Family Talk

Dr. James Dobson: Hello everyone, you're listening to Family Talk, the radio broadcasting ministry of the James Dobson Family Institute. I'm Dr. James Dobson, and thank you for joining us for this program.

Roger Marsh: Well, welcome to Family Talk, the broadcast division of the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute. I'm Roger Marsh, and on our last broadcast, we began a conversation with Fern Nichols and Sally Burke from Moms in Prayer International, a ministry that's been rallying moms to pray for their children and their children's schools for decades.

Fern Nichols founded this ministry after being burdened for her own kids' spiritual well-being. Sally, a former space shuttle engineer turned ministry president, has been leading that charge since 2015. In part one of this conversation, we heard how the movement took root.

Today, Sally Burke will walk us through the four powerful steps of prayer that Moms in Prayer groups follow each week. You'll also hear from several moms who joined Dr. Dobson in the studio, women whose children have been transformed by faithful, persistent prayer. Let's rejoin Dr. Dobson now for this special edition of Family Talk.

Dr. James Dobson: Okay, Sally, welcome. The question that begs to be asked is, what are those four steps? Is that the right question?

Sally Burke: Yes, that's the right question because these four steps are powerful. We begin with praising. We take our eyes off of our situation, off of ourselves, onto the mighty God. God enters the praises of His people.

Pretty soon you watch these women with all this fear and all this worry, and all courage is, is fear bathed in prayer. Pretty soon they're seeing who their God is. There's nothing too hard, nothing impossible for Him. It's His word, it's who He is. They begin to just praise Him left and right. They begin to be transformed. They think they're going in for their child, but God is doing a work within them. They never leave the same.

Then there's silent confession. I like that it's silent because I'm not going to tell everybody my sins. It's between me and God. I want to make sure my heart is just cleansed. Think about that as a hose. You can turn on the major source of it, but if there's a kink, the fullness can't come out.

The Holy Spirit wants to pray through us. We know not how we ought to pray, and I want to make sure everything within me is emptied out so Christ can fill me to overflowing. We silently confess our sins. He tells us if you confess your sins, He is faithful and just to forgive you of all your sins and cleanse you of all unrighteousness.

We're ready to thank Him. We're entering His gates with praise and thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is an amazing time. To me, it's a Holy Spirit party because my sister over here will thank God for answered prayer. I got to pray with her last week, and I'm so excited. This one over here shares an answered prayer, and I'm thinking if God answered that prayer, He's going to answer this prayer.

We just celebrate for one another. We fall in love with each other's kids. We're for each other's kids. It's an amazing sisterhood. Some of the women I've been praying with, I've been praying with for over 20 years together. Every week we meet, every week we pray for one another.

Dr. James Dobson: Do you sometimes pray for spouses?

Sally Burke: No, our focus is clear: the children and the schools. It's very clear. Then there's the intercession. How do you know God's going to answer your prayer? If you pray according to His will, which is the mighty word of God, and it never comes back void. It always fulfills His purpose and His plan. Every time we put our child's name and scripture, another mommy agrees, and we know somehow, someway God's going to answer that prayer and so far greater than anything we could imagine. Our imaginations are so small in comparison to God's greatness and what He wants to do in our children's lives.

Dr. James Dobson: Is that the fourth?

Sally Burke: That's the fourth, but in the fourth, we get to pray not only for our children and then my sister's child, who we break off, but we get to pray for the teachers. I've gotten to see in this one elementary school, 12 or 13 teachers receive Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior in a public school campus.

It was so amazing. One of the teachers we were praying for, one of the moms came in and she was complaining about this teacher. I said we get to pray for her. We get to pray that her eyes be open, that she turn from darkness to light and the power of Satan to the power of God so she can be forgiven of her sins and have a place among those who are sanctified by faith.

Every week we would pray for her. We would love on her. She came to know the Lord Jesus Christ, and my two youngest got to be in her kindergarten class. I got to place their hands into her hands, and she was a brand-new believer. We got to talk about prayer. We got to talk about the Lord. It's just been amazing to watch and see.

Fern Nichols: Fern, it's obvious why you made the selection that you did. Hey, you got to get those shuttle women. No, it was God's choice. That's what was so sweet to me that God would be that good to me when I would pass that baton. I said, oh Lord, that it would be like Elijah and Elisha, that there would be a double portion of blessing on the next one, that doors would be opened like never before because of the one that You've called. The board saw this as well, and the board made the decision, and then I shared with them that was my choice.

Dr. James Dobson: Do you have any idea how many children are being prayed for?

Fern Nichols: I don't know that, but I asked Siri. You know who Siri is? I can imagine Siri trying to answer that. Well, I asked Siri, and I just click her on and say, "Siri, how many students are there in the United States of America?" She said 49.7 million. That's a lot of kids that need to be prayed for, a lot of lives that need to be changed, a lot of lost that need to be found.

