Urging men to talk to God

Head of men's prayer ministry says his turnaround the product of the power of spiritual intercession

As a young sailor serving aboard a Navy ammunition ship in the early 1970s, Richard Lindsay didn't have encouraging men to pray anywhere on his radar. But because of the prayers of one man, Lindsay experienced firsthand the explosive power of prayer.

Today, the Rev. Richard Lindsay is the founder and president of Encourage Men to Pray Ministries, a national men's ministry based in Goose Creek. He accepted Christ in Rack No. 19 off the coast of Greece on Jan. 28, 1974.

"I was basically an out-of-control kid," Lindsay says. "I was a coveter, I was a liar, I was a womanizer, everything that you could think of — a stealer — I was all of that. I was an adolescent nightmare."

But the structure of the Navy, and a shipmate named Randy, changed all that.

"He was praying for me," Lindsay says. "I kept telling him, 'I'm gonna take you out. Just leave me alone.' " But Randy would not leave him alone. Lindsay finally agreed to read the Book of John in the Bible just to get the guy off his back. He spent that night in the ship's library reading John, and then 1st John, and then 2nd John. By the time he crawled in his rack, blankets hung on all sides to provide some privacy in the early morning hours, Lindsay had written down on a legal pad more than 11 pages of sins he had committed in his life. And he wasn't even finished.

He wasn't finished. In fact, with a simple prayer, encouraged by the prayers of a mentor, he was just beginning.

"A relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ is the most powerful, positive thing that can ever happen," Lindsay says. Prayer can change a community, he says; prayer can change a nation. Prayer can change a man.

It is so important that Lindsay has devoted his life to encouraging men to pray.

"I entered men's ministries outside of the box of the church," he says. "I didn't have a home church. I had not been churched. I had a mentor by the name of Randy."

Lindsay and his mentor began praying for shipmates and their families, leading 37 men to Christ within five months. When he got out of the Navy, Lindsay went to college, earned a Bachelor of Science in marketing and business, and began working in construction.

"I had a calling to be a Christian businessman," Lindsay says. He started his own construction firm and worked as a general contractor for almost 20 years in the Charleston area. He made a point of having weekly prayer meetings with his employees, and Lindsay himself prayed for his men throughout the workday.

Trouble was, the men kept leaving his company.

Not because they were unhappy. They left because God called them to the mission field, or to some other Christian service, he says.

It seems that Lindsay has been praying with and for men all his adult life.

"I love ministering to men, and I love getting them into accountability." He has held volunteer, as well as staff, positions in the area of prayer with Promise Keepers since 1994. He participated in the Stand in the Gap 1997 and 2007 rallies in Washington, D.C.

"Everybody that's in men's ministries kept asking me to help them," he says. "We just kept serving people."

The National Coalition of Men's Ministries honored Lindsay earlier this year with an Outstanding Ministry Achievement Award for his role in Stand in the Gap 2007.

Lindsay now speaks about prayer and accountability to men's groups.

"Men need to be encouraged," he says. "They need inspiration, they need to be challenged, but the greatest (need) is affirmation."

It's the greatest, he says, because God himself modeled affirmation when he said, "This is my son in whom I am well pleased."

Encourage Men to Pray Ministries is a nonprofit ministry designed to offer men encouragement, inspiration, challenge and affirmation.

"The individual Christian man gets saved, he gets credible evidence of the gospel and he accepts Jesus Christ as his Savior. Now he's on a journey," says Lindsay. "But who's on the journey with him?"

Encourage Men to Pray (www.encouragementopray.org) facilitates groups of seven men who pray for and with each other, mentor each other, support each other and hold each other accountable in their Christian walk.

Lindsay believes that prayer is so important to God that he collects each and every one.

"We have an enemy who knows that every prayer is so precious to God that he's saving them," Lindsay says, citing Revelation 5:8 and Revelation 8:3-5. The two passages refer to the end of time when God responds to the prayers of his people.

Prayer is important enough for Lindsay to make men and prayer his lifelong priority. "This is why I'll be doing this the rest of my life."

Lisa Foster is a freelance writer who lives in Goose Creek.

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