Nothing about our call to ministry or the adventure that has brought us to where we are today was what we would have expected. It started with two 23-year-old newlyweds kneeling on our living room floor, telling God we didn’t know what it would look like, but if He was calling us into ministry, we’d go wherever. A few weeks later, Matt was in the ER, we had all available cash (and more in credit) stolen through identity theft, Matt had to quit his job, we had to move out of our apartment, and yet we were buzzing with anticipation knowing God had answered our prayer! Matt would spend the next 19 months recovering in bed, but from that place of utter weakness, doors for ministry began to fly open! Doors that should have shut in our faces were flung wide. As we know, God does as He pleases and delights to do the unexpected.
This beginning marked the tone of life for us ever since. Completely inadequate but clearly called and given undeserved favour, it has been a wild ride to say the least. Fast forward 10 years or so, and Matt was called to take over as the Lead Pastor at Westside, a fair-sized church in downtown Vancouver, BC, where he had served since 2012. With this new role, the spiritual attack intensified more than ever before. Around the same time, the Spirit had been leading us (and those around us) into more and deeper prayer. Matt had been struggling with spiritual depression, and the weight of the ministry was profound. In desperation, I feebly suggested that we could ask people to pray for him every day. As that seemed like a big ask of anyone, Matt initially dismissed the idea. But the spiritual attack was only increasing. One night, Matt couldn’t sleep for that very reason and picked up my laptop in the middle of the night. Providentially, a document was open that I had very recently received from Mountain View Baptist Church in Fresno, California. The pastor’s wife (who leads their Vibrate Prayer Ministry) had kindly shared with me their structure for what they called the “Pastoral Intercessory Team,” or PIT for short. Matt, in a state of near despair, read through the document and, in the morning, told me we should try it. That was 2019.
Ever since then, we have had our own version, the Pastoral Intercessory Prayer team, where individuals commit to three months of fasting and praying for Matt and me one day a week. Every single day of the week, for the past (almost) five years, someone has been fasting and praying for us while two other people are praying for us. These individuals will text encouragement to Matt each morning, and we regularly update them on how to pray for us more specifically. Even when we are forgetful, the Spirit is amazingly gracious and leads their prayers anyway.
We have over 50 people who currently or in the past have served on this team. You might think that is a big ask! It must be hard to build that team. It IS a big ask, but what surprised us is that people tell us very quickly that their day of prayer and fasting becomes the best day in their whole week! God fills them with joy for the work and rewards their service abundantly so that the team is always growing and we always have enough people. People actually love doing it and telling their friends about it too. Not only that, but in addition, there was a marked shift in the spiritual warfare Matt and I were experiencing. We were now being protected on all sides. The deep spiritual depression lifted, there was new lightness to ministry. And when things are hard, we always have a whole team of people to share the burden.
Only God could do such a wonderful thing. Only He could take what was once a heavy burden and turn it into joy. Only He could make laboring in prayer such a fruitful and enriching experience for all team members. We get to be vulnerable and loved in our weakness. Only God can do that through His children!
Matt and Melissa Menzel serve at Westside Church. Matt is the lead pastor and Melisa is the Prayer and Renewal Minister.