I think it was 1.3 million teachers that need to be prayed for, as Sally was just sharing with us. Dr. Dobson, we are exploding all over the world, and we are struggling here in the United States. Moms, I don't know if it's moms are so busy or what, but our prayer is that this program with you, with Family Talk, will be the next launch of the 20,000 responses we will get from the women, the moms, the grandmas of this generation to say yes, I will gather together and pray because there's a lot of praying that needs to go on.

Dr. James Dobson: My heart aches for what's happening to kids. When I was young, when I was a little boy, the whole neighborhood looked out for the welfare of children. If I did anything wrong, my daddy would know about it very quickly. Now it seems like there's a tug-of-war for the hearts and minds of kids, and a lot of it's going on in school.

Sally Burke: Prayer can transform a school. Not only does it transform the mommies who are praying and their children, it transforms that classroom, it transforms the whole school. My youngest daughter, when in her high school, we began to pray that our children would be revived, that they would love Jesus so much that they would impact their campus.

My daughter and her few friends and their moms, who happened to be Moms in Prayer moms, came together and they did a Bible study. They started inviting 25 of their fellow students. They got so revived that they started praying on Friday morning. They had a week away on this mountain, and the gospel was shared there.

91 children received Jesus. My daughter says they were falling on their faces, they were weeping, and this is a high school, crying. The power of prayer, we're touching heaven on behalf here, we're unleashing God's power to transform lives. That's why we're calling mommies to pray. That's why our heart's desire is two or more moms for every school so every child can be prayed for. We know it, we've seen it, how a school can be transformed. That's why we're calling out, and why we appreciate you.

Dr. James Dobson: God is spirit, and the Holy Spirit is spirit, so it's hard to visualize what He looks like. There's never been a depiction of Him, but I can imagine the face of Jesus showing His joy at you guys coming forth. I can see Him smiling when you pray. Do you also sometimes feel like you've put a smile on His face?

Sally Burke: Oh, that is very nice. I pray we do. It brings us so much joy, so I can just imagine that He's joy-filled. When we leave there, a lot of the moms come with very heavy burdens, and sometimes I think God allows them to be so heavy-burdened so they'll take it to Him. They leave there so filled with joy, so filled with expectation and a hope, a hope in God, not a hope in the circumstances, not a hope in themselves, not a hope in their children, but a hope in God that He will answer their prayer.

Dr. James Dobson: Well, we have a microphone here. There's no way that we can put a microphone in front of all these ladies, but let's pass this around. Daniel, one of our producers, would you find the ladies that would like to talk and whoever would like to share your experience in this regard and tell us why you're involved in it and let our listeners know what's on your heart?

Kathy Kramer: Hi, my name is Kathy Kramer, and I know this story will please Dr. Dobson's heart because we adopted two boys from foster care. We got them at three and four, and they come with a lot of baggage, one with a lot of mental health abuse issues, the other one out of a drug-addicted kind of situation.

When you adopt kids that are the throwaway kids that nobody else wants, the first thing you do is you find people around you to start praying for you and for those kids because you start three steps back of where regular parents start. We moved from California to Colorado nine years ago, and I had never heard of Moms in Prayer. I said, "Where'd that ministry come from? California, just like me? I've never heard of it."

I heard about it at a church, and it was an introduction to the community like everything from where the grocery store is to this, to by the way, we also have this ministry called Moms in Prayer. I started praying seven years ago and started leading a group, became an area coordinator, and now I'm going to help with what's called Sweet Peas, which are our moms praying alone. Some moms put in a request to national online, and they may want to join a group, but there's not one near them, so we put a pea after their name and now we're calling them Sweet Peas. I have a whole bunch of flower seeds at my house and I'm going to be spreading Sweet Pea flower seeds all over this state and we are going to mentor those moms and bring them in fellowship with other moms and just grow this ministry.

Dr. James Dobson: Bless you. Come on, that deserves a response.

Guest (Female): I just wanted to say, I live out in Kiowa, Colorado, and it's a very small town. I just want to say to moms out there, you don't need a big group of moms. There's myself and one other mom that prays for our schools. We see the Lord do amazing things. I have more moms in my adult group, but you only need one other mom. Don't think that you need to get your whole neighborhood. Just find that one other person.

Roger Marsh: Well, we've reached the midpoint of today's edition of Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk. I'm Roger Marsh. We'll take a quick time out. When we return, the conclusion of today's program.

Dr. James Dobson: Two days from now, we're going to be celebrating Mother's Day here in the United States, and that gives me an occasion to tip my hat to those special women whom we honor every year at this time. With today's Dr. Dobson Minute, here's Dr. James Dobson. Join her on her mid-morning visit to the pediatrician's office. After sitting for 45 minutes with a cranky, feverish toddler on her lap, mom and baby are finally ushered into the examining room.

