. . . prayer is anything but easy.

First, the good news. An excellent article in a recent issue of a highly respected national magazine identified prayer as the first step toward becoming a healthy congregation. So often prayer is an after thought or, worse still, not even mentioned. And often by the nation's best-selling pastors and teachers! (I confess, I one day expect to see "How to Grow a Church Without Much Prayer" at the top of our best seller list)

Now, the bad news. The writer's explanation of why prayer should be listed as a first step is because "prayer is easy."

Excuse me? Prayer is immediate, free, commanded, modeled, even promised as effective (Jas. 5:16) . . . anything but easy! If prayer were truly easy, this E-letter would be largely unnecessary. The 2,000 plus people attending this year's annual CPLN convention (and displaying such a hunger for knowledge about the life of prayer and praying) would probably have stayed home (maybe to pray!).

Phil

Rev. Phil Miglioratti is the director of the National Pastors Prayer Network and facilitator of CPLN Networks. He is available to do weekend seminars, conferences, and consulting work with prayer teams. You may contact him at This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it .

Prayer is certainly undervalued by leadership and underutilized in most congregations and ministries but it is anything but easy. Authentic prayer is more agony than ease (Col. 4:12). Each and every prayer may be free but a genuine life of prayer is costly; just think about the sacrifice of time, the dedication to training, the pain of travailing.

Maybe the author of that article meant that prayer is simple. Uncomplicated and straightforward. A reshaping of our thoughts and wants to fit the will of God and the mind of Christ as we talk and listen with the help of the Holy Spirit. Focused, maybe that is what he meant by easy. Regardless, prayer may be simple but it is never easy.

Pastor/author A.W. Tozer once wrote, "To pray successfully is the first lesson the preacher must learn if he is to preach fruitfully; yet prayer is the hardest thing he will ever be called upon to do and, being human, it is the one act he will be tempted to do less frequently than any other. He must set his heart to conquer by prayer, and that will mean that he must first conquer his own flesh, for it is the flesh that hinders prayer always. "

With a prayer for all single-minded, hard-working prayer leaders,