Pray For Me Campaign with Tony Souder

0:00 Welcome to the When You Love a Prodigal podcast. I am really excited to introduce you to Tony Sauder, who is our guest today, because... I was just talking with him about the fact that what he is doing, the ministry that God has given him, that will be so helpful to you who have prodigals, whether they're younger ones making stupid choices as they explore life, or they're older ones who have decided they have no need for the Lord. He is representing what I think is one of the most helpful ways that we see change come about in the lives of our loved ones. So let me introduce you about him. Let me remind you that if you get an idea as we talk and as Tony shares things that you're going to write it down because you'll think, oh, yeah, I want to try that or that's a great idea. And then it, you know. You get through the whole conversation and you don't remember that. So please, if you have a thought, I should try that. Write that down so you don't forget. Tony is the founder of the Pray For Me campaign and the executive director of the Chattanooga Youth Network, a ministry dedicated to helping the church flourish in bringing greatness of God in Christ. to the

1:31 next generation, and that's who we're talking about, the next generation. For over two decades, he has served the Chattanooga and North Georgia regions by connecting, coaching, and caring for youth ministry leaders across denominations and racial lines. Tony and his wife Rhonda live in Chattanooga with their Twin daughters. I just think that's exciting to have twins. I don't know if I could have handled it. So we will have in the show notes how you can connect with them. So, Tony, welcome to the When You Love a Prodigal podcast. I am so delighted to be here with you, Judy. What a pleasure. Well, a pleasure for me.

2:21 I have loved the conversation that we had. a while ago in preparation for this. And I think that the ministry that God has led you to start is so important for youth today. All the traditional prodigal activities are still going on. The younger ones, the drugs and alcohol and acting out and all of those things are still happening. But there's even more going on now in that adult children. ones who've been raised in the church, ones who have made commitments to the Lord. Something is happening. I don't know if it's a lot of AI or if it's just the world we have today, but many, many, as they finish their preparation for life, kind of, decide they don't need the Lord and even decide. In some cases, in many cases, they don't need their family anymore, which is heartbreaking. When I think of if I didn't get to connect with my children and their children, I don't know if I would overcome that broken heart. And I know a lot of parents who are in tears because of that. So we've got a pretty broad spectrum of needs out there right now. And you have... an idea, an approach that's

3:54 one that can have a huge impact. So I just want to hear what it is that you are talking about, what you're doing, and the connections that we're making. And so first, before you get into the ministry that God's called you to, tell us a little about your family and just the history. briefly that God has given you. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I had been married to my bride for 41 years, and we just had our anniversary, and we just had one of our twin daughters get married three weeks ago. Well, that's right. I saw the pictures.

4:39 Yeah, it's pretty delightful to be able to be a part of that and send her into this new season that she's a part of. with a new last name and a new husband. And that's all very exciting. My daughters, they're 33. They just turned 33. And one of our daughters lives with us. And the reason for that is because over the last number of years, when I say number of years, it's been a lot of years. My wife has had some health challenges, and so our daughter lives with us and helps with her. But God has used those challenges to even get us to the place we are right now in a ministry that is devoted to praying and connecting generations around the country. Love it. So, Tony. Tell us how God led you into the Pray For Me campaign.

5:48 I just think it's so wonderful. So what is it, and why are you excited about it? Absolutely. As you mentioned, I've been involved with this ministry that serves youth leaders for a lot of years. But about 12 years ago, 14 years ago, we started looking at what's happening with young people and the exodus of young people leaving the church and their faith after they graduate from high school. As we looked at that research, what we saw is that a key component of it is that those that stay connected to the church and flourish in their faith have multiple adult believers investing in their lives. And so when we saw that, we said, Well, if that's true, how can we get more adults connected with more young people more naturally than ever before? Now, we know that we're not the first people that have asked that question, but we felt like that if we could dig down into that question and find an answer that made sense, that maybe we could turn the tide. And so as we dug into that question for over a number of months, what came to the forefront is... Prayer is a catalyst for creating natural, winsome relationships across generational lines. And so the Pray For Me campaign was born basically at that time. And so the Pray For Me campaign, one of the reasons why I'm so excited about it is because it allows anybody in the church to begin playing a role in the life of

7:19 a young person as they're growing up in the church. Because we connect three adults from different generations with each young person growing up in the church. And what's beautiful about that is it gives, it reaches into the congregation and gives adults that really would never be a youth leader or volunteer in the youth ministry. a way of connecting with a young person in the church. And those young people, they long for these type of relationships, but they don't know how to get there. And adults care about young people, but they don't know how to get to the young people. And so the Pray For Me campaign is our way of creating a natural connection across generational lines. And just think of that. I mean, the kids needing They have their parents, mostly, and that's wonderful, hopefully. But they need other people, and they may not have anyone in their life that they have had enough of a connection to for that to happen. And you think of the older people, which I do a lot more now, and they often feel left out. useless, done.