The doctor checks out the sick child and then tells the woman with a straight face, "Be sure you keep him quiet for four or five days. Don't let him scratch the rash, and you'll want to watch his stool." Yeah, sure, Doc, any other suggestions? The amazing thing is that most mothers would get this job done, and they'd do it with love and tenderness. They would quite literally lay down their lives to protect the kids entrusted to their care. And that's why they're deserving of our admiration on this Mother's Day.

Roger Marsh: And now here is the conclusion of today's edition of Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk.

Fern Nichols: This must absolutely thrill your heart to hear these stories. You've heard them for all these years now, but each one is so touched by God and so beautiful and so thank you, Jesus. I want every Christian mom to be a part of this ministry.

Dr. James Dobson: And if they're not a Christian mom, there's an answer to that too.

Fern Nichols: There's an answer to that. We pray that they become one.

Carol Birch: My name is Carol Birch, and I think it's the best thing that I've ever done for my kids is pray for them. They're grown, so I've been in the ministry since 1996. When moms come to me and say, "I don't have time to pray for my kids," I say, "You don't have time not to pray for your kids," because in this generation coming up, it's tough. I've loved the ministry.

Mary Ingar: My name is Mary Ingar, and I just want to share that there was a mom in my Moms in Prayer group whose son died. When she came back to our group, she said it's the character of God that helped her walk through her grief. Praying a different character trait of God every week is what gave her strength.

The first time that she came back to our group, the character of God that was on our sheet was that He is our protector. This young man was killed in a bicycle accident and she prayed in her heart and she said, "Lord, You didn't protect my son. How can I be in this prayer group? You didn't protect my son."

The Holy Spirit came to her in that moment and said, "You do not know what I protected him from." The presence of the power of the Holy Spirit speaking to that mom is what brought her through her grief and the comfort of the Holy Spirit and every week being reminded who is God even in the midst of very difficult situations.

Dr. James Dobson: I'm so glad you shared that with us. Who else?

Guest (Female): My son died at Columbine High School in 1999, and I was a part of Moms in Touch at that time. It got me through the pain and the suffering, and God just brought so much good out of John's death.

As Fern Nichols knows, I just hung on to all those characteristics of God that we prayed for week after week after week. I clung to those characteristics of God and I'm thankful to Fern for standing by me with it. I had Moms in Touch people praying all across the United States. God gave us the strength and God did amazing things. His best friend accepted Christ. The girl under the table that he was with at Columbine became a Christian. I really have lots of stories that I could share about that, but God is good.

Dr. James Dobson: It ought to be obvious to everyone why I believe in this ministry and have for all these years. Thank you for sharing that.

Guest (Female): I've told many moms that Moms in Prayer was always the favorite hour of my week. As I look back, it's been a golden thread in the tapestry of my life. I thought I was done with Moms in Prayer after our children graduated from high school and moved on to college. I didn't realize that now there are college-age groups and military groups and prodigal groups, grandmother groups.

The ministry has grown and changed. Years later, our children are now in their 20s. God called me back as an area coordinator and I wasn't even expecting that. The words "Moms in Prayer" came back into my mind and I was a little stunned. I said, "I think I thought I was done with that ministry. That's for when my children were in school." I've learned otherwise. There's never a time to stop and there are so many prayers and now I too have grandbabies and we got to get a grandmas group going. I'm just so grateful.

Dr. James Dobson: So you do have grandmother groups?

Sally Burke: Grandmother groups, yes. We have prodigal groups, military, special needs. There's a wonderful list on the website. You can find out so much information and there's a list of all the types of groups. It looks to me like there are about 15 different types of groups. Moms of all sorts, be encouraged.

Please do contact us. Go to our website. You'll either hear from a state coordinator, an area coordinator, or us from headquarters. Somebody will make a personal contact with you. We will help you get started and we'll help you continue on.

Dr. James Dobson: It sounds like you care.

Sally Burke: Each mom is so precious to us. We love them dearly as you can see around this room. We're an incredible sisterhood. We're bond together by Christ and bond together by prayer.

Dr. James Dobson: Do you know, and of course you do more than anybody else, how many women out there are lonely? How many women feel overwhelmed by the children they're trying to raise? There are just so many obstacles before them and praying alone is a wonderful thing, but praying with others is a different experience.

Sally Burke: And that face-to-face, that touching that other mommy, that when you can just barely make it to that group, all you have is tears, that other mommy prays over your child. It's a gift from God and you don't ever want to miss that gift. In this day and age where people text or they do a quick phone message, it's so much different. You get to sit in that hour. It does go by fast, but it's impactful and it's life-changing and it's eternal. Everything that's prayed there stays there. You can trust that other mommy. It's not going to go anywhere else.

