Episode 1511: Interview with Amy Lykosh About Praying For Your Business

[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: Thanks for joining us on episode 1511 of the Inspired Stewardship Podcast.

[00:00:08] Amy Lykosh: My name is Amy Laikosh. I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talent and your treasures to live out your calling. Having the ability to recognize how you hear God's voice in your business and your life is key.

[00:00:25] And one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this, the Inspired Stewardship Podcast with my friend Scott Maderer.

[00:00:40] Of the ones who engage, who actually talk to us, engage with us in that way, I would say for a lot of them, they feel like there's actually somebody who is, who has their back. Like there's somebody who is there, who is standing in the gap between the shakiness of earth and the stability of heaven and saying, like, can we please have more stability here?[00:01:00]

[00:01:00] Scott Maderer: Welcome and thank you for joining us on the Inspired Stewardship Podcast. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent, and your treasures for your true calling. In the Inspired Stewardship Podcast, you will learn to invest in yourself, invest in others, and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.

[00:01:34] In today's podcast episode, I interview Amy Lykos. I asked Amy to share how she came to focus on praying for businesses as her business. I also asked Amy to share how prayer for your business is so powerful. And Amy also shares with you how prayer can redefine success for your business. I have a great book that's been out for a while now called Inspired Living.

[00:01:57] Assemble the puzzle of your calling by mastering [00:02:00] your time, your talent, and your treasures. You can find out more about that book over at inspiredlivingbook. com. It'll take you to a page where there's information and you can sign up to get some mailings about it as well as purchase a copy there. I'd love to see you get a copy and share with me how it impacted your world.

[00:02:22] Amy Joy Lykos is an author, mentor, and entrepreneur with a passion for prayer in the workplace. Through Workplace Prayer, Maricosa Press, and the Make Prayer Beautiful podcast. She covers businesses in prayer and raises up intercessors to do the same. She lives outside Charlottesville, Virginia with her husband and five sons.

[00:02:44] Welcome to the show,

[00:02:44] Amy Lykosh: Amy. Thank you so much. It's a pleasure to be with you.

[00:02:48] Scott Maderer: Absolutely. Amy I talked a little bit in, in the intro about how you're working now around this idea of workplace prayer and prayer, but I always think of intros as they're [00:03:00] capturing the end point of a journey where we are today.

[00:03:02] They never really talk about how we got there. Would you mind sharing a little bit about your journey and what's brought you to the point where this is the work that you feel called to do?

[00:03:13] Amy Lykosh: Yeah. Thank you. So my parents had started a business in 1991 and my dad had been on emissions. Agency staff before that.

[00:03:22] So they always prayed. That was just part of their morning routine. And so when they started a business, they thought that's part of our values that makes good sense to us. We'll ask our staff to pray on the clock. And so I grew up with the idea that paid prayer for business was something that you just did because it was a good thing in keeping with values and.

[00:03:40] We want the Lord to bless our businesses, so let's go ahead and do that. And so for 30 years, that was the model that I knew. And then about 30 years in, there were certain things that I felt were not getting traction enough. I'm, I can see that these are big things, and I don't know how to shift them other than, additional [00:04:00] spiritual authority, or I don't even know how else to describe it than that.

[00:04:03] And so I went looking are there people who have really thought about how to pray for businesses effectively? Because I would say we were very sincere and all of us who would pray really liked it, but we weren't really trained. There wasn't like a a system that we had gone through or something to help us understand how to pray more effectively.

[00:04:21] And so I went looking and. I couldn't find anybody for about, Oh, I probably looked in maybe nine months. And when I finally found somebody who was willing to teach me, who was able to pray, who had been already praying for businesses, I was so excited. And the third day after we hired him, I texted him at 11 PM and said, Bob, we had 10 answered prayers today.

[00:04:44] And I, thought this was unbelievable, unprecedented in my life. Like I could not even fathom that somebody's prayers were this effective. And he texted right back, let's go for a dozen. And I remember looking at my phone who is this person who thinks that prayer works that [00:05:00] much? I've been a Christian my whole life, but that's like next level.

[00:05:03] And so we did get to a dozen that day. We never had less than a dozen for the rest of the month. We, there were days we had two dozen and by mid month, I was like, I have got to be part of this. This is unbelievable. I'm so excited about what God is doing. So I said, okay, Bob, like how many people are on your team?

