The Cross and the Switchblade by David Wilkerson
Week 9: Chapter 9 — Learning to Pray
Read Chapter 9 of The Cross and the Switchblade.
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Throughout the book, Wilkerson returns again and again to prayer as the source of everything else — but in this chapter, he begins to articulate what he has actually learned about prayer from the front lines of impossible ministry.
Discussion Questions
7 questions1.Wilkerson describes his early prayer life as adequate for a rural pastor — functional, regular, but not desperate. His time in New York City transformed his prayer life because the needs he was facing were simply beyond his ability to meet. Have you ever been in a situation that made you pray in ways you never had before? What changed?
2.Wilkerson talks about learning to pray with specific, concrete requests rather than vague, general ones — naming the person, the situation, the desired outcome. How does specificity in prayer reflect a particular kind of faith? What does it risk, and what does it gain?
3.Prayer in this book is not presented as a passive waiting activity but as an act of spiritual warfare — contending for the lives of specific young people against forces that are destroying them. How does this framework of spiritual warfare change the emotional and spiritual posture with which you approach prayer?
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