The 10:2b Virus (3)

Here's the story of how the 10:2b virus got started. (Of course, it really got started with Jesus a long time ago. But, this is the story of how two simple guys rediscovered this simple concept.)

It was October 2, 2002. My friend Kenny Moore and I were having breakfast. (At the time, Kenny was the Director of Church Planting for the Southern Baptists in Colorado.) We were discussing saturation church planting in Colorado. That is, what would it take to see a vibrant family of Jesus (ie, a church) within easy reach of every person, culturally and geographically, in the state of Colorado.

We had both been around long enough that we were pretty burned out with the typical programs or campaigns that Christians come up with to "fulfill the Great Commission". We found ourselves drawn to Luke 10. What would happen, we wondered, if we were to take seriously Jesus' instructions in the second half of verse two to "beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into the harvest"? How different that seemed from the usual man made strategies! Being great men of faith (!), we decided to give this a try for seven days. We agreed that we would pray this prayer for Colorado with each other on the phone every day for a week.

Well, that small step was the beginning of Kenny and me praying that prayer almost every day for six years. During that time, we saw many answers and learned many lessons from the Holy Spirit. (Who knew there was so much to learn about a half a verse!) One insight was that "beseech" was an imperative verb (ie, a command) and that this was something that Jesus wanted all of his followers to do. We began teaching people about this command. (We called this "infecting them with the 10:2b virus".)

In 2005, Jim Montgomery, the founder of DAWN Ministries wrote in more detail about the beginnings of this "virus". You can read about it here: http://lk10.com/practices-and-patterns/the-102b-prayer/how-the-102b-prayer-got-started.html

In the video below, Jim Mellon tells more about the current spread of the "virus".

John