[00:05:21] I want to be part. And he said, Oh no, it's just me. And I was thinking about all of the months that I had been looking for prayer coverage, that I had been longing for something to shift in the spirit. And I thought, no, that needs to change. And so I do understand that for him as a prayer person, he really doesn't want to do admin.

[00:05:41] He doesn't want to do all the things. He really just wants to pray, which is beautiful. But, and I also really like praying, but I also can manage admin, like I the business side. And so I said, let me come on with you, let's partner together. And so that was in June of 2020. And then we spent the summer praying what is the [00:06:00] foundation?

[00:06:00] What do we want to see the Lord do? And then starting in September, we had clients start coming to us.

[00:06:09] Scott Maderer: So I want to talk more about prayer and kind of why that's so hard for folks. But before I go there talk a little bit, you mentioned growing up your parents were business owners, but they prayed. This was part of their life value. Talk a little bit about your faith journey and how that's intersected with where you find yourself today.

[00:06:27] Amy Lykosh: Yeah, that's a beautiful question. I was so blessed to grow up in the family that I did. And I met Jesus when I was five, I climbed up on my upper bunk and was like, Lord, I can't do it on my own anymore. Which in retrospect, it's just adorable to me. What was the five year old trauma that I was dealing with?

[00:06:43] I don't know. And so I had beautiful mentors in college who were very prayerful people. One of them is now head of Intercessory Prayer for Interversity. So that was, she wasn't that at the time, she was just a staff worker, but that's the direction that the Lord has brought [00:07:00] her. And then I have had other mentors, a lot of them in books.

[00:07:05] So I'm a strong reader and really like gaining and gleaning from whatever the saints who have gone before have been able to teach. And so some of my mentors have been people and then some of them have been in books. But there's still people. But not, I haven't met them yet. I get

[00:07:25] Scott Maderer: to read a book, read, written by a cat,

[00:07:27] Amy Lykosh: Yeah,

[00:07:33] Scott Maderer: But I know what you mean.

[00:07:33] They're virtual mentors and that you haven't met them in person. That's what you, that's what you mean. I want to circle back to prayer. Cause you mentioned you grew up Christian, you grew up, with this idea that prayer was something you did, your parents treated that as part of their business, the prayer is something that I think most Christian would say, oh yeah, I pray, I know how to pray, I pray I do it.

[00:07:57] And yet I've had several folks on and [00:08:00] we've talked about it over the years about how prayer, they're, First off, prayer is not uniform. There's lots of different kinds of prayer and different ways of doing it and different reasons you might do it. It's not this monolith that I think a lot of us think about it.

[00:08:15] Talk to me a little bit about from your point of view, looking at prayer in the business field and from that point of view what do we get wrong? What do we get right? What's the problem? Problem is probably not even the right word. What's the challenge that we have when it comes to praying in our business?

[00:08:31] Amy Lykosh: Yeah, that's a good question. Sorry, big question. I once wrote a book called 50 Reasons Prayer is Difficult or Prayer is Hard or something like that because there are a lot of reasons. It's really true. So I think one of them would be that we don't have a very high expectation of what prayer is actually going to do.

[00:08:49] And If you're coming to something as a checklist, it makes it really hard to be like, I'm super excited to go and do this thing. It's I can get the checklist on my list of holiness today. So another [00:09:00] reason I think there's not a whole lot of modeling. And I know for even my parents, they started the business, they had prayer in the business, but I remember talking to my dad at some point in the last couple of years and he said, I would never call myself a man of prayer.

[00:09:12] I'm not happy about that, but. And I think he's grown in that a lot, but there's so there's a lack of demonstration and then even it's, it is really awkward to pray. Most of us, when we're having conversations, we either can see the person or if we're over the phone, we know that the other person is there and we can hear their sounds and such.

[00:09:31] Whereas when we're talking to God, he is incorporeal most of the time. Jesus was a major exception and maybe there have been a few sightings of him here and there since. But the Most of us, most of the time, are talking to somebody that we can't see, we can't sense in the normal ways, and that makes conversation pretty challenging, and most of the time, if you're not talking to God, if you're talking to an unseen being, you're probably more crazy as opposed to holy, and there is, I would say, internal things, and then, of course, there's also [00:10:00] resistance.

[00:10:00] We have an enemy that works. I was reading Mark 4 this last week, and It struck me that when the Lord says that it's the parable of the sower that Satan steals some of the seed and I had always read this parable of the sower as a story of evangelism, like the, there's somebody sowing the seed and some of it falls on the hard.

