I have been humbled in seeing those whom I prayed for respond in a dramatic way to the leading of the Holy Spirit. I had always felt inad­equate to be involved in evangelism but the CHOP experience was a blessing to me as I was able to reach out to those around me for Christ. Any Christian can participate in CHOP without having a special vocation for evangelism.

Prayer is the most characteristic, and arguably the most important, Christian discipline. No follower of Christ, and no community of His followers, can hope to know full and abundant life, or a bountiful mis­sion and worship, apart from vital prayer together. The pastor who suc­ceeds in leading his congregation to become a praying people has won half the battle in claiming his community for Christ. But the multitude of diversions, distractions, and other worthwhile activities makes getting a whole congregation organized and laboring together in prayer a dif­ficult task. Now Stan Gale shows us how, and why, pastors must make community-wide prayer a major focus of their ministries. The CHOP manual can provide the vision, resources, and step-by-step guidance for any church to begin bathing its community in prayer. And this, in turn, can provide the context and catalyst for revival fires to fall.

In this book Stan Gale guides us into real life evangelism and helps us to more effectively engage our spheres of influence with the gospel message. Herein we see a cord of three stands woven together: con­fidence that God will answer prayer for the lost; passion for the lost; thoughtful/practical insight as to interacting with the lost. These three strands woven together encourage and facilitate our mandate to be ambassadors for Christ.

Many evangelism tools speak of the importance of prayer for outreach - CHOP actually taught me to pray evangelistically. CHOP enabled me to develop: Intimacy with Christ through its daily devotions and prayer guide; Strategy to pray purposefully for unbelievers; Community by gath­ering with fellow believers to pray for the spread of the Kingdom; and Expectancy by training me to watch for God’s answers to prayer. CHOP will prosper your soul, focus your vision, and empower your outreach!

CHOP is a most practical, teachable, and scriptural tool for personal evangelism. The central emphasis on prayer not only brings peti­tions before the Lord but also draws the participants into an active and growing community of real support, mutual accountability, and loving encouragement.

I’ve been looking for a way to guide our church into a period of intentional prayer, which would be sound theologically and warm-hearted devotionally, and Community Houses of Prayer meets both those criteria well. As I read through it, my heart was filled with hope at what God will do when the believers in our body begin to pray this way!

The CHOP Ministry is a comprehensive approach to evangelism that helps to make you aware of opportunities that present themselves everyday by treating each individual contact as a person in need of God’s grace, instead of as a number to tally into God’s kingdom. It’s amazing how vested you become in the lives of your friends, family members, colleagues... when you pray for them asking God to reveal himself to them through you.

Using the CHOP Ministry Manual as a personal devotion guide really helped establish some of its guiding principles, including the strategic nature of prayer and the primary importance of the gospel being communicated in the context of relationship. It also greatly heightened my anticipation of using the Manual with others in a small group setting.

The Community Houses of Prayer ministry is more than a strategy—it is a lifestyle that will reshape the vision of the church along expressly biblical patterns. It focuses on two clear priorities: first, worship as both a corporate and personal reality, and intercessory evangelism as the church opens its eyes to a lost and hurting world all around us. As part of the big picture, the gentle, yet explicit equipping for prayer journaling is a dynamic tool for serious discipleship.