Satan’s greatest aim is to destroy our prayer lives. Satan is not afraid of prayerless work or prayerless religion. But he trembles when we pray.
If this is true (and hundreds of great people of God confirm that it is), then we are in trouble. So often we have only perfunctory prayer lives. We have plenty of books on prayer; and most Christian leaders and pastors preach on prayer once in a while. But we pay only lip service; we neglect heartfelt corporate prayer.
We don’t need another book or message. We need to pray. To put the prayer back into our fellowships will take action and discipline, combined with large amounts of love, patience and spiritual reality. C S Lewis said, `We have the tendency to think, but not to act. We have the tendency to feel, but not to act. If we go on thinking and feeling without acting, we soon are unable to act.`
Some Christians tell me that they wish they had a live prayer meeting. Many have stopped going to dead, poorly organised ones; while others continue only from duty or guilt. But what motivates us to come into the presence of the living God? Why are we attracted only by special speakers and programmes rather than the Lord Himself? What real authority does the Lord Jesus have in our lives?
Pastors spend hours to prepare for a sermon; but how much time is spent preparing for prayer meetings? Some churches compromise with a `prayer and Bible study` which involves about 10 to 20 minutes of actual prayer. But nothing should take the place of a weekly meeting when, for at least an hour of prayer, a large part of the fellowship is together `in one accord` as in the book of Acts.
The neglect of such meetings, I believe, is our greatest mistake. Such deception by Satan is a far greater threat than liberalism or the cults. In fact, a clear study of 2 Corinthians 10:4-7 shows that prayer is the main way to stand against the enemy. We seem to be blind to the nature of spiritual warfare, and feel we are ok as long as we have large attendances. Could it be, as in Revelation 3:1, that we have a reputation for being alive but are in fact dead? If the Holy Spirit left us, would everything go on as usual?
Prayer is the main target of the enemy. If he can conquer us here, he knows that whatever we do in other areas, we will be relatively ineffective and our fruit meaningless. In any Christian endeavour, there is never a substitute for prayer and the moving of the Holy Spirit.
We should be willing to do anything to rectify such spiritual schizophrenia. We need deep-rooted repentance. Without prayer, nothing lasting can take place. If Christ is Lord of our lives, we will obey His commands to pray.
Preparing for Action
How should we prepare for a prayer meeting?- particularly one alert to the needs of God’s world as a whole?
1. Spend time in personal prayer.
2. Read both God’s Word and powerful books on the subject. Develop a prayer quotation notebook, and use quotes from these books (and from significant missionary biographies) in the meeting; distribute the books to others too.
3. Plan carefully. Mobilize as many as possible to present short, specific requests – including needs from the mission field. Delegate individuals to give brief updates on particular fields. (But no more than 5 to 10 minutes should be used for requests before having prayer.)
4. Get hot items from the newspaper to motivate the people to urgent intercession. 1 Timothy 2:1 gives us clear teaching about the need for this. Background information on the situation of the church in crisis countries can be obtained from books like Operation World.
5. Prepare visual aids. (Google Earth can be really useful! Ed.)
6. Occasionally invite special speakers; but discipline yourselves to spend most of the time (at least two thirds) in prayer. If you want a long message, extend the meeting. But don’t cut down on the actual prayer time. Talking to God is more important than listening to man.
Going Into Battle
1. Keep the prayer meeting interesting and people involved. Emphasise different aspects of prayer, such as praise, thanksgiving, worship and intercession. Stimulate an attitude of worship first and foremost. Have a musicians set the pace in praise; good music is an aid in worship, builds unity, and will help set the tone for the entire meeting. During long prayer meetings especially, it is important to stop the intercession for times of `refuelling`, so to speak, through worship and thanksgiving. Teach the people new songs of praise. (Choruses should have a missionary emphasis too.) Make use of the psalms.
2. Vary the format; routine often leads to boredom. Begin sometimes with worship, at other times with a brief challenge to prayer, or specific answers to prayer, or something visual.
3. Present prayer requests, but keep them short! Long detailed accounts not only kill the spirit of the meeting, but also often leave little time for prayer. Requests can be written in advance and given out as people arrive, or written on a powerpoint. Outline maps of various countries can also be shown there.
4. Avoid long periods of sameness! Prayer involves the mind, and a long period which does not require personal involvement allows the mind to drift. Therefore, it is good to break the meeting into shorter segments. After presenting some brief requests, break into groups of 4-8. Each group could, for example, concentrate on one area of the world. After 5 to 10 minutes present some fresh requests. At other times, stay together for corporate prayer.
5. Urge people to pray, but don’t embarrass them. Keep the prayers simple.
6. Keep a balance between the Holy Spirit’s spontaneous work and each person’s helping to make the prayer meeting what it should be. Be patient and refuse discouragement. It takes time for people to learn reality in prayer.
7. Have brief reports on answers to prayer. Urge people to be worldwide in their vision. Use a world map and other items like a set of prayer cards. (Cards listing prayer needs from unreached people groups, and many other resources too, are available from https://www.joshuaproject.net/resources/prayer. Ed.) Play short recordings from missionaries [Skype is great for this – Ed.] Encourage people to write to missionaries for whom they are praying and give reports.
8. Keep the ministry from the Word short… but powerful. Teach about prayer, lovingly and firmly. Point out some prayer-killers, such as praying too long, using prayer to preach at people, praying only for your own group, looking down on those who lack ability in speech or theology, or not expecting answers.
Go For It!
Get started with praying, even if there are only two of you! Growth will follow. And numbers aren’t always the key. Talk to those who are apathetic; find out why. Maybe they’ve never been asked! Face to face contact is ever so much better than announcements.
I believe there should also be whole days set aside for prayer. Within our work for many years we have had regular times of extended prayer, often far into the night. I believe this is one of the main factors in the victories we have seen around the world. During these extended times, people must be made to feel free to leave when they wish. They must realize that they are not in a spiritual marathon. However, the more information they have about the world’s needs, the more responsible they are to pray for these needs to be met. And prayer takes time!
Remember, we are in a spiritual warfare. Prayer is one of our main weapons and faith is closely linked with it. We must not expect it to be easy. Satan will counter-attack any efforts made towards effective prayer. We must refuse any form of discouragement and press forward whatever the cost. Half the world has still not heard or read the gospel, and what we do in prayer in God’s sovereignty and mercy will be a deciding factor as to whether or not they will! Let us ask God for new ideas and initiatives to be creative in this task that He has given to us. And let us be disciplined in doing our part. The battle will be uphill all the way, for prayer is work. The results, however, will be eternal.
I would love to correspond with anyone who determines to pray.
George Verwer.
(I’m hugely grateful for this guest blog from George Verwer, one of my heroes, the inspirational founder of the great missionary agency Operation Mobilisation. George is the author of Hunger for Reality, which I personally think is one of the top spiritual classics of recent decades; you can download it free from https://georgeverwer.com/resources/. Also downloadable free there is his highly valuable booklet Revolution of Love, and his more recent book Messiology which can really help us understand what’s going on during difficult phases of our service for Christ and of our relationships with others. George’s email is george.verwer@om.org .)
(You’ll find more of these resources on https://petelowmanresources.com/category/church-resources/ .)
