The 30-Day Prayer Challenge for Men

Jess MacCallum’s book “The 30-Day Prayer Challenge for Men,” consists of thirty short, five-minute prayer devotions for men. Ranging from topics such as wisdom to humility to worship to faith over fear, the book covers the full breadth of both man’s spiritual life and personal life including relationships with family, friends, co-workers and neighbors.

I enjoyed the conciseness of the devotions. I feel like they are fast-paced and engaging. I feel like I could connect to MacCallum and relate to each topic. The prompts helped to focus my mind and heart on the Lord and reflect on the areas discussed each day.

In addition to the short devotion and prompts to engage the reader, was the prayer points. Each day a morning, afternoon and evening prayer prompt helps the reader to focus in on something very specific covered in the devotion and prompts previously presented. There is a leading paragraph to read (pray) that is a launching off point for the reader. After the short paragraph, the hope is the reader then more fully quiets himself to respond to what God is speaking in response to his prayer, which leads to a “conversation,” otherwise known as prayer, with God.

I found the simple, small book to be a wonderful guide as I read through the challenge. I feel like it would be a nice gift for both younger believers as well as someone looking for a new “challenge” in his faith.

Overall, I definitely recommend the book and my only dislike of it would be a few sections that I wanted more “meat” to dig into. The prayer for those days helped me get there.

This was a slightly different devotional to what I would typically use. 30 days of different topics including: family, prayer life, church life, friendships, money, career, spiritual warfare, and sex to name a few. Each day started with a relevant bible verse then 1-2 pages of discussion of the topic featuring more verses, a series of pertinent questions to connect you personally with the topic and a short prayer for the morning, afternoon and night.

The 'devotional' elements were very good as were the questions. They really made me engaged with the topic of the day. The 3 prayers I prayed at the same time and I think this is probably the weakest part of the book. I'd be surprised if many people would open the book 3 separate times during the day to pray the prayers and wonder if it would be better to simply combine the three into a longer prayer. Yes, I think it's aspirational to encourage men to open the book 3 times but it's a prayer challenge for men that perhaps are struggling to get into a good prayer routine so building a stronger prayer basis for the one time of the day may work better.

It's also a book on prayer - to challenge men to pray. And I'm not sure there was enough given over to prayer. God loves us to be very specific in our prayers (it's how prayers get answered) and I wonder if reworking the prayers to connect more with the questions would be more useful. That is, almost a 'fill-in-the-blanks' style so that Jess guides men in how to pray specific prayers around issues impacting them.

Overall, it's a sound devotional and I will happily recommend it to men who ask me for a recommendation. However, I would add the caveat of encouraging readers to focus more on working through more of the questions with God in their prayer time.

I received this book free from Netgalley and publisher Barbour in exchange for an honest review.

This prayer book is a great resource with wonderful prayers and it allows readers to dive into the act of praying intentionally each day. This book was not too heavy or overwhelming and allowed for dedicated prayers and devotions catered toward the busy lives of modern men. Plus, a 30 day devotion is the right amount of time to reinvigorate a new habit of prayer.