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Apr 11, 2016
I lead corporate prayer at my church and would like to hear what you have found helpful in your prayer gatherings.
I lead corporate prayer at my church and would like to hear what you have found helpful in your prayer gatherings.
How many folks show up normally?
We have about 8 to 10 men who meet each Tuesday night for prayer. We give a short time for each person to share their needs and what is on their heart. Maybe a little bit of worship, but I am shying away from this. Then we lead out in uplifting, faith filled prayer. I invite others to pray and will encourage others to do this if it goes quiet because people are shy.
We also single out those who have personal needs and we lay hands on them and pray for them. We also encourage the rest of the group to share what God is showing them about that person in a prophetic word.
We always close, standing in prayer with hands held, and declaring the goodness of God over each other as a band of brothers.
Each and every week the Lord "shows up" and we are blessed beyond measure. Its the favorite night of the week for all us thats for sure!!!
Mark,
This sounds like a glorious prayer meeting where you allow the Holy Spirit to lead. My only suggestion is that you might pray for those of us out here who have not experienced prayer meetings like that for years. That God would raise up more men who desire corporate prayer led by Holy Spirit!!!
L
Mark-
I have been involved in prayer meetings almost exactly as you describe during two different seasons of my life. I long for those days again.
We always had soft worship music in the background; there wasnt really a leader per se. Someone might read a scripture and pray it, which would lead to something else. It was like a circuit would open where we fed off each other as the HS led. It was awesome.
I remember the first of these prayer times I was a part of- the dear brother who was sort of the leader was always there first- i think sometimes he was there hours before anyone else arrived and we met at 7 am. He was just pacing around the room praying semi-audibly until everyone arrived. Every time, he had Michael W Smith's first "Worship" CD playing(the one with the orange cover). He never changed it. it was on repeat and he played it every Saturday morning. Every time I hear a song from that CD it gives me goosebumps.
I learned more about operating in the Spirit in those prayer times than in 10000 church services.
That's kinda sad Leslie...come visit us in Texas sometime, but yeah will pray for sure as the Lord leads.
That sounds awesome brother Todd...what about now, do you have the same opportunities today?
Just before we started a fellowship in our home I listened to Jim Cymbala sermons about corporate prayer: God really spoke to me and I felt that we should start praying on Tuesday nights and never stop. We are slowly but surely seeing God change each person in our fellowship. Our desire is not to become the biggest or the best or anything like that but we have one goal: to be conformed to the image of Jesus.
Our men's prayer times deal with many things but we are always "judging" ourselves as the Lord deals with us. We pray for many things but there is one constant theme...revival, "start it in me Lord".
We had 16 come last night.
"Our desire is not to become the biggest or the best or anything like that but we have one goal: to be conformed to the image of Jesus."
Jesus has to be the main focus of the meeting, but so often we make it about us and meeting needs.
The leading of the Holy Spirit is essential in any prayer meeting. We should be asking the Lord to show us what is on His heart.
The Holy Spirit will lead us to pray along certain lines, and we should not skip back and forth, but cover every area of prayer thoroughly before moving on to something else.
Praise and worship at the beginning of the meeting will bring in the presence of the Lord.
There should be a mature leader at the prayer meeting, but he should not dominate the meeting. Each believer should be free to share his portion that should build up the Body. Often times the Lord will put it on one or more hearts to share portions of the Word, but a prayer meeting should not end up being a bible study.
The Lord is concerned with the needs of the people, and the believers should come together in agreement to pray for these needs.
Hi Judah-
Not sure what others think but with 16 you might want to break up into 2 groups of eight- things seem to flow better in prayer in smaller groups.
That is just my thought- others may disagree.
Mark- my wife and I lead a small group but it really isn't a prayer group per se.
I have no excuse for not currently being in a prayer group because all I have to do is start one. The enemy is doing a good job at stopping me from doing this- primarily by putting negative thoughts in my mind about the practical aspects of getting one going.
Funny thing Judah81, a few months ago, I ask the Lord to reveal to me how a prayer meeting should be conducted. I have been a Christian for almost 30 years and not once have I been in a real prayer meeting.
I have only been a part of two churches one Southern Baptist and the other AOG. Neither churches had a prayer meeting.
So, I ask and the Lord answered.
He told me to pray for the family of God.
Pray for the nations of the earth.
Pray for those that are in authority over you.
Pray for those in need.
Pray for each other.
Pray for the harvest of the world.
Now I am going to read through the responses on this thread and learn a little more.
Thanks for starting the conversation.
William
TMK, I feel the same way. My wife started a closed group on facebook, called finding faith. She wants so much to assemble with others and build up her faith. I mentioned starting a home group, here at the house.
But we never have.
Maybe the Lord used Judah81, to get us all to start a prayer group.
Thanks for sharing. Here is what we did Sunday night. I assigned 4 leaders and had every one break into groups of 4. I had prayer points like confession of sin, asking for fresh filling of the Holy Spirit and personal revival, prayer for our nation and leaders. Before each point I would share scripture pertaining to it and then we would pray about 8-10 minutes. I would sing a hymn to signal moving to the next point and have everyone find a new group of 4. This way everyone was able to pray with each other. This seemed to help get others who may not pray in front of large groups praying and it also helped keep the meeting from dragging. At the end we gathered around the elders and pastor and prayed as the Spirit lead for them. Then all joined hands in a circle to close out the meeting. The hour and a half flew by and we were all very edified. It was our first prayer meeting since moving the time to Sunday night which helped more people attend.
I borrowed this format from an evangelism conference I attended the day before and it was a blessing.
Sounds great Judah. My only advice is don't be chained to format and listen to the HS.
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