ATL “ask the Lord”
listening prayer
Every Monday my squad has “activation” and then we go out into the streets of Costa Rica to do “ATL”. ATL stands for ask the Lord-something that adventures in missions has used as an implication for evangelism. Recently my squad has had a lot of questions about what this really means-as do me and my team. Last night my team had about a 30 minute conversation about our views on ATL and what it really means to evangelize and have God speak to you.
To put ATL in simpler terms and what it looks like:
Before we go out to evangelize to the people of Costa Rica or really just love on them & pray for them, we ask the Lord where he wants us to go, to show us anything specific or tell us something before we go out.
To go off of this, another thing we do is something called “listening prayer”. Listening prayer is something that is asked of us for journey markers (questions we answer every Monday), words to speak over people, and other things. Both ATL and listening prayer are terms I had never heard of before coming onto the race. We’ve been doing both for a while now but more recently questions have come up. Is this biblical? Is this something that is actually real? Why do we do this at a set time every Monday? So many questions from myself and the people around.
Coming onto the race, I had grown up baptist and recently have considered myself non denominational. Growing up, I never learned about the Holy Spirit and how he works in our lives. Being brought to these new terms or sayings was something I was very confused about because I had never come across it before. So when our teamed talked about it, we discussed our thoughts and opinions and our own experiences when it comes to ATL and listening prayer. My teammate KT mentioned that even though there’s these terms that are being applied to our lives on the race constantly, she doesn’t want to let it get in the way of what’s true and what actually matters while we’re here-something I agree with whole heartedly. As I’m writing this blog I don’t even know if I agree or disagree with ATL and listening prayer because I’m in the process of making my faith my own. The titles are something that I probably will never use after the race because I don’t look at them as ATL or listening prayer.
I look at ATL as strictly evangelism, not focusing on the tile. I look at listening prayer as literally just prayer. I believe that God speaks to us and that we have the ability to interact with the Holy Spirit everyday. Prayer works as a conversation between you and the Lord. I don’t think the Holy Spirit or the voice of God is something that we are in control of saying “show me this right now before I go out” because we do not have that ability. I realized in the process of this all, I have over complicated it which made me question God’s Character and even missed out on loving the people of Costa Rica well.
Two days ago when we had went out and did ATL, my friend Amy was the leader of our group and we all ended up dispersing in and around a park. Her and I decided to do flower ministry, handing out flowers, and just going out to love people. We didn’t really ask for anything specifically we just went out with the intentions of loving anyone that we could. We handed out tons of flowers, talked to all different kinds of people, and even prayed over a woman that had hurt her shoulder. The woman was with her granddaughter and both of them were so sweet and thankful for the encounter. Amy and I both felt peace, walking away with the thought that she would be healed later that day. She wasn’t healed in front of us but we both knew that she was in the Lords hands.
That whole day my spirit had felt super light and nothing I did felt forced or insignificant. Amy and i went into it with an attitude of loving people with no limits, just doing it in a way that Jesus would. I walked away from that whole day with an attitude of loving people no matter who they are, and asking the Lord to show me things in his timing. Before I had focused too much on the title, too much on adventures in missions, and too much on things that really don’t matter. I came back to the fact that Jesus is truth and that loving people is truth, no matter what it looks or sounds like. The world race is an outlet for something like this. The world race will not be my life forever but it’s definitely been apart of my walk. Ultimately, when it comes to loving people and being obedient-it overrules titles, phrases, or terms any day. I learned to let go of the titles because the more I held onto them, the more I lost sight of what He’s been trying to do through me-loving people of all different backgrounds deeply.
When it comes to “listening prayer” I see it as prayer in itself-something Kt mentioned as well (if you’re reading this kt I love you;)). Prayer is a conversation, a way that you communicate with the Lord. To be completely honest, I don’t see the meaning of putting listening in front of prayer because prayer itself involves listening to the Lord’s voice and what he’s trying to speak to you. Something else I’ve learned in this is that the Lord speaks to everyone differently. But something I also know is that the Holy Spirit is something every single person has the ability to listen to. Engaging in that friendship with the Holy Spirit will come with encounters of conversations and things he’s trying to speak to you about. The part about the Holy Spirit is up to each believer though and their desire to access that part of being a Christian-something I’ve dived into recently that has drastically changed my walk of faith (some real cool stuff).
So when my race comes to and end, I most likely will not be using the terms ATL or listening prayer because that is not something I see being a part of my life as a believer. I see evangelism and praying apart of my life but in ways that I know I can connect with the Lord, further allowing me to love people deeply.
This blog was random and one I never thought I would write but it’s a closer look into what life is like on the race. Sometimes you encounter things you don’t necessarily agree with but I’ve come to the realization that we all have a choice with what to do next. I decided to take a step to the left but keep going in a way that I believe-in a way that fulfills me and ables me to evangelize with genuine intentions and to literally just love people.
