If you know Bill Magoon, you know he is not afraid to pray. Prayer is an important part of his life and if you’ve ever been prayed for by him, it is an experience you will remember. This is a man whose heart for God spills over onto everyone he comes in contact. It is rare, and it is real.
“the older I get, the more I realize my brokenness….the more I need Him… and so the more I experience of life, the more I love Christ, the more I worship and the more I’m thankful for the cross.”
When Bill came to a relationship with Christ at the age of 28, he fondly remembers Jim, a businessman, who greatly impacted his life. He recalls a time when his new faith was tested. He had been a Christian for some time, when he went to lunch with Jim, his friend and mentor. They were at Kaaps, at that time a popular restaurant in Green Bay. It was crowded, and they were seated next to two tables of businessmen and clients that Bill knew. As they sat before their lunch, in a not-so-quiet voice Jim proceeded to say, ‘Bill, I think it’s time that you start saying grace.’ Knowing that his friends and clients were at the next table close enough to hear, Bill recalls, “I’m not sure if the lump in my throat was visible, but I certainly swallowed hard.” He realized at that moment then he could choose to hold back and not pray, keeping his Christian life comfortable--or not be ashamed and pray to the God he so loved. Bill states “I cannon-balled in, closed my eyes—I’m not sure what I said, but I prayed.” And it seems he hasn’t stopped praying since.
Bill admits, though, he had a lot to learn in the ensuing years. In the early years of his faith, he admits that he prayed “provisionally and preferentially” toward his church and at times would love people with a proportional love. In other words, he says “those who were in my church, I loved them the more.” In his immaturity at times, Bill says “I prayed pointedly….for those that I felt hurt by. I prayed ‘Lord, show them, Lord teach ‘em a lesson--Lord, return to them what they’ve done to me. And what I didn’t know is in all of this God was trying to teach me that it was my heart that he wanted to change, it was my ways that he wanted to change, it was my relationship that he wanted to deepen.”
And change him He did. As Bill puts it, “God began stretching the tents of my heart.” He began drawing Bill to pray more of a shepherdly prayer—praying as Bill says “as a little shepherd under the Good Shepherd,” praying for his “fields” as he likes to describe them.
One of these fields---Community Church, he met in 1996 and has been praying for it ever since. He prays for the Church with a Christ-like love and he takes it seriously. He realizes that God has given him fields to pray for and he is a man who follows through on this mission—not as a pastor or an elder or a man with a title, but as a regular guy, “This is grass roots. This is part of the purpose of prayer from the Bible. We begin to realize that God has put us in these fields and given us favor and given us acquaintance with certain people.”
And Bill has taken his purpose to heart—and his prayer journal reflects it. In it he records his prayers with love and diligence. The many colors, words, circles, dots represent his fields, and those whom he prays for. As Bills says, “I take it seriously…my little field he’s given me…the precious people that he’s allowed me to be engaged with… it’s about the body of Christ.”
As Bill goes out into his field he states, “I’m trying to be a steward, a shepherd, a lover of God living in the field, praying in the field that he’s given me, and my hope and prayer for the body of Christ is that they begin to have this awareness of His calling to be shepherds in the place that he’s allowed us to be, in the time that he’s allowed us to live, in the circumstances that he’s allowed.”
As he reflects on his prayer life, Bill speaks of his great need for Christ, “the older I get, the more I realize my brokenness….the more I need Him… and so the more I experience of life, the more I love Christ, the more I worship and the more I’m thankful for the cross.”
So Bill will continue to pray. Praying with others, praying behind the scenes with passion, fervor and an unwavering love for the body of Christ---with a prayer journal to prove it. And as Bill puts it “walking with the Christ is costly, but how can you give too much to a Savior who has given all?”