Fern Nichols: Dr. Dobson, I was going to give you this new little book, "Moms' Little Book of Powerful Prayers." It's a gift book. If there's a mom whose son is being bullied, we have a prayer for that and a scripture to go with it. If there's a mom whose child is having special needs issues, we have a prayer for that.

There are over 170 prayers, kind of starter prayers for them, but using the word of God. Then at the end, this was my heart because it's just so important that we bless our children. I put 31 blessings using the word of God at the end of the book so that like if they leave for school you can just place your little hand on their head and take that first blessing or whatever blessing you want to take and then you can just repeat them or find your own blessing, but every day to bless your child at dinner, before school, or at bedtime. That is also in this little book. It's now being translated into or has been translated into French and Portuguese.

Sally Burke: And we have updated our "Igniting a Passion to Pray" that will be taught in the different churches, going to be taught in your home, and it's incredible. It teaches them and walks them through six weeks of our four steps of prayer.

Dr. James Dobson: Give us all the information needed to make this work.

Sally Burke: Come to our website: momsinprayer.org. We will help them. We'll do whatever it takes to get them going in a group.

Dr. James Dobson: We'll put it on our website and that will direct them to yours. I'm so excited about what you're doing, Fern. It's great to get this update. I have followed your work for a long, long time and every time you come, it's uplifting to me. It is exciting to me to see the good things that are happening.

There's so much bad. You can really just get discouraged when you see the direction that the country is going, but you guys are making a difference. Does it excite you to think that there'll be a lot of people in heaven because of what you've done?

Fern Nichols: Boy, that does really excite me because you know it's like our schools. In Jerusalem, when Jesus saw Jerusalem, He had such compassion for the people and He said they're like sheep without a shepherd. They're harassed and helpless.

That's why we see the kids in our school and why would we not want to pray for them to come to know the God that loves them, the Jesus that died for them and gave them eternal life, to give them destiny and hope and eternal life? What a privilege for us to pray not only for our children and our grandchildren and others.

My own grandchildren, the 10 of them, 8 out of 10 have asked Jesus into their heart. Now the other two will, but they're only one year old, so we're praying now for them.

Sally Burke: And her daughter had us over and her kids and my kids join. Her grandchildren prayed over us, prayed blessings over us as we went through the transition. That is a legacy.

Dr. James Dobson: Sally, you have got a hold of something here and it's sure going to be interesting to see how the years unfold. This is a very big job. How can we pray for you?

Sally Burke: Wisdom, always leaning on Christ, always for His glory, always for His purpose, that I'm a blessing to the women that I serve. Most important, I'm obedient to Christ and what He calls me to do and just take one day at a time.

Dr. James Dobson: Well, blessings to everyone of you. Thanks for coming to be with us today. I know that this has been a blessing to many of our listeners and I hope that you get another 100,000 people involved as a result of this information. Will you come back to see us? We're just going to have to have a bigger studio because you all brought a friend. Well, it's amazing we've gotten this number in. I thank you and the Lord, I know, is going to continue to bless you and do stay in touch with us, Sally.

Sally Burke: I will. It's been an honor. Thank you, everyone. Thank you, Dr. Dobson.

Roger Marsh: In Matthew 18, Jesus said, "Where two or three are gathered in My name, there I am with them." And that's exactly what Moms in Prayer is all about: choosing to fight for their kids on their knees. You're listening to Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk and a conversation featuring Dr. Dobson and Fern Nichols and Sally Burke from Moms in Prayer International. If you missed any part of this two-part program, or if you'd like to share it with a mom who needs some encouragement right now, go to jdfi.net.

By the way, Mother's Day is this Sunday and here at the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute, we believe that moms are among God's greatest gifts to a family. So whether your mom is right down the road or miles away, whether she's still with you or watching from heaven, do take a moment this weekend to honor the woman who helped to shape who you are. Give her a call, write her a note, or simply just tell her you love her.

By the way, every day, families all across the country are searching for truth they can trust, wisdom rooted in scripture, not shifting with the culture. That's what the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute exists to provide, and broadcasts like the one you heard today are made possible because of generous friends who believe in this mission.

Your gift of any amount helps us continue reaching millions of families with biblical truth and real hope. And you can make a secure donation when you go to jdfi.net. That's jdfi.net. Well, I'm Roger Marsh and from all of us here at Family Talk and the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute, thanks so much for listening today and I'd like to wish my mom, my wife Lisa, my daughter Emily, my daughter Kaylee, and my daughter Taylor, a Happy Mother's Day.

Hope it's a wonderful Mother's Day for you and your family as well. Be sure to join us again next time right here for another edition of Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk, the voice you trust for the family you love.

This has been a presentation of the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute.