Prayer and mission fit together, hand in glove. To pray is to be invited to uncomfortable mission. To pray is to be led by the hand to broken places, broken people, and broken parts within yourself. Jesus feels at home in the company of the misfits, marginalized, oppressed, and outcast, so if you spend time in conversation with Jesus, you better believe he’ll invite you to come with him where he’s going. N. T. Wright writes, “The Christian vocation is to be in prayer, in the Spirit, at the place the world is in pain.”15 Proximity to pain lends credibility and power to our prayers.
