The reason many people do not attend our prayer meetings is because they have attended our prayer meetings! Lifeless prayer gatherings are exhausting, and in most churches, the prayer meeting is the least attended service. Why? Could it be that repetitious praying—verbalizing the same requests week after week, often saying the same words—is not only fruitless but also boring?
In the book of Acts, the whole congregation “lifted up their voice to God” (Acts 4:24). Yet, in most of today’s Western church services, whatever prayer is offered is done by the pastor or a designated “pray-er.” In many churches, prayer can be more like a ritual than real communion with the living God—an appeal to the mind rather than a cry from the heart. In these settings, as in so many other areas of the modern American church, the ministry of prayer is left to the “professionals,” while the rest of the church members are trained to become mere listeners and observers. Is it any wonder, then, that this has also negatively impacted the habit of private prayer, even among conscientious Christians?
So, how do we return to invigorating, life-giving prayer times, both publicly and privately?
Back to Basics?
For years, I have heard about “getting back to the basics.” And there is one basic truth we need to establish as foundational for prayer: FAITH. Prayer is for believers—for men and women who have been made righteous by faith in the atoning work of Jesus Christ. James 5:16 tells us that the “effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much,” but many folks don’t include the first part of this verse in their quotes on prayer: “Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed.” It is through confessing our sins that we are cleansed and able to boldly bring our petitions before Him. Effectual prayer is the privilege of Christians, and this is the most basic element of prayer—one often skipped in the search for methods and programs.
But for the believer, it is time to get beyond the basics in terms of personal and corporate prayer. Most church people only relate to God on the basis of “asking.” Simple asking is the most basic form of intercession. While this is a good place to start, it’s not a good place to settle down. Honestly, do we really need repeated challenges to “get back” to faithless, petition-based prayer? No. We need a brand-new template.
Many prayer gatherings are like an airplane sitting on the runway with its engines running but never getting off the ground. It just sits there while the crew is forever preparing for takeoff, yet it never gets airborne. To overcome this inertia, we need fresh insight and a new understanding of prayer. It needs to become personal first, impacting our own daily lives before we can begin to address the corporate aspects of prayer. This is not a book we can use to point at our church, our pastor, our elders, and say, “You should be doing more.” This is a challenge to each of us individually to seek a deeper prayer life, which will then spill over into our corporate prayer times, impacting the entire church.
Our Understanding of Prayer
Growth in prayer begins with understanding what prayer truly is. Many commonly held beliefs about prayer are insufficient or flawed. To learn the truth about prayer, we must unlearn what we should never have learned and learn what we should have learned in the first place. If we are to launch into a new phase of prayer, we need a clean slate rather than a cluttered mental chalkboard filled with inaccuracies. The foundation for intensified prayer is a better theological understanding of how God’s purposes are implemented through a praying church. This begins by expanding our understanding of His Word as it relates to prayer and enlarging our hearts to embrace God’s heart for His kingdom and His passion for the souls of men.
Prayer is far more than a means of receiving things from God. It is also a means of implementing His will on earth. I believe there is a crying need to sound the trumpet and challenge the saints to move toward more intense levels of prayer. Dead prayer meetings inspire no one, and empty prayer closets produce dead prayer meetings. It is an endless cycle that must come to an end. And we won’t solve the problem by shaming and guilting the congregation into simply attending the weekly prayer meetings. Who among us, with the Spirit stirring in our souls, wants to torture themselves with more of the ritualistic and monotonous petitions prevalent in most prayer meetings? As leaders, it should be our aim to move the church forward in united intercession, not through guilt trips and cajoling but through leading by example and teaching the true nature of power-filled prayer. Sheep are to be led to the green pastures, not driven there, and a proper understanding of prayer will help move them in the right direction.
God intends for our prayers to secure divine answers…
This excerpt is from chapter one of our NEW book—Next Level Praying. Click here to learn more… https://christlifemin.org/product/next-level-praying/