8:44 And this gives them fresh ways to do something to contribute in the life of another. And for it to be a younger person that they can influence in those early years before they've gone off on their own. But how do you make these connections happen? That's a great question. I mean, we try to do it pretty seamlessly and non -threateningly in the church. So we'll invite anybody that's willing to be a prayer champion to sign up, because we'll know how many young people we have in the youth ministry at a particular church. And so let's pick a low number, make it easy for everybody to do math. But we have 10 young people in our church. We need 30 adults that would be willing to be prayer champions for a young person. And in an ideal world, we would have them from different generations so that that young person would be able to get a sense of what it looks like to follow Jesus as a 30 -year -old, a 50 -year -old, and a 70 -year -old. And so then the leadership will connect those three adults around that young person, and they'll have a launch day. And they'll have an event where those young people get to meet the prayer champions that are going to pray for them that year. They'll get their picture taken together. And then they'll get at least one of those prayer champions would actually

10:15 pray for that young person that day in their presence to start the whole campaign off. I'm thinking of how this goes both ways. Most of those old people don't know how to do all the technology. I get asked all the time by my computer, would you like to update? Absolutely not, because then it'll be different again. But I have this wonderful young woman that works with me, and she can be there, and then she can fix it if I can't. I would think there's some hesitation on both sides. For the kids, they're like, do I really want to be involved with this older person? And the older one's thinking, what do I have to contribute? And how do people get where they can actually talk to each other? Do they spend much time together or is it mostly this guy, this woman agrees to pray for this person?

11:26 And that's the most of what the connection is. Or is it more actual face to face? That's a great question. One of the things that we try to do is try to make it as simple as possible. You put too many guidelines in and people start getting nervous and it gets overwhelming to people. So we have the initial launch where they actually meet the young person. They get to know each other that day. They'll have questions that they ask each other and they get to know each other so that you're trying to create a familiarity between them. And so what we're telling the adult is that we're asking you to pray for this young person. We're not asking you to become. A chaperone at a lock -in, you don't have to do some over -the -top kind of activity with them. But we are asking you to pray for them. And when you see them at church, you would engage with them.

12:20 And so you're creating this natural, organic relationship with this young person, primarily at church. But one of the things that we find is that as they get to know each other, They find out, the adult finds out, oh, you're on the baseball team or you're in the choir or at school. Then they have a tendency to go to see them perform in their settings or on the teams. And those aren't things we're asking them to, but it's a natural byproduct many times. Not always, but many times. And you can't push to make it happen. No. But I would think it. often happen. It does, because, I mean, one of the things we know is that when you or I or anybody's praying for someone, our hearts get larger towards them, and we move towards them. We want to see what God's doing in response to our prayers, and so we care about them. Our care factor for them goes up. That's one of the, I think, one of the... most exciting pieces about the Pray For Me campaign. It's not like a regular mentoring program because by using prayer, there's this supernatural force that's taking place in our own hearts and in the lives of the young person.

13:44 And it's drawing us together to God and to the young person and the young person to us. We see it all the time where a young person, after they get a prayer champion, I can testify this to myself. When I got my first prayer champion at my church, he was a sixth grader, and I never saw this. His name's Andrew. I never saw him at church. But after that time, after the launch, I would see him every Sunday. He would find me and come up and do his sixth grader stuff where he wouldn't really look me in the eye, but he'd kind of bump into me and scurry around and then leave. The beauty is that I watched him grow up. He's graduated high school now. But when we see each other now, it's a totally different relationship. We lean in. We give hugs. We're thankful for each other. He passes by in church.

14:44 He initiates the relationship. And that's part of just God using a simple process of creating connection. And knowing that he knew I was on his team and that as a person that was praying for him, but it changed the relationship. It wasn't just an adult that was passing by him in the hall. It was somebody that was for him passing by him in the hall. I think that's just such the secret of what it is and why it's going to work, why it is working. I think of our son, who's now in his 40s, and walking with the Lord.

15:26 But it took a long time for him to get where that was a consistent part of his life. And I think of a couple of the men, even when he was in school still, who cared about him and reached out to him. In fact, we recently, I made a list of... all the different men that I had observed, including his dad, my husband. But I made this list for him and said what I saw them give to him in his life. And he wept when he saw that. He says, it was really true. And he told me I'd left one person off and that there was one other one. And so it's a beautiful thing. How often?

