian prayer ministry experience through his work with the National Day of Prayer Network, Prayer Assist Ministries, and Promise Keepers; proposed to me a radical new game-changing idea of corporate prayer called “Fire Team Prayer” with a specific emphasis for revitalizing the concept of men in taking up a greater leadership role in coming together to pray corporately as espoused by the early and infamous champion of the Christian faith Paul in the following statement to his protege Timothy:
"Since prayer is at the bottom of all this, what I want mostly is for men to pray—not shaking angry fists at enemies but raising holy hands to God." (1 Timothy 2:8 MSG) The concept was inspired by the Marine Corps infantry organizational construct of a four person "fire team" which is the smallest organizational element of this elite fighting organization that lives and fights together to gain victory on physical battlefields. This team is generally filled by young college aged Americans that who typically live in barracks rooms or field environments close together, train together in all exercises, are led by a veteran Marine typically with three to four years of active service, and are part of a greater "squad" composed of three fire teams led by a "squad leader" of the rank of Sergeant who leverages each fire team as a maneuver force in ground combat. The fire team is typically manned with a rifleman with a mission of scouting out an objective, a light automatic weapons professional, an assistant automatic weapons leader, and the fire team leader carrying a grenade launcher who directs "buddy rushes" in combat where generally two Marines shoot downrange at the enemy while the other two quickly run forward while the enemy has their heads down until they can start shooting followed by the other two rushing. To understand this concept more, please take a minute to watch this epic video of real life Marines telling in their own words what a fire team is:
Thomas’ study of the Marine Corps infantry organization and in particular the fire team came about as he discovered that in American churches, men in particular, do not readily step up to the plate to be part of corporate prayer gatherings. Of course, the vast majority of pastors are men and they lead prayer, but unfortunately, the men in the congregation, especially young professional men with or without families, are not to be found as a rule of thumb in corporate prayer gatherings of local churches. As he pondered this and conducted research aside from his years of experience, he found the two main reasons for this are as follows:
Men follow men. While men as boys grow up with moms, sisters, cousins, aunts, and grandmothers to be influenced by (as was Timothy in the New Testament as seen in 2 Timothy 1:5) or later go into a workplace setting where they may or may not have peers or leaders as women, it is a deep male need and desire to follow the path of other men they can relate to. However, there are generally not a lot of men leading the way in many church settings as it is often the older women in the congregation, “moms”, “aunts”, and “grandmothers” who are leading the charge of corporate prayer in local churches. This is good and our churches certainly need our women to keep praying fervently, but there is a desperate need for the men of the congregation to be right there in lockstep as BOTH men and women lift up the Lord in fervent prayer and praise.
Pervasive Male Attitudes Toward Prayer: Men by nature are wired to be active physically and mentally in creating in the world around them or by being protectors of others. This can be seen in the worlds of business, fitness, sports, or martial professions such as in military/law enforcement settings where men as a rule of thumb tend to find most of their lives spent outside of the home and religious roles and responsibilities. Unfortunately, many men in churches today however do not seem to equate both individual and group prayer as “going on the offensive” against spiritual darkness that threatens those they hold dear or as part of partnering with God to create and build greater works in the earth.
Watch the Fire of Heaven Come Down When Men Pray Together
As I talked these issues over with Thomas and pondered them, I realized that in the past I had succumbed to these issues myself and needed a new model of corporate prayer life with other men. I also felt convicted that I had relied too heavily on my moms and grandmothers in the Lord to pray for me and my endeavors in difficult times. In my heart excused myself as “not an intercessor like them” and therefore let myself and other brothers in the Lord in particular off the hook for advancing the kingdom of God in prayer.
Requirement for Small Teams to Run Heavenly Fire Missions
In my day job with the Marine Corps, I currently am involved with developing the “kill chain” and “counter kill chain” which in simple terms means the integration of intelligence sensors, headquarters staff processes, communications, and various munition firepower delivery to deliver havoc against enemy weapons of war while protecting friendly units against the enemy’s desire to do the same against us. This is a team sport and requires a lot of people coming together to get the right targeting data, process that data, and deliver it quickly to appropriate firing units. It also requires a team to carefully consider how to defend ourselves against similar attacks.