[00:10:20] Yeah, exactly. And I had always thought hallelujah. My seed wasn't on hard ground. Satan didn't come and steal it. I'm so happy. But it actually doesn't say the gospel message. It says the words of the Lord. And so it's actually like any of the words of the Lord that the enemy is coming to steal them.

[00:10:37] And so if we're praying and we think we have an impression, it's not odd that the enemy would come and try to steal those. That we would think oh, that probably was just me. Or, oh, that, that's probably not something that's, Actually good. We can discount them. And I had always just assumed maybe it's just natural skepticism, but I suspect there's probably something a little more diabolical at work.

[00:10:58] Scott Maderer: Sometimes it's even, it's [00:11:00] hard sometimes to discern between what God is actually calling you to do and what you've decided to do. And then you're going to put God's name on it. It's no, I've decided to do that, but yeah, God told me to do it. Yeah. Somehow or another, that sounds better somehow to, to at least to most Christians, then, that's what I decided to do. And yet we can do that. We can very easily fall into that trap of show. It's the difference between going where God has called you to go and going somewhere and asking God to come with you.

[00:11:28] Amy Lykosh: It's true.

[00:11:29] Scott Maderer: Yeah. And not that second one is quote all bad either, but there is a difference between the two.

[00:11:37] So with, when you talk about prayer for business owners how does that show up? For a Christian business owner as something that, changes their business, changes their outlook changes their relationship with customers and employees, how does it shift the business?

[00:11:52] Amy Lykosh: Yeah, that's a really interesting question. I would say in some ways it varies a little bit depending even on who is coming [00:12:00] and how. Sometimes we don't really know. People will partner with us and then they just are like we're content to let you do your thing and we're going to keep doing our thing.

[00:12:08] But of the ones who engage, who actually talk to us, engage with us in that way, I would say for a lot of them they feel like there's actually somebody who is Who has their back there's somebody who is there who is standing in the gap between the shakiness of earth and the stability of heaven and saying can we please have more stability here?

[00:12:26] And so that's really precious. One of our clients yesterday said something like, I can just feel that there is increased energy around the things that we're working on. So it's almost like there is. maybe a little bit more Holy Spirit hovering. It's hey, remember that these people are seeking to do good things in the world.

[00:12:44] Go and be at work with them. I think there is, I would love to be able to say that, oh, everybody experiences massive, Expansion and some do, and that's amazing, but that would be not being truthful because the Lord has us [00:13:00] all on a different journey. And so I would say whatever happens, though, it's like I have a new sense of the Lord's presence.

[00:13:07] And for some of the people, it's, I remember one person was like, I just started partnering with you and I don't want to watch television anymore. There's just bigger things that I could be doing with my life. Or somebody else got up and was like, I actually just wanted to be in the word this morning, which is day one.

[00:13:23] Do you think that shifted that quickly? And I think the answer would be, yup. So there's a huge gamut, a huge range, but I would say in general, there's a new sense of protection of joyful energy in the work and then a sense of there is going to be a path through the challenges that at times can feel almost insurmountable.

[00:13:44] Scott Maderer: And one of the things that I I think is important in that too, is to recognize that part of what the business owner may be getting out of it It's less about, I think a lot of times business owners think that the only measure of [00:14:00] success is quote, am I profitable? Am I growing, year over year, all of those sorts of things.

[00:14:06] And yet sometimes that's not even what they want as success. If they were honest with themselves, it's like I run a small coaching business. I run it from my office. It's important to me that I have a business model. business that is very personal and that I run for my own. That's what I want.

[00:14:20] I don't, I get these emails all the time, we can help you find 10, 000. And it's I don't want that. Why are you even asking me? You're making, nothing about me, obviously, because you're making an offer that does not fit into my world. And I think sometimes when we pray, we feel like, Oh, what we have to pray for is these sorts of things.

[00:14:40] That's the rules. That's what we have to pray for. And yet, what do you help, when you're working with folks, what do you help them do when they're thinking about the what, what do I need to pray for? What should our prayer life look like? Even though y'all are doing some of it and they're doing, what does it look like for them when they do that?

[00:14:58] Amy Lykosh: Yeah, so part of what [00:15:00] we always want to do is help our people understand how to pray more effectively. And I think, It's interesting, because what you said is so true there isn't the universal this is the big prayer text everybody's business, not everybody would like that. And usually when people partner with us, initially, we ask them to fill out a form what is it that you're wanting, if you had a wish list, And sometimes the Lord is I will just answer these like a checklist and you've got it made that's awesome.