16:18 Do you have grandparents be the ones, or is that better or not as good? Well, we're fully into empowering grandparents to pray deeply into the lives of their grandchildren. But one of the things that we're doing, we want that to happen naturally. So I've actually written a prayer guide for grandparents to pray for their grandchildren. But in the Pray For Me campaign, If there's a grandparent that's a part of that process, they're probably praying for a student in the ministry that's not their grandchild. And that's what we want because we want that young person to get the beauty of knowing multiple people in the church, not just their family members, because it extends, it helps them to know that they are part of the people of God and that we want them to. to realize that the church, the people of God, are their people. And they start to feel that and experience that when they get multiple adults that have been their prayer champions over time. Because I didn't mention this earlier, Judy, but the way the process works, the way that we've designed it, is that that young person would get three adults this year that would pray for them, and then next year they would get three new ones. So it builds on it each year. So from

17:50 sixth grade to 12th grade, they could have 21 different adults in the church outside of their family and outside of the youth ministry that are investing in their lives spiritually through prayer and relationally through that connection. You're just building relationships, connections. that can last through those high school years, that even if they don't always connect interpersonally, because that depends a little bit on the individuals, how well they do that, but they're still being prayed for. And that's the most powerful part of it, is the fact that we're bringing God in tangibly. into their lives. But it's also definitely probably has an impact on the child that's very powerful over time, maybe not right at first, but it's also having an impact on that person who has agreed to be the connecting prayer for that child. So tell us a story or two. Okay.

19:05 Yeah. I'll tell you two stories. One story is related to a young person who, one of the first churches that we launched the Pray For Me campaign at, and it's been utilized in over 875 churches in 47 states and seven countries at this point, which is amazing as we think about that. But one of the first churches we launched in I remember the whole process worked. I mean, the students were connected with the adults. They had time together. They got their picture taken together. They got to know each other. And then one of those adults prayed for the student that day.

19:49 But a mom came up to me after, and we were finishing up, and mom came up to me and said, Tony, you need to know this. My daughter just came up to me with tears in her eyes and said, Mom, they prayed for me. And she jokingly said, of course they did, honey. It's the Pray For Me campaign. But what we realized is that something unique was taking place because this was a really strong Christian family where they prayed for their child, with their child, around their children all the time. So it wasn't unusual to have prayer around and for or with their children. But it was the first time that this young person. had been in a space where instead of just praying for the young people in general, like before they go on a mission trip or before a retreat or before, you know, the next generation, we're praying for the next generation, that somebody that they did not know until that morning that was praying for Hannah specifically. And it got away with her. It drove a stake in the ground that this is different. And it brought tears to that young person's eyes. And so I think that that is the beginning of what we see is taking place in young people's lives all around the country now, is that it's forming a profound sense of belonging with the people of God, using prayer as the catalyst to get there. So that's

21:20 one of my favorite stories there. Another is... Back in early 2020, before the world changed, I was having lunch with a friend of mine, kind of a hero. He does some significant work all around the world in ministry, and I was drinking from his well. I was just hanging out with him, asking him questions, and we were finishing up, and he turns to me and he goes, Oh, by the way. Our church is in our fifth year of doing Pray For Me, and I still pray for the first four young people that I was connected with. But this year, my student is Isaac. And I see Isaac every week.

22:04 I ask him how he's doing. I ask him how I can pray for him. But the other week, Isaac turned to me and said, well, Mr. Allen, how can I pray for you? And in that moment, Mr. Allen paused and looked at me. He said, I told him about my cancer. And I'm thinking, this is an incredible moment. But a few weeks later, Isaac's mom comes up to Mr. Allen and says, look, you need to know that Isaac will not let us get through prayers at supper without praying for your cancer. And I'm thinking, this is an incredible story. I'm thinking it's over. But then he pulls out his phone and he starts showing me a video on his phone of his. ringing the bell ceremony after his radiation treatments. He had probably 40 of his friends there and they're ringing the bell. But in this video, he calls Isaac. Isaac's at the ringing the bell ceremony. He calls Isaac to the front and he tells these people that, hey, by the way, at our church, we do this thing called the Pray For Me campaign. And where we connect with a young person and we pray for them each year. But it's not just me praying for Isaac.

23:19 Isaac's praying for me. And I realized that the Pray For Me campaign is a mutually beneficial thing to the whole body of Christ in helping adults connect with young people and young people transformatively invest in adults as well and creating a sense of community and belonging across generational lines for each. person that's involved. It's been a pretty amazing thing to watch. I love it. I think of when our son was struggling a lot, a friend said, you know, my son, we live in Florida, he loved to surf. And he said, well, I have a friend who has a surfing ministry. And so he paid to send our son, to spend a week with this man who taught people how to, children, kids, how to serve, but also was a pastor. And so when Josh came home from that week, he said, this might be the most wonderful week of my life that he got prayed for. He saw other kids being prayed for. He got to surf. He got to help teach

