“The work of the future is to be the work of prayer.”

John Sung (宋尚节, 1901–1944)

He said, “The work of the future is to be the work of prayer.”

It is also reported in slightly different English forms:

“Pray much; the work henceforth will be the work of prayer.”

The Chinese is often rendered approximately as：

“将来的工作，就是祷告的工作。”
or
“今后的工作，是祷告的工作。”

What did John Sung mean?

He did not mean that Christians should stop preaching, evangelizing, teaching, or doing practical ministry. Quite the opposite. Sung had spent much of his life preaching and conducting evangelistic meetings. What he came to understand increasingly during his final years was that the lasting spiritual work of the church cannot be produced merely by human activity.

For Sung, prayer was not preparation for ministry; prayer itself was ministry.

He saw something like this:

Preaching → people may hear.
Organization → activities may increase.
Human effort → visible results may appear.
But prayer → asks God Himself to do the work.

This became especially important to him during his prolonged illness. His final years were marked by severe physical suffering, yet he devoted increasing attention to intercession, Scripture, and prayer. The Global China Center describes his final period as one in which he became particularly known for intercession and prayer. (Global China Center)

There is also an important statement from Sung's own writing that helps explain what he meant. In a 5 August 1941 letter, Sung wrote that God had shown him that a great revival of the Chinese church would come “not through man but through the work of the Holy Spirit”, and that workers would need to unite for an extended period of prayer. (FEBC)

So his idea was essentially:

The future work of God must be God's work, and therefore God's people must learn to seek God in prayer rather than depending upon human strength.

When did he say it?

This is where we need to be a little careful.

The quotation is widely described as John Sung's final message to the church, given near the end of his life in 1944, shortly before his death on 18 August 1944. Several biographical sources describe it in precisely this context. (Harvey CP)

One account says that, as he knew death was approaching, he advised:

“The work of the future is to be the work of prayer.”

Another source records it as:

“Pray much, the work henceforth will be the work of prayer.” (Global China Center)

The wording appears in later biographies and recollections, and the English versions vary slightly.

What we can establish with considerably more confidence is that the statement belongs to the closing period of Sung's ministry, particularly the years 1941–1944, when illness had forced him into a much more intensive ministry of intercession.

There is an even deeper background

Interestingly, Sung's thinking about prayer can be traced to before his final days.

In his 1941 letter, he wrote about the coming revival and said that it would occur as the Holy Spirit moved God's workers to come together “for a long time of prayer, to do prayer work in the Spirit.” 

This shows that “the work of the future is the work of prayer” wasn't simply something he suddenly said on his deathbed. It represented a mature conviction that had developed during his later ministry.

And there is a fascinating connection with his own ministry practice. Sung reportedly carried thousands of prayer requests with him and continued praying for people even after leaving the places where he had preached. One historical account describes how he kept prayer cards and interceded for people in different cities after his meetings had ended. (Yeshu2007)

So when Sung spoke about “the work of prayer,” he meant something much more demanding than simply saying, “Remember to pray.”

He was saying, in effect:

The evangelist may leave. The preacher may leave. The missionary may leave. The meeting may finish. But the work of intercession continues before God.

That is probably why the statement has had such a lasting influence.

A particularly important lesson for the church today

I think Sung's statement can be misunderstood in two opposite ways.

One misunderstanding is:

“Prayer is important, but real ministry is preaching, administration, evangelism and church programs.”

Sung would have rejected that separation. For him, prayer was part of the actual work of ministry.

The other misunderstanding is:

“Since prayer is the work of the future, therefore we don't need to do anything.”

That is also wrong. Sung himself was one of the most active evangelists of his generation.

His point was closer to:

Work without prayer becomes human work.
Prayer without obedience becomes empty words.
But work born out of prayer becomes dependence upon God.

That fits very naturally with Acts 6:4:

“But we will give ourselves continually to prayer, and to the ministry of the word.”

And it also explains why Sung's statement remains so powerful: he wasn't advocating less ministry; he was calling the church to put prayer back at the center of ministry.

“John Sung did not mean that the church should cease working. He meant that the church's future work must increasingly become God's work, and God's work must be sought through prayer. The greatest work of the church may not always be what people can see; much of it takes place unseen, on our knees before God.”

There is a particularly interesting connection between this and John Sung's 1941 vision of a future revival in China. His words there give us a much stronger primary-source basis for explaining what he meant by “the work of prayer.” 

“John Sung's final message was not, ‘Stop working.’ It was, ‘Pray much, then go down and work.’ He had learned that the church's greatest work is not merely what happens on the platform, in the pulpit, or in a meeting. Much of God's work is done invisibly when His people kneel before Him.”

We should be careful about saying that Sung's famous statement about prayer was his “last message to the church” as though those were his own words.

That description comes from later biographical interpretation. The underlying evidence is his final instruction to those around him on 17 August 1944, preserved through later recollection.

Similarly, we should not take a later biographer's description of Sung and turn it into a systematic theological position that Sung himself never formulated.

That is precisely the same historical discipline we should apply to the Bible-version question.