In particular, there are small teams of professionals within the military known as Joint Tactical Air Controllers, Fire Support Coordinators, Artillery Spotters, Forward Air Controllers, Air Naval Gunfire Liaison Companies, etc. whose job is to:
1) Understand the capabilities and limitations of long-range weapon systems such as aircraft, ships, ground-based missiles/artillery systems, cyber, space, and electronic warfare capabilities that can bring steel and fire on the enemy in order to stop their assaults while enabling friendly maneuvers against the enemy.
2) Push to receive target data from intelligence sensors and teams.
3) Come up with a game plan with appropriate friendly units to bring multiple weapon systems to bear in a combined arms attack, and finally
4) Communicate the appropriate plan to the right units that have appropriate firepower delivery systems.
In a spiritual sense as Christians, we are told:
"Be careful—watch out for attacks from Satan, your great enemy. He prowls around like a hungry, roaring lion, looking for some victim to tear apart." (1 Peter 5:8 TLB)
In the military, If you are by yourself, you are likely to get your position overwhelmed because you have no ability to watch your “six” on your own or face attacks for long in multiple directions. The military has known this for a long time which is why it sends even the most elite military professionals out into dangerous territory with other professionals with other teams in support or overwatch of them. That is where one of the secrets to victory lies…the power of highly trained diverse teams who operate together in harmony to achieve a common objective. As it is written:
"It’s better to have a partner than go it alone. Share the work, share the wealth. And if one falls down, the other helps, but if there’s no one to help, tough! Two in a bed warm each other. Alone, you shiver all night. By yourself you’re unprotected. With a friend you can face the worst. Can you round up a third? A three-stranded rope isn’t easily snapped." (Ecclesiastes 4:9-12)
"Take this most seriously: A yes on earth is yes in heaven; a no on earth is no in heaven. What you say to one another is eternal. I mean this. When two of you get together on anything at all on earth and make a prayer of it, my Father in heaven goes into action. And when two or three of you are together because of me, you can be sure that I’ll be there." (Matthew 18:18-20 MSG) Thus, the first important principle of fireteam prayer is to have at a minimum 2 Christian individuals but ideally up to 4-6 come together to pray on a regular basis either in person or via Zoom/telephone for at least 30 min prior to a workout 1 x week. In this context, it is possible to have larger networked prayer events with more men using Zoom breakout rooms or potentially doing larger in person gatherings, but these will take more time. I have seen a standard of time of about 1.5 hours in San Diego where groups of men in a "platoon" like formation of 20-50 men pray together where there is a lot of sharing done. Even so, there always is the small group format to allow for intimate prayer expression.
Next, we try to keep the prayer event to 30 min and time it before a workout especially in the morning timeframe to allow for a 60-minute workout session before breaking contact to spend time with family on a weekend or get to work.
The Playbook
There are 4 essential parts to Fireteam Prayer that allow for a time of intimate and intense connection to God involving the following:
- Individual “God Stories”
- Corporate Praise or Focused Quiet Time Listening to God
- Corporate Prayer
- Individual Prayer
Given a segment of 4 guys, each part will take approximately 7 minutes to complete (28 minutes total) with a 2-minute prayer close out. It is important here to start and end on time. The facilitator of the Garage Gym Church running this format can use a Gym Timer to mark off “rounds” and keep an eye on the time.
God Stories
“God stories” are individual praise reports that should take no more than 90 seconds. The facilitator can set a timer much like a WOD (GymNext Flex Timer is a good one that is free that can be used on a cell phone) that gives a countdown with a volunteer or designated person to give a God story in the allotted time with a 10-second warning prior to starting. The facilitator will keep an eye on the time and give a 30-second, 15-second, and finally, there the timer will give 3-second countdown to finishing at which everybody will clap once. Immediately following this the next person will go in the same format. For 4 people, this will take 6 minutes with a 1-minute buffer. That 1-minute buffer is used to introduce the instructions at first and then allow for transition time to include setting up the next phase with audible instructions.
Corporate Praise or Listening to Holy Spirit
An essential part of the prayer period is focusing on the object of our prayer…God. It is easy to just focus on ourselves…our problems…even think about potential solutions that we or God might take in the future. I have been guilty of this for sure. An antitode to this, singing praise to God and/or taking time to be quiet and listen for the still small but powerful voice of God (1 Kings 19:12) is crucial. For this portion, the group will either sing a praise hymn using words such as Amazing Grace, easily searchable on a cell phone or a YouTube video with captions enabled will be played. Ideally, the song should be a praise song that has a “fight” aspect to it. An example is the latest Elevation Worship song “Lion“, Bethel Worship’s “Ain’t No Grave“, or Sean Feucht’s “Liberty Bells“. The point here is to lift God in worship, but get in an offensive spiritual warfare mindset to “do battle” against the gates of hell prior to the next phase. This portion should take no more than 6 minutes allowing for 1 minute of transition time to set up the next phase to ask various people to pray for different issues called out based on the leading of the Holy Spirit by the facilitator. If any of the members of the group felt led that particular issues should be mentioned, they should be brought up to the prayer facilitator ahead of time or during that session and prayed for on the spot.
