We help you reach your world by multiplying praying leaders who build houses and movements of prayer so that Jesus revives hearts and renews cities
It’s no secret that the cultural landscape has dramatically shifted in the past several years.
You feel the weight of leadership and you find yourself exhausted, discouraged or lonely.
With declining attendance, a growing resistance to evangelism, and heightened relational conflict and global tension, you know something needs to change.
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As a pastor, you long to see souls saved, people discipled, lives transformed and leaders multiplied, but your best efforts to mobilize prayer and mission are met by apathy and resistance.
You need renewed encouragement to ignite fresh vision among your teams.
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You’re a ministry director with a hunger to bring prayer into the heart and soul of your mission, but you have no idea where to start.
You need guidance along with tried-and-true resources to propel you forward.
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You’re a church planter, ready to launch a missional church that is rich in prayer, faithful in evangelism, and active in good works.
You want a roadmap of resources to equip your team to build prayer and mission into the DNA of every ministry.
You are not alone.
Forged in the furnace of 25 years of urban church planting, Prayer Current has designed our prayer training resources to equip thousands of leaders like you with the tools you need so you can take new ground with fresh vision, power and joy in the Spirit.
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Jesus didn’t intend for you to simply survive, coasting on self-reliant efforts and stress-relief prayer. His way of kingdom-centered prayer invites you to stop relying on your man-made agendas, and trade your burn-out and discouragement for renewed vision, resurrection power, and deeper love for God, the Church, and the nations.
Since 2000, Prayer Current’s passion is to empower church and mission leaders like you in the global church and in ministry networks.
Our field-tested training and resources equip you to multiply praying leaders who systemically build cultures of missional prayer discipleship within every area of your ministry organization, laying the foundation for sustainable growth, deep transformation, and harvest fruit.
By casting vision with Biblical instruction, small group interaction, and practical tools with hands-on prayer experiences, leaders and their people discover increased intimacy with God and a greater capacity to grow their ministry in maturity through Kingdom-centered prayer.
What We Offer
Prayer Course CURRICULUM
Developed in throes of urban church mission, we’ve created transferable training materials designed for hands on prayer practice in small groups and ministry teams, churches and organizations wanting to grow deeper and establish a praying culture together.
Custom Training PARTNERSHIPS + Consulting
We deliver custom dynamic workshops with follow up curriculum to equip leaders who feel called to build long term prayer discipleship foundations and train their whole organization, network, or church to build systemic cultures of prayer.
We are grateful to God for 25 years of building movements of prayer discipleship and evangelism, in collaboration with our valued partners:
We’re also grateful for provision for this website project. This project was funded by the Government of Canada’s Community Services Recovery Fund.
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What Sets Our Approach Apart
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Experiential
Our training prioritizes prayer practice, experiential learning, immediate application, and interaction in small groups.
As we experience Christ in prayer, God transforms passive information consumption into heart experience, leading to habit formation from the inside out.
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Cyclical
Our resources are designed to be repeated as part of core discipleship or to launch seasons of prayer, evangelism and leadership.
We never graduate from our need for prayer. The Holy Spirit brings fresh insight and transformation each time, unique to the current context.
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Collective
Our materials are designed for use in groups, equipping believers with prayer leadership skills to infuse prayer systemically into every sphere of ministry, building houses and movements of prayer.
Our resources are comprehensive for every level, helping you train leaders, disciple believers, and even teach seekers how to pray.
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Missional
Our resources train believers to pray with a harvest focus, beyond just inner contemplative prayer.
We focus our training on kingdom prayer that opens the doors to the heart of a city and to the soul of a person, building a vibrant flow of missional momentum.
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Biblical
Our teaching disciples people to pray according to the Word of God. We believe prayer cannot be separated from scripture.
Biblical prayers guide us from self-focused, stress-relief, survival prayers to Jesus-glorifying, kingdom-expanding, sanctifying prayers.
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Prayer Current Pathway to Prayer Discipleship + Mission
We designed our training resources to help local churches, missions, networks and kingdom movements to put prayer back into the core of their DNA, and ignite their movement.
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It all starts with you as a leader. Experience prayer renewal with Jesus, and revolutionize your vision of Biblical prayer.
Share the vision by praying with your leaders, and forming a prayer leadership team.
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As you gain momentum cultivating the vision for building a house of prayer, now it’s time to mobilize and train your leaders to disciple each of their ministries and groups to be rooted in kingdom prayer.
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As your people experience prayer momentum, so will their hearts grow for mission. Disciple people to expect answers to prayer for boldness and open doors to engage seekers in your city to meet Jesus in prayer.
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Build leaders to fuel global movements of kingdom prayer. Pray with and for other like-minded leaders, churches and networks, gaining encouragement and vision to trust Jesus for more.
Our Story
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Planting Seeds of Prayer Discipleship
When our founder John Smed and his wife Caron planted their first church, they exhausted themselves trying every conceivable strategy and program to grow the church, driving them to their knees in prayer.
The turning point came when they formed a group focused simply on praying to reach their neighbors. What started as a prayer group with just two other people slowly grew into a spiritual furnace for the church, fueling its growth and spiritual vitality.
