Drink New Wine in '09 (Cheezy, I know!)

We kicked off our annual Week of Prayer and I am massively encouraged! Terry Austria our college pastor did a super job with the message yesterday and we have Kristi Northup here who did worship yesterday morning in all the services, last night in our opening prayer rally and will tonight in our prayer service.

As our church has grown I have witnessed apathy in our people when it comes to corporate prayer. This has been a great concern to me. When we ran four to five hundred we used to get 120-150 to show up for prayer meetings. And back then we did them weekly! Then we would pray for 1 1/2 hours and the time would fly by!

Over the past couple of years our attendance has grown to about 1400 in weekend services but in our monthly prayer meetings we have only seen 60 to 70 attend. Sad and very disheartening for me. Once in the summer I pushed really hard and we had about 120 but that was mainly due our Francophone Pastor, Guy Lombella who motivated many of our Congolese members to attend.

But last night we had 206 in prayer and this morning early 41! I am so encouraged! I have often said it is easy for young ministers to learn how to conduct culturally relavent services, do baptisms, weddings, funerals and so on--the things we do as pastors. But very few pastors including those who have been around a long time (like me) know how to run a prayer meeting. There are usually two extremes to prayer meetings: [a] Too wild and crazy. [b] Too dull and boring. We have to somehow find balance.

Here is a practical outline with some thoughts for my sons and daughter that I hope is a real help to you as you lead God's people. We will be held accountable on how we lead the church. May God give you grace is my prayer:

Prayer Meeting Outline and Thoughts

-Open with scripture and prayer
-Worship
-Identificational repentance
-Missions offering
-Short devotional thought on prayer!
-Go to prayer
(Interrupt as the HS directs)
-Come together at the end
-Sing hymns/songs
-Communion
-Stand in circle (Those with needs step to middle, have people stand in for missionaries, etc., have others lay hands on them and pray, someone (you) lead out in prayer over mic.

(We use to go 1 ½ hours & time really flew! Now about an hour is what most people can handle.)

{Thoughts to share with your people}
1. We have come here to pray. Not just talk about prayer, although guidance is important. Not just worship, although worship is part of it.

2. We have come to intercede. Intercession is giving/a dying to ourselves. This means we have not come to receive although we will. But our motive is to give ourselves. We are not here to figure out prayer, we are here to be used by God.

3. We do have responsibility to requests. But we also need to be and want to be led by the HS. This means I may at times interrupt your praying.

4. Important, practical things:
*You are not here to have personal devotions. Personal devotions are usually meditative and quieter.

*We are not going to be overly emotional but you may find yourself getting distracted become someone is praying with more emotion than you. Important to remember this is a corporate praying meeting and not a private prayer time.

*We are engaging in spiritual warfare. When you are in battle things sometimes get noisy. You still have an individual job to do but you fight along side the rest of your troops. So don’t use someone else as an excuse for not ‘getting into prayer.’

*Focus; cry out to God with more intensity. He wants us all to grow and be stretched in the area of prayer. Folks who are always loud need to be quieter. And folks who are always quiet need to probably be louder.

*Move around. If you get bored or tired change your position for a few minutes! Do not be inhibited (fervent prayer). Take a break (lobby, water, etc.) then refocus and come right back.

*Perseverance – there is always a place in prayer whether it is private or corporate that you need to breakthrough. When you feel bored, or drained, or distracted that is the very place God wants to breakthrough – persevere right there – maybe change your body posture and go after God more.

This is God’s heart--Jesus said, “My house shall be called a House of Prayer for the Nations.” We are here to pray God’s interests and God’s heart. Let’s go for it.