The lead pastor of National Community Church in Washington, D.C. says that Christians have been losing sight of the power of a single prayer.

Mark Batterson was speaking at LiderVision, a Christian leadership conference for Hispanic pastors, when he shared with the pastors how his church exploded because of the power of God working through a consistent, single prayer.

Batterson said he and his wife started the church with 20 people during a 1996 blizzard that shut down the nation’s capital for days.  For the next five years, he preached every Sunday and the church’s faithful members prayed for one thing:  for God to provide the growth in whatever way He saw fit to do.

Then a reporter from the Washington Post came to attend a service and asked if she could do a quick interview with Pastor Batterson.  He expected it to be buried in the religion section but hoped a few people could see it and visit.  Instead, the article appeared on the front page of the Washington Post.

Immediately, the church’s attendance doubled.

“God can do more in one day than we can accomplish in a thousand lifetimes. One day, God is going to show up and He’s going to show off His power in our lives,” Batterson said.  “The more I pray, the more coincidences happen and I don’t believe they’re coincidences, they’re providences because there’s a God that orders my footsteps and when I pray like it depends on God and work like it depends on me, look out!”

Batterson says Christians need to remember the power of a single prayer and take steps of faith to allow God to answer those prayers.

“If you want God to do something, you’ve got to do something different; you’ve got to take that step of faith. Here’s the challenge, we want God to reveal the second step before we take the first step because that doesn’t require any faith. In fact, we wish the Lord ‘s Prayer said, ‘Give us this year, our yearly bread’ but He gives the one day and one step revelation.”