As an alternative as led by the Holy Spirit through the facilitator, this time can also be a time of quiet reflection where the men in the group focus on trying to listen to what God is saying in their hearts and mind to share in the corporate and individual prayer sessions.
Corporate Prayer
In a similar fashion as the praise reports to include time, the facilitator will assign “prayer targets” as led by the Holy Spirit or will allow the group members to pray for something that they felt led to during the time of previous reflection. These prayers include praying for the specific Garage Gym Church outreach and discipleship efforts to include specific individuals being reached out to; prayer for local churches or community/state/national ministries affiliated with members of the Garage Gym Church, prayer for the local government and community business leaders, prayer for a cultural community/state/national issue such as high rates of suicide, and finally, prayer for some type of missions effort whether locally or internationally. The facilitator can ask the team ahead of time via text the general targets and see if anybody feels that the Holy Spirit has put on their heart the need to pray for a specific topic ahead of time as well.
Each individual will pray for their specific target ideally calling out promises in scripture as applicable to include thanking God for answering the prayer. This should take about 90 seconds for each person with rapid succession around a circle.
Individual Prayer
Now we move to the last part of the prayer session where guys will take turns sharing their hearts and asking their brothers to go to war in the spirit for them by praying in faith for each others’ concerns while also sharing a word of encouragement or loving correction. Last year, I felt this intense desire to be able to be completely transparent about my personal needs with other men who wouldn’t judge me and try to turn my prayer request into a lecture. Instead, they would simply be there to pray for me which has and certainly does include hearing from the Holy Spirit a word for me. The way this prayer session works is as follows:
One guy will volunteer to go first and ask for prayer in a specific area(s) of life. They will then quickly pray for themselves and each man in turn will pray for that person or share a word of encouragement for their brother. Once this concludes, the next guy will do the same and the cycle will repeat. This will continue until everybody has prayed for each other. The focus is to try to stay on time here as well, but there is a two-minute buffer and in more extreme emergency cases where it is clear more time in prayer or encouragement is needed, there might be some follow on work right there and then or at a later time after the workout.
Moving Forward Into The Battle…Into the Next Dimension of Life
For the men out there who are looking to take their spiritual power to see a radical change in the lives of their families, friends, workplace, churches, and communities, getting together with other men in small bands of brothers is a game changer, especially when using the relational leverage of tying a group workout to this evolution. I have heard a lot of guys I know talk about the physical measures they’ll take to defend their homes and themselves including arming themselves with concealed weapons. Nothing wrong with this, but I have found in my regular life the greatest enemies threatening me and all those I hold dear cannot be fought with physical weapons although spiritual warfare is manifested and certainly must be completed with natural actions according to the situation.
I will tell you that when I started praying together on a weekly basis with other men in a bold offensive way of warfare, I have seen God show up in ways I didn’t before. I feel God’s presence in a new way and feel an inconquerable sense of hope and peace that drives out discouragement and fear even in the midst of the darkest circumstances. I even now take this prayer concept with my blood relative brother who is a Christian as we pray to take back our extended family to come under God’s authority and blessing. I can’t see us doing that without prayer.
If you would like to participate in a demonstration live streaming training of Garage Gym Church on Zoom, please register here for Good Friday, April 7, 2023, at 3-4:30 pm PST/6-7:30 pm EST for a Garage Gym Church Demo with Fire Team Prayer with recordings sent out via email to those who register but can’t attend. We’ll also be recording this for YouTube which you can subscribe to ahead of time at Shoot Move Communicate.
With that being said, my hope and prayers are for Christian men out there to join me in being part of a new wave of taking back a key offensive weapon in their lives to advance against the darkness and expand the kingdom of light in their world.
Disclaimer: All views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Department of Defense (DoD) or the US Government. Furthermore, the appearance of U.S. DoD visual information does not imply or constitute DoD endorsement.
