What's My Next Step, God?: Prayer | Rev. Vicki Harrison

This Sunday New Hope started something new. What's My Next Step, God? runs five Sundays and walks through five areas of the Christian life — prayer, worship, small community, service and generosity — and then closes on November 1 with a celebration of God's faithfulness at New Hope and a lunch on the lawn.

Pastor Vicki Harrison set the terms in the first minute.

"We don't want to be stagnant in our faith. We always want to be growing and learning. We want to look more like Jesus."

Week one is prayer. And the question the whole series hangs on, applied here: What's my next step, God, in prayer?

Most of Us Already Agree Prayer Matters

That is rather the problem. Prayer is the thing almost everyone in the room would say is important, which makes it easy to leave unexamined.

"It's impossible to grow closer to God without prayer. As we grow, our prayer life should also grow and change and transform too."

For someone new to faith, Vicki said, prayer is how you start to know God at all — a way to begin building a relationship with the maker of the universe. For someone who has been walking with Jesus a long time, it is what sustains them.

They Had Just Been Told to Stop

The scripture was Acts 4:22-31, and the context matters.

Peter and John had healed a disabled beggar and then started preaching and teaching in the name of Jesus to the crowd that gathered. The religious leaders were horrified. Peter and John were dragged in front of the Sanhedrin — the Jewish ruling council — and questioned.

They answered well. And there was not much the council could do about it: the beggar was healed, and a great many people had watched it happen. So they warned the two men to stop preaching in the name of Jesus, and let them go.

Here is where the sermon turned. The two of them went back to the other believers, gathered everyone, and prayed.

"So, Peter and John return to the church and they pray for safety. No, that is not what happens. They pray for boldness."

What the room actually asked God for was that He would consider the threats against them and then enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness — and stretch out His hand to heal and perform signs and wonders. Boldness, and then more of exactly the thing that had got them arrested.

"After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly."

The Convicting Part

Vicki put her own prayers next to that one, and did not come off well in the comparison.

"What are my typical prayers? Keep us safe, Lord. Heal so and so who has the flu. Traveling mercies for Betty Sue who is visiting her kids. Strength and good recall for my kids who are taking their exams. In Jesus' name, Amen."

Those are fine prayers. She said so. But she wondered aloud whether God ever looks at that list and wants to be asked for something harder.

"Sometimes, I wonder if God is saying, 'Okay, give me a tough one! I'm the God of the universe, give me something that is hard!'"

Three Questions

The body of the message was an honest self-assessment, built as three questions. Not everyone is going to end up where Peter and John were, Vicki said, and that is fine — but there is a next step for every single person.

First: do you have a prayer life at all?

"If you don't, that's okay. You are in the right place. We can help you begin a life of prayer."

Think about any relationship where you never talk to the other person, she said. It does not turn out well. If you do not have a prayer life, your next step is simply to start one — pick a time, and if you are not sure what to say, talk to God the way you would talk to a friend. Tell Him your worries. Tell Him how you feel. Just talk.

Second: is it consistent?

For this one she pointed at Jesus, who kept doing this in the middle of everything else. Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, He got up and went off to a solitary place to pray. Right after feeding the five thousand, He went up a mountainside to pray. After healing crowds of people, He withdrew to lonely places and prayed.

"The busier he got, the more he made sure that he prayed."

Then the obvious application: if the Son of God needed prayer for wisdom and renewal, we are not going to get by on less.

Third: what kinds of prayers do you pray?

She asked the room to think back over the prayers they had actually prayed that week. Her own kids' childhood version — "Thank you God for everything. Help everyone who needs it. Amen" — she named affectionately as the all-encompassing prayer, and admitted it was mostly a way to get to the food faster.

Quoting Bible teacher Priscilla Shirer:

"Prayer is not a lead-up to the main thing. Prayer is the main thing."

Prayer is not primarily a mechanism for getting God to do things, Vicki said. It is an ongoing conversation that keeps us connected to our creator — and it may be less about our asks and more about trusting God and letting Him grow us. God answers prayer, but not always the way we wanted it answered.

Safe Prayers and Bold Prayers

The sharpest line in the message was about what our prayers reveal.

"What we pray for speaks volumes about how we feel about God. Or maybe I should say, the boldness of our prayers speaks volumes about what we believe about God."

The early church believed, with everything they had, that God was all-powerful, that God worked miracles, that God provided, and that God would take care of every need. Their prayers matched that.

So the question came back around, personally. Do you believe God can heal, physically and emotionally? That He can do the genuinely hard thing? Change hearts? Mend a broken relationship? Protect Christians around the world?

And closer in — do you believe God can make you more patient, more loving, more generous, less angry? Are you willing to let Him? Do you believe God can help you forgive a wound you have carried for years?

"There is nothing wrong with safe prayers but I don't want us to get stuck there."

So What's Your Next Step?

Vicki ended by putting the ladder on the screen and asking everyone to find themselves on it, and then find the next rung:

• Pray occasionally

• Start praying daily for your own family and needs

• Start praying daily for the needs of the world and your church

• Add fasting weekly to your prayer rhythm, praying for the needs of church and world and to bring glory to God

• Pray daily for boldness to share the Gospel and for full surrender to Jesus

• Join the New Hope prayer team

Wherever you are on that list is not the point. The next one down is.

"Ask God to speak to you here. Don't be scared to ask Jesus to tell you the truth."

The series continues Sundays through October 25, and closes November 1 with Celebrate New Hope and lunch on the lawn. Catch up in the message archive, and join us Sundays at 9:30 AM.

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Pastor Vicki Harrison opens What's My Next Step, God? on September 27, 2026.

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More Sermons in this Series

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Other Sermons from Pastor Vicki