Guidelines for Communal Prayer
Thinking through prayer can go a long way!
Dear Prayer Warriors at Catch The Fire Scarborough,
in a beautiful way, the Holy Spirit has been leading us as a church to be more intentional about corporate prayer and intercession. Therefore, we have been setting aside time to pray and intercede. We will continue this into the foreseeable future.
We want to make these meetings with God powerful and effective. So we pray, being led by his Spirit, in faith and with great expectation that something good always happens when we pray. There are a few practical and logistical things that we can do as well to make our prayer times meaningful. Since we all come from different backgrounds and church traditions (which is wonderful) we want to suggest a few things that will help us stay on the same page as we pray. These are guidelines for our corporate prayer and intercession meetings.
“I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people”
What is shared in prayer stays in prayer.
Sometimes we pray for a situation or a person that is sensitive, and to some extent private. We expect that those who become aware of such information will keep it in the strictest of confidence. We are being entrusted not only with heavenly insight into what to pray but we also are entrusted on occasion with sensitive information about our brothers and sisters.
We are God focused, not enemy focused.
We are not unaware that the enemy is a prowling lion looking to
steal, kill and destroy. But we are fully persuaded that the enemy is
a pawn in the Father’s hands. So, the focus of our praying is the Father. We are invited by the Lord to approach his throne of mercy and grace with confidence. We get the immense privilege of speaking to and dialoguing with the God of the universe who happens to be Our Father. We are learning to live from that place of being seated with Christ in heavenly places. We do not leave that place to pray and intercede and to do spiritual warfare. In fact, we get to do spiritual warfare from the position of victory already won by Jesus. From that position, we get to focus on what God is doing and not on what we don't see him doing. So our prayers are full of joy, expectancy and hope!
Praying Together is different than Praying Alone. This means that:
This means that:
“and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms
”
a. when you feel led to pray, you pray out loud so that the others in the room can hear your prayer and say, Amen! We can't agree with you in prayer unless we can hear what you are praying. There is power in agreement. At the same time, remember that you are praying to God not to the people in the room!
b. This is not a time for you to focus on your own personal prayer needs. You get to have your own personal time with God. These corporate prayer meetings are led by leaders who have the mandate from the Lord and from the pastors to pray specific prayers. Most times in these prayer meetings there will be opportunity for you to share what you feel the Lord saying for the group to pray. But again this is an opportunity to intercede for others and not to present your personal petitions. (There are exceptions to these guidelines.)
These are prayer meetings so let's pray!
These are not meant to be preaching or teaching times. We have other sorts of meetings for those purposes. So let's pray together. Typically, there will be times of discussion about what God is saying that we should be praying. However, the majority of the time is given to actually praying to God.
We pray laser beam prayers, not shotgun prayers!
There is more power and synergy when everybody is focused on praying for the same issue at the same time. So it is important to stay in tune with what the group is praying about. Most times there will be an opportunity for you to share what you feel the Lord is calling the group to pray.
We all pray differently, but to the same Father.
Do not be offended or disturbed by the prayer style of someone else in the group. We are all praying in faith. We each have our own personal relationship with the Holy Spirit and we all have our own personalities. We get the privilege of expressing ourselves in prayer in the freedom of the Spirit. If someone is blatantly praying heretical things or are a distraction because of the flesh, then the leaders will take care of that situation. But let us celebrate our differences in style as we pray. The only measure of the soundness of biblical praying is if it's done in faith. Only Jesus is the judge of that.
“„Prayer is the powerhouse,
or engine room,
of the church!“”
Thank you for joining the call to prayer and intercession. As the great preacher Charles Spurgeon said, “Prayer is the powerhouse, or engine room, of the church!” In other words, the effectiveness of the church’s mission is dependent primarily on the prayer life of the church.
Again, thank you for your prayers to the Lord on behalf of the church. Often, it is a thankless and low-profile but incredibly critical role in the life of the church. The Lord who sees in secret will reward you openly.
Grace and peace
Pastors Ramesh and Elsie Naraine & Team