Formed in Prayer with Bill Randall

Dec 23

Episode Summary

In this episode, Brian and Cory are joined by longtime spiritual formation leader Bill Randall to explore how extraordinary prayer and fasting form us before they send us. Rather than treating prayer as a checklist or a tool for results, the conversation reframes prayer as the primary space where identity, authority, and clarity are shaped.

Drawing from the life of Jesus, the wisdom of Dallas Willard, and decades of formation work, this episode invites disciple makers to slow down, abide deeply, and rediscover prayer as the furnace where love, mission, and obedience are forged together.

Key Themes & Takeaways

1. Formation Before Mission: Becoming Before Doing

Disciple-making begins with who we are becoming, not what we are producing.
Extraordinary prayer is not a tool for outcomes but the place where identity, authority, and clarity are formed.
Prayer shapes the inner life that sustains faithful obedience over the long haul.

2. The Relaxed Way of Jesus

Drawing from Dallas Willard, Bill describes Jesus as deeply intentional yet unhurried.
Jesus operated with urgency without anxiety—never driven by crowds, pressure, or fear.
Solitude was not an escape from mission but the source of His clarity and power within it.

3. Abiding Without an Agenda

Prayer often becomes transactional—focused on results, direction, or clarity.
This episode invites a return to prayer as presence rather than productivity.
Unhurried abiding forms love, heals anxiety, and recenters our lives in belovedness.

4. Formation Through Balance and Discipline

Some disciples lean toward action and need practices of stillness and rest.
Others linger easily with God but resist risk, obedience, or sentness.
Formation happens when we lean into the practices that stretch us toward wholeness.

5. Identity That Sustains Mission

Authority flows from intimacy, not effort.
Mission rooted in prayer becomes sustainable rather than draining.
Disciple makers formed in God’s presence carry peace, clarity, and love into everyday life.

6. Returning Again and Again to the First Phase

Extraordinary prayer is not a phase we graduate from—it is a posture we return to.
Every step of the Disciple Maker Pathway flows back to abiding with Jesus.
Formation in prayer becomes the inner scaffolding that holds up faithful obedience.

Final Thoughts

Extraordinary prayer is not about producing results—it’s about becoming the kind of people who can faithfully join God in whatever He is doing. Before strategies, before tools, before multiplication, Jesus invites us to abide. In that space, anxiety loosens its grip, identity is clarified, and love is rekindled.

As disciple makers, we cannot lead others into belovedness if we do not regularly return to the Father ourselves. Formation in prayer anchors us so that when we go, we go grounded—not driven. The pathway forward begins, again and again, in unhurried presence with God.