24:51 these younger kids how to get up on a surfboard. And he spent time with the pastor and his wife in their home for that week. And they maintained relationship for years. It's kind of dissipated now, but it's... The kind of thing you're talking about. Somebody can invest in a kid's life or a young adult and especially pray for them because, again, the greatest power and change can come as we invite the Lord into their lives. And no doubt. Most of them, their parents are, but a lot of kids come to church with friends, not with their family. And so I'm just absolutely thrilled with what you're doing. And so we're going to have in the show notes some how to get in touch with you all and begin to perhaps do that in your own church or do it with some friends, other friends who are all concerned about the children that you're familiar with or connected to, or your own children, so that they can begin to do this kind of thing. We'll mention books

26:23 that you've written. We'll put that in the show notes so that people can get more help. My years of working in the Prayer for Prodigals has me very assured. that people are desperate for help. They're so fearful. The prayer requests that we receive, because that's what we are as a prayer ministry, that people are just desperate to see somebody rescue their kids. And to me, this is a much more positive approach than we see a lot of times. One time in the... Our son was adopted, and he was almost 10 when he came to us, so he had lots of background. And I was telling a new friend about our challenges, and she said, well, you just kick them out if they don't obey. And she said, that's what we did to our daughter.

27:30 We put her stuff out at the curb and said, leave if you don't like it here. And I just thought, I don't think that's the best approach. And I have become increasingly convinced that God calls us to love and a lot of grace. In fact, he said to me, when you make mistakes with this boy, and you will, and of course we did, he said, make them on the side of grace. And getting people to pray for them, praying for them ourselves, of course, but having others who join us in that will have such a greater impact than being harsh and telling them they're making terrible choices and they're ruining their lives, which all may be true, but isn't going to help them change and pursue better opportunities for a good life.

28:31 So that's... I'm thrilled to have you on here and make this a possibility for our listeners. And so I'm going to be giving away four of your books. Tell me about specifically the book on praying for the people, for the kids. There's four books. First one is that I wrote was designed specifically to help adults pray for students, middle school through college. The second one was Adults Praying for Children, Fifth Grade and Below. Then there's one that's designed for students to pray for themselves and their peers. And the most recent one, which came out in 2021, is the Grandparent Edition, helping grandparents to pray deeply into the lives of their grandchildren.

29:21 But each of them are wrapped around what I call the seven essentials, helping pray Scripture through the lens of... these seven essential categories that come from Luke 2 .52, where Jesus grew in wisdom, stature, and favor with God and man. The two essentials there are wisdom and favor. So those are two of the lenses that we're looking at Scripture, finding passages that correlate with those topics, and then turning those into prayer. The other five categories come from 1 Timothy 4 .12. Don't let anybody look down on your youth, but in your speech, conduct, love, faith, and purity. setting example for all the believers. And so those are the categories. And we're really trying to help the adults who are praying for teenagers or praying for children or grandparents praying for their grandchildren, really to think through these lenses as favor is the foundation. Everything that comes into our lives is God's favor, even the hard things, because He uses that to shape us. But then on that, we're praying for what I call the core four, wisdom, love, faith, and purity, the things inside of us and inside of the people we care about, the Christ -forming things that we're trying to get at, and then those things that go public. What's on the inside always goes public sooner or later, but it goes public in our speech and in our conduct. And so we're praying for those seven categories. kind of in that way,

30:52 and really trying to help adults really find a solid rhythm on praying Scripture through these kind of strategic categories for the people they love. And just think, those kids are learning the power of prayer besides, which will be a wonderful resource for the rest of their lives. Kids might think prayer is just, you know, the blessing you say for food or the beginning of church or the ending of a service or a kid's program. But no, it's a way of life. You get to talk to the Creator. And it's a whole new way and not a push -down kind of way, but an engaging way. to help people to understand. You get to talk to God and he's listening and he responds. And I just am thrilled with this. So what we'll do is in the show notes, we'll have contact information and we'll have a place to sign up to be in the drawing for one of the books and a way that they can get to you so that you can help them. Do this in their neighbors, in their churches especially. That's a great way.

32:23 But in any way, to connect a more mature person who's walking with God with a kid who's at a point of making decisions in their lives. And the influences out there are often not good ones. This is a place to insert instead a life -changing influence that will help them become and live out the people that God has made each child to be. Thank you. Any last words you want to mention?

33:03 I don't think so, Judy. It's been a pleasure being on your podcast and thankful for the people out there that are listening and that are making a difference in the lives of young people. So am I. So blessings and thank you. And remember to my listeners, if you haven't written something down yet, write it down. You don't want to think about it later and think, what was it I was going to do? Because God would really love you to pick this up and see a difference in your own family, but in others as well. And you can pray for others. I just love all the connections. So thank you so much, Tony. Absolutely. Thank you.