[00:15:26] And that is very fun, but it doesn't usually work like that. I would say but I like that because it gives a baseline even of what is my hope or what's my dream at the moment? And then that isn't necessarily what is going to stick. So a lot of what we would want for people is to say, Are you actually stepping more into who God has made you to be?

[00:15:46] And is your business reflecting the unique fingerprint of God that is, that He's established good works in advance for us to do? We know that from Ephesians 2. 20. Or 210. So if we know that, that's also, I think, true of businesses as well as people. [00:16:00] And so what is the unique fingerprint of God for this business?

[00:16:02] And are you walking into that, stepping into that, demonstrating that in greater measure? So that would be one step. And then also, are you in a place where you feel like you are coming into greater relationship and communication with God? Are you able to talk to him more freely and maybe more honestly?

[00:16:19] And do you feel like you have better tools on how to hear from him? Are you are you having more visions or understanding what, a vision is often just a one to four second little glimpse that you have in your mind's eye. That actually is the Lord speaking to you. Do you know that? And can you, do you know how to put that into practice?

[00:16:36] And also even we offer a corporate prayer. We have a couple opportunities for our clients if they want to every week. And so there's something very beautiful about even saying, are you willing, if you want to step out and practice prayer? Praying in a corporate setting, or even just being on a call where people are praying and being able to listen in and have the scriptures wash over you and hear that different people actually have really different [00:17:00] styles of praying.

[00:17:01] So it's different. If you have the fiery Lithuanian, who's like really Lithuanian, Hispanic, like she's going for it. And then you have the very calm formerly men in the night, like I'm just very peaceable. And so

[00:17:13] Scott Maderer: I was raised Methodist. We were afraid to raise our hand in church, it's like, for one thing, because we'll get put on a committee, but that's, that's part of the race, but yeah I and I actually, that's a beautiful thing to bring up too, is that prayer isn't.

[00:17:29] Uniform again, like we talked about at the beginning I had the beauty of an experience where I was on a committee, we were hosting a speaker had come in and this speaker was well known for being a prayer warrior. Christian man of God. And before the event we met, there were 30 of us on the committee or 20 of us on the committee and him and his team, and we went to a restaurant and, took over the back room for dinner and all of that.

[00:17:54] Of course, who are you going to ask to pray before the meal, right? The guy that's well known and he starts the prayer [00:18:00] with, Hey Gal, Hey dad, how you doing? And we were all wait, what? This is not what we expected. But it was, it was a beautiful prayer.

[00:18:09] Don't get me wrong. And it really touched me. But I remember at the time being shocked because that's not what I'd ever heard before in the setting of that kind of prayer. And. Not that it was wrong, but in my head, it was like, wait, this is weird. This is different. Why don't we do this? And so it sounds like some of what you're doing is just helping people get comfortable with the concept of prayer.

[00:18:34] Is that?

[00:18:35] Amy Lykosh: Yes. And being okay with actually having their own voice and how they approach God. Because I think when I started praying, I really felt like one of these days I'm going to make it and I'm going to be like my fiery Latina Lithuanian friend who's just it rolls off of her tongue for five minutes and she's just like breaking through things in the spirit.

[00:18:55] And At some point I felt like the Lord said, yeah, , you're not actually [00:19:00] Latina. Lithuanian like that will never be your family heritage and you have a unique voice just like everybody else has a unique voice and there's not the one right way to pray that eventually you'll grow into that. No, you just be yourself and enter into how you approach the large.

[00:19:17] Scott Maderer: So when a business is. struggling with this idea, maybe it's a Christian business owner, they've got a small company, and they feel like prayer is something important and something missing. What would it look like, you mentioned a survey and some other things, but walk us through from the beginning to the end, they're in that place that you were at where they're like, okay, I know we need to get better at this.

[00:19:40] I know we're not doing this right. We need some help.

[00:19:43] Amy Lykosh: Yeah, so usually people reach out to us and so we have a conversation like, where are you? How are things going? And then we offer a service where we pay, excuse me, we pray for businesses for pay, like that is our full time job. And [00:20:00] that is just, we are happy to either submit a contract or not a contract, a proposal.

