A Powerful Corporate Prayer Idea

Most churches struggle to have a large corporate prayer gathering. One of the reasons for this struggle can be the "not another night" syndrome. Because people are already involved in so much, they revolt agasint the idea of coming to church for another thing. Centerville Community Church (Centerville, Ohio) got around this problem in a marvelous way.

Centerville Community already had a fairly strong small group ministry, with a good percentage of its people involved in small groups (its groups meet weekly). Its small groups were used to praying together, always lifting up the needs of members in the group. WHen the desire and need to start praying more corporately--into the life and health of the church--came up a few years ago, rather than start a corporate prayer meeting on another night, Centerville used its small groups. They asked small groups to pray for the spiritual life and corporate issues of the church (moving of God's Spirit, that His transformational power would be evident, that the preaching of the Word would come with power, etc.).

Church leaderership recognized that if the groups were just asked to add those things to existing prayer times, those things would be peripheral and could easily be forgotten each week. So Centerville did something unique. It asked groups only to focus on praying for the life of the church on a rotating basis. And, when it was their group's turn, prayer was the only thing that would happen that week--no lesson or discussion. Now, each week, two of the 10-12 small groups focus their meetings solely on praying for the church and community. The groups rotate through about every 5-6 weeks. THose groups are given prayer suggestions and any urgent church needs, and they go to prayer.

Why is this a good plan, and why might it be good to try in your church?
Two reasons: 1. Every week 20-30 people pray powerfully for church. 2. It is an excellent kingdom discipleship thing. People who used to pray only for everyday things for each other, learn the importance of praying kingdom things for the church.

To Make It Work

There are several keys to making this work in a church.

1. Whomever is in charge of small groups must believe in its importance, and support it.
2. Small group leaders will need to buy in. They may need to be trained in what sort of things the prayer will focus on and why those are important. They will need to know how the whole thing will be run.
3. Someone needs to stay on top of getting requests to the groups whose turn it is each week. That person also needs to keep groups aware of whose turn it is, several weeks in advance.
4. It would be a good thing if a pastor explained this change from the pulpit. People will need to understand why the church views this shift as important.
5. Do not fill the request sheet with personal needs of people in the church (small groups are already praying for each other). Instead give only things that are important to the outreach and spiritual life of the church.
6. Follow up is important. Make sure groups that prayed hear if there are answers to their prayers. Also, at the start it is a good thing to follow up wth group leaders a few days after their turn. You want to see if they were able to stay on track and help if they had difficulty. The number one difficulty that will come is that often people in the group will go righ back to praying only for needs. Leaders need to understand that they have to keep refocuing the prayer times.