Practical Reminders for Corporate Prayer Meetings

Written by Greg Frizzell

Corporate prayer in your church can be a powerful thing. You and other leaders of corporate prayer meetings must be careful to strike a balance between the Holy Spirit's guidance and what mechanics make for an effective prayer time.

A House of Prayer: Prayer Ministries in Your Church

 As you plan your church's group prayer meetings, keep these points in mind:

1. Designated Leaders are Optional
   It is not necessary to always designate people to lead corporate prayers. Congregations can leave prayer meetings open to the spontaneous prompting of God's Spirit. In churches where people readily pray aloud, the spontaneous approach is usually more effective. However, in many churches prayer meetings flow more smoothly if some are designated beforehand to give prayer leadership at strategic points.
   
   
2. Set Guidelines for Open Prayer Times
   When you open the floor for spontaneous prayer, you may want to limit it to three or four people for each prayer subject. Otherwise, you can easily spend all your time on one subject and fall into a repetitive pattern. After a designated person opens with a corporate prayer, ask two or three others to spontaneously voice prayers as God's Spirit directs. This allows for freedom with spontaneous prayer; yet the spiritual leaders still have general direction of the meeting.
   
   Sometimes you will sense God leading you to focus the whole meeting on only one or two urgent subjects. Again, the guiding principles are close sensitivity to the Spirit of God and a flexible schedule that allows God's Spirit to work.
   
   
3. Prayers can be Lead by Many or an Individual
   It is not necessary to ask a different person to lead each corporate prayer. In some smaller churches the pastor and one or two others may be the only ones comfortable with praying corporately.
   
   Even if the pastor is the only corporate intercessor, churches can still have powerful prayer meetings. If necessary, the pastor can corporately pray for each category and ask the congregation to join him silently. (In historic awakenings lengthy pastoral prayers were common.)
   
   
4. Prayer Meetings can Cover Many or a Few Areas
   There are no set areas you must cover in the prayer meeting. In fact, fewer areas of prayer can allow for a more intense focus on each category. Many churches hold one-hour prayer meetings. Fewer prayer categories are important if you schedule a 30-minute prayer time. The length and number of prayer categories are largely dictated by the planned length of the meeting.
   
   
5. Choose Permanent Categories then Rotate Other Ones Each Week
   This way you thoroughly cover all key issues at least every six weeks. Modern congregations need to learn to intercede for the full range of Kingdom issues. For permanent categories, I suggest lost persons, missionaries, crisis needs, revival and spiritual awakening.

Adapted from A House of Prayer: Prayer Ministries in Your Church. This resource also includes helps on the basics of prayer, starting a prayer ministry, creative ideas for prayer and more. For more information on these topics purchase this resource through LifeWay’s Online Catalog.