[00:20:07] If people want to go really formal, we could do a contract. I don't know that we normally do. It would be a pretty informal contract, but then we will have a conversation around around that. Some people hear from God really clearly and they're like, I actually have an idea of how much I want to pay you.

[00:20:23] So I've had it before where I've said, Oh this is normally what we charge. And the man was like, no, I think I'm going to double that. So we think that's really lovely, but not everybody is in that place with their walk with God. And so it feels a little bit unfair to be like in order to partner with us, you already have to hear from God.

[00:20:38] Not everybody's in that place. And that's okay. And so we then really are happy if people reply to us, maybe weekly, maybe monthly with how they're doing. Many of our clients don't do that. I think everybody is really busy. And oftentimes it can feel like there's almost like glacial change from one week to the next.

[00:20:58] And Sometimes people will [00:21:00] just email us a couple times a year, and sometimes they don't ever. Sometimes it's just we are happy that you're doing your thing, and I'm in my lane doing my thing. And what we've seen, and it makes me so happy, is that the Lord just blesses. He's not He's not shaking His finger, like, why have you not updated your prayer team?

[00:21:16] I know that some of our clients, though, are in, fields that there are maybe more immediate strategic things that need to happen, whether it's a real estate deal that's going down and they text us like we are about to step into this meeting, please pray. And that is also very welcome. So it's basically, I think initially we were like, we are really hoping that everybody will reach out to us every week and let us know how they're doing.

[00:21:38] And that has not been at all the case. And that is also, it's completely fine. And so we offer a few times a week where people can come on a corporate prayer call with us and our prayer team. And then we also have an email, my business partner, when he has been in the secret place with the Lord on Monday mornings, he'll we send [00:22:00] out an email of kind of what is he sensing over the community for that particular week.

[00:22:04] And then Yeah. So we have various touch points that we try to make sure that people are hearing from us, understanding what's happening. But for those who are just interested in learning more, that is, I feel like that's the work of a lifetime. So I have a daily email that I send out as well as a six times a week podcast, just five to 10 minutes, usually of me dictating like, what is the Lord showing me?

[00:22:25] What am I thinking about? What am I learning? That's called make prayer beautiful because I don't think most people think that prayer is beautiful. So it's a this is what I would like as an aspirational goal for all of us, that we would view it as being something that's beautiful.

[00:22:40] Scott Maderer: One of the things too, I think even for some Christian business owners, they're hearing us talk about prayer and prayer in the workplace and these sorts of things.

[00:22:47] And probably some have some doubts or some skepticism, or, maybe they haven't grown up in that environment where this sounds quote, right to them. What would you say to that business [00:23:00] owner that's hearing this? Here's the concept, but maybe has a little bit of skepticism or a little bit of feeling of, why would this be something that I would engage around for my business?

[00:23:11] What would you say to them?

[00:23:13] Amy Lykosh: Yeah, so I think most of us inherently have a sense of, wow, having more prayer would be amazing. I don't know that there are many people who are like, eh, you don't need to pray for me. I'm totally fine and handling everything just fine as I am.

[00:23:26] Scott Maderer: I've met a few that will say that.

[00:23:29] It's not necessarily the truth, but I've met a few that will say that.

[00:23:32] Amy Lykosh: And that is impressive. I know even some, statistically, if they do these surveys sometimes, if you were on the street and you just asked a random person, would you like prayer? Like most people would be like, okay, yeah, thank you.

[00:23:43] I would like that. So that is, I think apart from the few anomalies who are like, no, I'm good, please don't pray for me. Most of us recognize that prayer in itself is good. So then the question I guess would be like, do you have enough prayer? So one of our [00:24:00] clients, one of our early on clients, he was a financial planner and he was telling me this story and it was an absolutely horrific story of like evil excesses in Las Vegas that one of his clients was participating in.

[00:24:11] And I truly was like, I honestly didn't know that anybody's job entailed counseling people or talking to people about this kind of debauchery. This is actually, I'm genuinely horrified. And he was like it's okay. And I said who's praying for you? And he said I have my small group of guys.

[00:24:28] And I said, do they pray more than a sentence a week? And he was like, okay, what do you do again? And because there is a part where when you're dealing with really intense things. It actually isn't enough to have just a couple of sentences a week. For us and our team, we were totaling it this morning and we're at the moment probably between 80 and 90 hours a week of prayer coverage for our business people.

