Prayer Meeting in the Life of the Church

I've never heard of a required prayer meeting for members. I am wondering how do they determine if someone is providentially hindered? What happens when they are not? Is everyone required to pray? The biggest is what good is prayer if it is you're forced?

Yes, we have weekly prayer meeting that we feel is important

Not sure whether enjoyable or dull comes into play when you meet to spend time with the Lord in prayer.

We do the same thing every week. We take prayer requests, pray as a church (all together) and then do a Bible study. The length of the Bible study depends on how long we pray.

 

I have attended many churches that have had "prayer" meetings, but weren't actually that. I have attended one that had an agenda, and for more than 30 minutes of the time was actually spent in prayer.

 

We open our prayer meetings with a song, then we read a Psalm (that should take a couple of years to read them all). We then ask for prayers of praise and thankgiving and then for intercession and requests. Then we spend time in prayer, some come to the alter, others pray were they are at. After a while, will have a closing prayer and specifically pray for our mayor and city council, county judge and commissioners, governor and state representatives, and finally for our president, congressman and judges. Then we dismiss, and usually hang out and fellowship for a while.

 

We have an hour of meditation on Thursday night. It would be impossible for all members to attend as some work that evening.

 

Currently our Wednesday night crowd is a small group, so no we do not split up.

 

Could you please elaborate on "meditation", what does that entail? Is it structured or unstructured?

 

Trying to get a real prayer service going on Wednesday night has been like pulling teeth. They want Bible study but don't want to pray other than for just a couple of minutes. But, I'll keep P.U.S.H.ing away till the light comes on and they realize the vital importance of prayer.

 

I agree. I think if I were a demon my greatest work would be in preventing people from praying. I'd especially hinder it in the church setting. I'd encourage the building of knowledge in place of calling out to God. For without God's power the knowledge would be useless.

 

Sag, there are a couple of ways to encourage people to pray in public. In one church, I simply asked a few people in advance to lead in prayer on Wednesday night. This gave them an opportunity to know how they would pray.

The other way was that I had a special class on writing public prayers. Many didn't know how to pray in public and they were frightened. It was a good way to explain what prayer was, how words are employed and how long one needs to prayer. One of the most educated professors I knew was a master of one line prayers!

Cheers,

Jim

 

The late Dean Gordon Brown, of Central Baptist Seminary, Toronto, was called upon to say grace one day:

"Food, fun and fellowship. Amen"

We learned a lot from him in those days.

Cheers,

Jim