If you could add one thing to the church schedule, what would it be? A sisterhood conference or brotherhood breakfast? An evangelism seminar? A small group? A Saturday night service for those who have trouble getting up in the morning? A midweek Bible study?<\/p>\n
This is a question I have asked myself many times since I joined my new church last fall. And while many of these suggestions are worthy of consideration, the pastors and I have decided to start a regular Sunday evening prayer meeting.<\/p>\n
Really? A prayer meeting? It sounds like something old-fashioned and strange\u2014something Christians did before electricity, when life was simpler, churches were smaller, and kids' clubs didn't fill our entire schedules.<\/p>\n
And it\u2019s worth noting that not everyone was enthusiastic about the idea. One church member told me that we pray too much anyway. He felt that our morning prayers were already too long\u2014they kept the band from getting into rhythm and ruined the \u00abworship experience.\u00bb. Others warned,<\/span> that it could lead to legalism: another thing people would feel compelled to do. And some worried that it could hurt the community, because individual church members might start skipping their small groups to attend general prayer meetings.<\/p>\n So why do we choose a gathering that is primarily devoted to communal prayer? Let me offer four reasons.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not hard to get people involved in events or small groups. Hundreds attended our recent sisterhood retreat, dozens came to our brotherhood breakfast. So why are so many people reluctant to come together for prayer? Why has prayer meeting become a thing of the past in many churches?<\/p>\n The simple answer is that prayer is not exciting. It is not entertaining. It is often not easy or comfortable\u2014it requires effort and work. That is why Jesus gave us the parable of the persistent widow in Luke 18, so that we \u00abalways pray and do not lose heart.\u00bb We are used to being fed music, media, podcasts, and sermons. But prayer requires us to turn off the world and tune our minds to the spiritual.<\/p>\n And that is what we must do\u2014not just individually, but together. In Matthew 21, Jesus observes that the people have turned the temple into something like the trading floor of the Chicago Board of Trade. He says:<\/p>\n \u00abMy house shall be called a house of prayer, but you are making it a den of thieves\u00bb (Matt. 21:13).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n According to the New Testament, the church is the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 3:16). Are our churches houses of prayer as God intended? Do we make time for it? Do we prioritize corporate prayer? Or is our corporate prayer just a filler between blocks of musical service?<\/p>\n Robert Murray McCheyne famously said, \u00abWhat a man is on his knees before God, that is what he is, and no more.\u00bb What if we applied the same standard to our churches? What would that say about us? Corporate prayer emphasizes to our people the importance of prayer, indeed its absolute necessity. After all, we are fighting against spiritual forces, and so we need spiritual weapons\u2014and what greater weapon is there than the prayers of not just one person, but of dozens, hundreds, even thousands?<\/p>\n I remember the first time I prayed in public. I was a new believer, and I was filled with anxiety and confusion about what to say. So what did I do? I just copied what I heard from others.<\/p>\n Apart from studying the prayers of Daniel, Paul, Hannah, or Mary, nothing will teach our people to pray more and better than the prayers they hear from the faithful in the church. If we want our people to pray biblically and thoughtfully, if we want them to pray with reverence and personal love, then we must set this example for them in our general meetings. As D. A. Carson rightly observes:<\/p>\n \u00ab"Choose examples, but choose them wisely. Study their content, their breadth, their passion, their anointing, but don't copy their style.".<\/p><\/blockquote>\n We are naturally inclined to be narcissistic or self-centered. We have no trouble praying for our individual needs, desires, and aspirations. And that is not wrong\u2014we should pray for these. But how terrible it is when our prayer life, especially our corporate prayer life, is dominated by such concerns. After all, we are not the point of human history. Our health and happiness are not the point of human history. The church and its prosperity are the point of human history (Eph. 3:1-13).<\/p>\n When we gather to emphasize the spiritual over the physical, the communal over the individual, we unite our people around God's purposes for His church. Corporate prayer develops a concern for our shared unity and our shared witness.<\/p>\n The common prayer of the church determined many great events in the book of the Acts of the Holy Apostles.<\/p>\n Friends, prayer changes things, prayer changes everything! That is why Paul suggests that the church pray together, both men and women (1 Cor. 11:14). Prayer is God\u2019s appointed means for accomplishing His supernatural purposes. It is both personal and powerful. As Jesus reminded his disciples, there are certain obstacles that can only be overcome through prayer (Mark 9:29).<\/p>\n Friends, as Jamie Dunlop notes in The Compelling Community:<\/p>\n \u00ab"God loves to protect His reputation. When we pray together, our needs become public. When He answers, His glory becomes public.".<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Prayer prepares our people for God to act.<\/p>\n Last month we held our first Sunday night prayer meeting, at least in recent years. There were many awkward moments and mistakes we made as we went through the service. It didn't go exactly as I had planned, and I take responsibility for most of that!<\/p>\n But that's okay. We, the people of God, by the power of God, have prayed. We have done what no other person or institution on earth has the privilege of doing. And we will do it again. And we will watch, wait, and expect what God will do for His glory.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" If you could add one thing to the church schedule, what would it be? A sisterhood conference or a brotherhood breakfast? Seminar<\/p>","protected":false},"author":888,"featured_media":16527,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[166],"tags":[],"article_author":[177],"class_list":["post-16526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-molytva-i-duhovni-dystsypliny","article_author-mark-dever"],"yoast_head":"\n1. It reminds our people of the importance of prayer<\/h2>\n
2. It shows our people how to pray<\/h2>\n
3. It unites our people around God\u2019s purposes<\/h2>\n
4. It prepares our people for God to act.<\/h2>\n
\n
OUR FIRST PRAYER MEETING<\/h2>\n