[00:24:50] So it's not just Bob and myself. We have a team of over 20 at this point that are praying and doing prophetic words and just, Part of that is just we want to make sure that as much [00:25:00] as possible that we are covering our business owners in prayer. So I think whether that seems excessive or too vague or something, I think that's a conversation.

[00:25:10] There's also the question though of is this even legal in the kingdom? So that, the ethics of this are like, biblically, is this actually an okay thing? There's not, A whole lot of pictures of and then I went and I paid my intercessor and so that they would pray for my business. So there's the ethical side, but that We see actually several times in the scriptures that there is an actual exchange for either prayer or prophetic words So if you think about Saul in the Old Testament when his donkeys had gotten lost his servant was like hey The man of God is over in this town.

[00:25:42] We can go and ask him and Saul was like I don't have any money And the servant said, Oh I do. So clearly in the age of Samuel, there was some level of expectation that if you wanted a prophetic word, you needed to go and pay for it. Like that kind of made sense that the old Testament also had the entire tribe of Levi who was there offering, [00:26:00] making sacrifices and offerings for the community.

[00:26:02] So if you think about. the ancient Hebrew culture out of the culture that the Lord established. They had a pretty strong prayer culture, way stronger than what we would have today. So clearly God actually likes having some level of prayer, whatever that looks like. But then in the new Testament, when Jesus sent out the disciples he did say, freely receive, freely give.

[00:26:23] But he also told them, when you go into a house and you're staying there, then you need to actually bless the house. And I was thinking about this because on some hand what do I actually think is more valuable? Like the ability to have a disciple free space and a little bit of extra food? Or is it better to have the disciple's blessing?

[00:26:41] Oh my goodness, give me the disciple's blessing. And so there is a level of exchange that was happening there that. It would be like a restaurant in a hotel or something like your room and board while you're in the community. So even with Jesus saying, freely receive, freely give, there was still actually some level of exchange.

[00:26:59] And so [00:27:00] I think usually when we talk to people, we're you are not paying us for the gift. Like we do not send the Holy Spirit anywhere, but you are actually just paying us for our time because it's a lot of paid hours of prayer.

[00:27:10] Scott Maderer: And I think that's important to. Recognize and that's actually what I would say is the important point, from my point of view is I'm not paying you for quote the results of the prayer and you're not the ones acting or creating the situation or anything else.

[00:27:29] I'm simply pay, it's the same as if I would have, again, if I had a small group of accountability group for, of men that I met with, there may or may not be a monetary exchange, but there is an exchange of commitment and time. And, there's a transactional nature to it, but it's also relational.

[00:27:47] And it's the fact that there's the relational level that is really what, that, that's the important part of it. In other words, if all y'all were, if you were telling people pay me because I'm going to save [00:28:00] you and do this for you we've got a different name for that. That's not prayer.

[00:28:02] That's not prayer intercession. That falls into cult leader category.

[00:28:12] But yeah, that, but I could see how some folks would struggle with that. That, that idea Wait, I'm paying someone to pray. But like you said it's really not even that they're paying you to pray. They're paying for the time that it takes up, so to speak, to, to pray on their behalf. Yeah. So I've got a few questions that I like to ask all of my guests, but before I ask those, is there anything else about your podcast, your work or your books that you'd like to share?

[00:28:43] Amy Lykosh: Oh I did forget to mention that we do have books. So this is part of what we do is When I first met Bob, I thought, here's somebody who, for 40 years, the main thing that he's been doing is saying, Lord, teach me to pray, and he went to all of the conferences. Periodically, I'd be reading in a book about a conference, [00:29:00] let's say in the 80s, and I would call him and be like, hey, were you at this conference?

[00:29:03] And yes, he would have been at that conference. And so he, It was like he had been absorbing all of this beauty and all of this truth and all of this wisdom from leaders in the prayer movement and Christian leaders in general. But it was like he was a lake, like he just kept absorbing and there wasn't an outlet.

[00:29:20] And so I was like, okay, we need to try to actually let this turn into a stream here so that more of the wisdom that you've accumulated is actually available. And so at the moment we have a little publishing house, Makarios Press. It's the Greek word, you are in your happy place, which is in the Beatitudes when Jesus says, blessed are the poor in spirit.

[00:29:41] That's a slightly better translation. You are in your happy place when and so we like to be in a happy place. It's good. And so all, almost all of our titles are related to prayer. So prayer walking, praying in your workspace many other titles about prayer. Just because I. I don't think there is a lot of short actionable [00:30:00] works.