Through this, John and Caron became deeply convinced firsthand that spiritual strength and missional momentum rise and fall in relation to prayer.
Growing Roots of Prayer Leadership
In his next role as a church planting director, it didn’t take long for John to recognize a pattern of new church missions expanding rapidly, only to be spiritually unprepared for the battle.
They resolved to invest in prayer training, changing “how to” talks into interactive prayer workshops, making room for God to do the real work of transformation and spiritual advance.
As God called John and Caron to plant a second church, they committed to build it as a house of prayer, discipling its leaders to bring prayer into every meeting and ministry.
Through this, God paved the way for what exists as Prayer Current today, raising up our team and creating training materials to equip leaders to multiply prayer.
Bearing the Fruit of Prayer Movements
Birthed out of a conviction to see the global Church awakened, revived, and strengthened through prayer, Prayer Current equips ministries to multiply prayer leaders who build houses and movements of harvest prayer.
Since 2000, we have developed interactive and corporate prayer training resources that have brought transformation to lives and renewal among churches across North America, Asia, India, Cuba, Russia and Africa. Cities have been restored and nations reached through the power of earnest prayer among God’s people.
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Meet Our Team
God has raised up a team, devoted in prayer, and unified in heart and mission to fulfill His call upon this ministry. We are here to serve the Church and support you however we can!
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Since 2000, John Smed and his team have developed prayer training materials, conferences and coaching for church planters, campus ministers, pastors, evangelists and network teams throughout North America, extensively in Cuba, India, China and Russia.
John’s conviction for prayer was born out of 30 years of experience in church planting and urban mission. With his wife Caron, John has planted two thriving urban churches in Canada. He directed church planting for Mission to North America for 7 years, and helped start Grace Network Canada.
John Smed was converted at L'abri in Switzerland, and imprinted on a life of prayer under the training of Edith Schaeffer, adopting a rich practice of prayer, open inquiry and deep fellowship early in his faith. John and Caron have 5 children and 11 grandchildren. They live in Lake Country, British Columbia, Canada.
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For over 40 years, Susan Smed’s career has been centred around hospitality, client care, donor relations and stewardship.
In the late 1980s, Susan was the Director of Client Relations for a large global organization, managing up to 75 employees, overseeing internal and external client care.
In 2002, Susan formed her own successful client relationship and event production company, delivering unique and exceptional initiatives and events, establishing and stewarding donor, sponsor and client loyalty in both the corporate and nonprofit sector for over 15 years.
In 2018, Susan joined Prayer Current which has deepened her faith through prayer for the advance of God’s Kingdom.
Along with Prayer Current Susan founded The Advance Agency, helping individuals plan for how they wish to live their lives when they may need assistance with daily living, in a dignified and purposeful way.
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Matthew Smed is the IT Manager for Prayer Current, and he brings several years of Communications experience to the team. He was a youth consultant with the City of Vancouver, coffee roaster with Moja Coffee, and as a trainer with Prayer Current. Matthew lives in Vancouver, and he loves and serves the city through prayer and evangelism.
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David has been involved in communications, journalism and writing for more than four decades. He spent much of that time as an editor for a national news agency. He has also done extensive field work.
As a Christian for 45 years, David has served in several leadership capacities including time as a deacon, elder, board member and church treasurer. But, his natural God given gifts rest in teaching and educating – leading unto righteousness Daniel 12:3. He has exercised that role in many congregations teaching all age groups.
He has also taken on leadership of community organizations to restore them to thriving, flourishing organizations they were created to be.
David joined Prayer Current in early 2025 with the objective of working with pastoral and leadership groups to create thriving congregations centered on building God’s kingdom and seeing people and congregations flourish.
Central to David’s work is his understanding of the nature of God and the discipline of Prayer as a foundation of discipleship and our relationships with God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. He practices this in everyday life and in his work with groups, congregations and church leaders.
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Dan Ko has been on the Advisory Board of Prayer Current for 11 years.
At the age of 10, Dan gave his life over to Jesus.Through the next few decades, God led Dan to serve in many overseas missions trips with various missions agencies, church planting, as well to serve in various leadership/serving roles with churches of 4 denominations.
Dan sees Prayer Current as God's powerful means by which He is bringing Jesus' Church together to pray for, and ultimately bring God's Kingdom to come and His will to be done here on Earth, as it is in Heaven.
Dan is married to his wonderful wife Brooke, who also loves Jesus, and together they have two daughters, Lauren and Allison.
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Steve Fultz became a ruling elder at Fort Worth Presbyterian Church in 1996. In 2004 he came on staff as the Director of Operations. He is responsible for the oversight and flow of financial resources in and out of the church and coordinates all the church's ministries.
Steve and his wife Terri have been believers for 40 years; they have three adult children and six grandchildren. They reside in Fort Worth, Texas.
Steve says, "I have a heart for people to find and grow in their faith and joy in the Lord Jesus Christ. I am able to utilize my organizational and spiritual gifts to encourage and move people to find this greater faith and joy in word and deed." (Galatians 5:6)
Get Started
Are you ready to take the next step to build your ministry as a house of prayer? We are here to equip you with the training, guidance and resources you need.
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Have questions? We’re here to help!
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Be inspired by what’s possible…
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Partner with us!
