A little over a year ago our church began devoting one Sunday evening
service a month exclusively to prayer. Honestly, I wasn’t sure it would
take. But a year into the switch I think our people are growing to
appreciate the prayer service more and more. We don’t get everyone to
come back for prayer, but it’s roughly the same size we get for our
regular Sunday evening service (around 125 people, or about 1/4 the size
of Sunday morning).
Here are seven things we’ve learned about having a church prayer meeting.
1. Pray. Don’t make your “prayer meeting” a time for
5 hymns, a short message, sharing requests, and 10 minutes for prayer.
Get down to business and pray.
2. Start on time and end on time. This may not be
true for every culture, but in America punctuality helps. People know
what to expect. We will pray together for one hour.
3. Plan. If you are praying with a few mature,
seasoned pray-ers, you may be able to get by with little preparation.
But leading a church-wide prayer meeting takes, well, leadership. You
have to think through what you are going to do. Recently I planned the
prayer service around the fruit of the spirit. At other times we’ve
prayed for different ministries in the church. We’ve used prayer books
and lots of Scripture. We’ve borrowed from ancient patterns of prayer.
We’ve even walked through the building to pray. The point is you can’t
wing it with 100 people. You have to prepare. Keep Reading >>>
See Also: Sample Prayer Service
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