[00:30:00] And so a lot of ours are not terribly long because we would like people to be able to read them, put them into practice, and then have a new tool in your prayer tool belt, and then be able to move on. But the other thing that I would really like is just to be able to pray a prayer of blessing that the listener would be able to hear God's voice in new ways and be excited to be able to pray, so I'll just go ahead and pray that. So Lord, we thank you that you are in relationship with us and that you hear what we have to say. And Lord, sometimes we don't necessarily know what it looks like to hear your voice, and so I'm asking that you Would blow out the channel between your voice and our ears that we would be able to hear clearly what it is that you're saying that anything that would be like cobwebs or dust or anything that you just blow that out that there would be clarity that we would be able to understand the spontaneous thoughts that are in our minds that are creative and are hopeful and kind [00:31:00] more than maybe what we would be thinking ourselves.

[00:31:02] And Lord, I'm asking for newness. and for the ability to be able to approach prayer from a place of joy. Thank you, Lord. We love you. Amen.

[00:31:14] Scott Maderer: So let me ask you this, stewardship, but I run things through that lens of stewardship. And yet over the years, I've discovered that's a word that can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people.

[00:31:25] So when you hear the word stewardship, what does that word mean to you?

[00:31:30] Amy Lykosh: To me, stewardship means that you want to be caring well for the things of the Lord. So a steward is someone who has access to all but doesn't own it. And so we want to be recognizing that God is the true owner and that we are the ones who are just caring for what he has.

[00:31:50] And so we of course would like to be doing that well and with excellence.

[00:31:58] Scott Maderer: So [00:32:00] let me ask you this. This is my favorite question that I like to ask everybody. Imagine for a minute that I could invent this magic machine and with this machine, I was able to pluck you from where you are today and take you into the future. Maybe 150, maybe 250 years. But through the power of this machine, you were able to look back and see your entire life.

[00:32:20] See all of the connections, see all of the impacts, see all of the ripples you've left behind. What impact do you hope you've left in the world?

[00:32:28] Amy Lykosh: I would really like to change the narrative on prayer, so I would like it, and that's an, it's a big idea, and it's still maybe a little bit vague for me because I'm like, what is the direction that I want to change the narrative, but I think at the moment if prayer seems boring and stale and not very interesting, Tertullian said about deliverance that deliverance was better than the gladiator games, like he wanted the young men to get excited about it because if you get rid of demons, it was more exciting than the games.

[00:32:58] And nobody today would [00:33:00] be like, I like prayer more than the NFL because it's way more exciting. So there is an element of saying I would like there to be a shift in even how we think about prayer, how we operate in prayer, how much prayer we have in our lives. Yeah, there's more around that, but basically it changed the narrative on prayer.

[00:33:17] Scott Maderer: So what's on the roadmap? What's coming next for you and your team?

[00:33:21] Amy Lykosh: So yeah, thank you. When we look ahead, I would say there is, personally, I'm in a PhD program right now, so dedicated to prayer, so excited about that. It's very fun to keep learning. But we also realize there is a lot that we're doing right now that is we offer a done for you service, but I think there's more that I would like to be able to do with it, either done with you or do it yourself just training in terms of how do you think about things in the realm of prayer? We have at the moment what we've had is both we pray for businesses and we teach people to pray effectively, but we want to split that teach people to pray effectively brand off [00:34:00] and make it its own thing because those, even though they're connected very much in our minds, they're not necessarily connected in the minds of everybody who comes and visits our website.

[00:34:08] And so we're excited to be able to launch that at the right time.

[00:34:14] Scott Maderer: So you can find out more about Amy over at workplaceprayer. com. Of course, I'll have a link to that in the show notes as well. I'll also link up to her podcast, Make Prayer Beautiful, as well. So folks, y'all can find that real easily and subscribe to that as well.

[00:34:32] Anything else that you would like to share with the listeners, Amy?

[00:34:35] Amy Lykosh: Go pray more.

[00:34:41] Scott Maderer: Thanks so much for listening to the Inspired Stewardship Podcast. As a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you enjoyed this episode please [00:35:00] do us a favor. Go over to inspiredstewardship.

[00:35:04] com. iTunes rate, all one word, iTunes rate. It'll take you through how to leave a rating and review, and how to make sure you're subscribed to the podcast, so that you can get every episode as it comes out in your feed. Until next time, invest your time, your talent, and your treasures. Develop your influence, and impact the world.