. . . the internet has been a blessing to prayer leaders all across the planet!  We can email our entire prayer team in seconds, search (or do you say google?) the world wide web for new resources, subscribe to e-newsletters with the latest information on national initiatives and receive up-to-the-moment international prayer requests. Wow! 

May I caution you to balance two potential excesses?

Dear Phil,

God has given me a burden to help make our church a house of prayer. I currently put out a monthly bulletin containing an article on prayer and a section of An Urgent Appeal. In the last issue I explained that Jesus taught us in His tutorial on prayer (Luke 11) that God builds His kingdom and accomplishes His will through our prayers. My pastor’s response was "you made it sound like God is dependent upon our prayers to work. If God really wants to do something, He doesn't need us, He is sovereign and can do anything He wants."

The Outward-Focus Format

One of the most difficult things to change in existing prayer meetings is to move people from simply praying for every day, little answerables to praying outward-focused prayers. Sometimes it is as simple as changing the format of the prayer meeting. A little explanation regarding the format change at the beginning of a meeting can hep to alleviate the anxiety of those who are used to the same format each week.

Prayer Leader OnLine interviewed Lori Freund, prayer leader at Oakland Drive Church of Christ in Kalamazoo, Michigan, following her first experience of hosting a Regional Prayer Conference.

Q. Lori, what gave you the idea that a congregation of less than 150 could put on a Regional Prayer Conference? (Most congregations the size of Oakland Church of Christ are pleased to have 15-20 attend a church-sponsored prayer event)
When I first heard Jon Graf speak three years ago, I knew his message would be relevant to our church, and other churches in our area also. God has shown our church what we are capable of doing when He is in control over the last few of years, with results beyond our means or even what we thought we could do. About 18 months ago we started a weekly prayer group simply seeking God's vision for our church and we have started to see fruit of this over time. Hearts are being changed spiritual depth is growing and there is a greater hunger for the Lord. Commitments to Christ in the last three months have been about one every week or so where as before, we would maybe see five to seven a year! Our leadership has begun to pray together, consistency has yet to be better. Prayer is starting to be recognized as a vital part of our church that has not been emphasized enough.

My first thought was to do this prayer conference and bring our two sister churches together to work on it. Unity is something that we really need to work on with them. And we have come a long way in the last year. During the prayer and planning of the conference, the vision for the event itself grew, to inviting all churches in the area then to others from CPLN. We wanted to follow God's plan for the conference and this is where He led us.

In the planning of the conference, we thought we would be doing good if 75-100 registered. We actually wound up with 140 registered!

Using a Special Event to Mobilize Prayer

I was struck by an email that came to me asking to join people in praying around the Oscars.

"Praying Through the Worship Service" Guide
Harvest Prayer Ministries $10 (packs of 25 or PDF with permission to photocopy as many as needed)

Many churches are recognizing the power of having teams who pray during the worship service. This can be a daunting assignment for many people, and as such, it is usually difficult to recruit individuals. Harvest Prayer Minsitries has put together a guide that can help people learn to participate in this valuable ministry.