All Eyes on Jesus - Part 3

Wrapping up the third section of this blog series, where we’ve been focusing on Jesus’ teaching on prayer from Matthew 6 we come to some practical applications for prayer meetings to help coax people out of bondage to their fears of praying in front of others. In my experience as a pastor I’ve learned that there are some very simple changes we can make to our prayer meeting structures that make it a more welcoming and safe place for people who are uncomfortable with corporate prayer. In case you are just joining us now at the end of this series and are wondering were this is coming from, you should know that This is the last post in an 11 post series entitled “Becoming a People of Prayer.” You can Click here for a listing of previous posts in this series if you want to catch up on what you’ve missed.

Four suggestions for making corporate prayer less terrifying

1. Limit prayers to short requests – ask the questions:

The simplest way to make prayer less intimidating is by asking those people who have a tendency to wax eloquently for lengthy periods of time in prayer to keep their prayers succinct. It doesn’t impinge on the potency of the prayer and it might even help that person to be more focused in their prayer life. The easiest way to do that is to evaluate your prayers with the following questions

          “does this glorify God?”

          “does this edify the church?”

Is anything you’re saying glorifying to God; Either by the content of your praise, or the faith of your request? And does your praise or prayer edify the church in the same way? Is it beneficial for a corporate meeting or is it a “prayer closet” issue?

The reality is that not ALL prayer requests are meant for public airing. When I was in high school my youth group had a regular Sunday evening prayer meeting – it was actually pretty awesome that we would gather at my youth pastor’s house and 15 or more of us on a regular basis would have a prayer meeting together. On the outside there really isn’t much better that could have been happening in our youth group – but on the inside things weren’t as healthy as they appeared. I didn’t realize it at the time, and I don’t think my youth pastor (who was fairly young, himself) even was aware of it fully as it was happening, but our prayer meetings were slipping into gossip events and social posturing in the guise of selfless intercessory prayer. What do I mean? Well you would get people who would share details about the lives of other people for “prayer,” but they were details that they had no business sharing with the group, and often (sadly) they were about people that I don’t honestly believe in retrospect they really cared about – it was just an opportunity to share some juicy gossip in a sanctified setting. It was also an opportunity for social posturing by revealing to everyone else in the prayer meeting who you knew intimate or personal details about and flaunting your social connections. Now we were young and immature high school students, and even Paul tells us that when he was a child he walked, talked and acted like a child (1 Corinthians 13) but we need to demonstrate a maturity in our prayer meetings that proves that when we became men (or women as the case may be) that we put childish things behind us. Remember the heading for this section of the series is “All Eyes on Jesus,” what is our focus and intention in sharing a specific prayer request?

Another thing that I think is really unhealthy in a prayer meeting is the “unspoken request” or what is sometimes called a “private issue.” The idea behind this is that you really want prayer for some issue that you’re too embarrassed or unwilling to share with the group. Now before I go any further my position on this is not as ironclad as my other examples, and for sure there will be some who disagree with me on this, but I don’t believe that there should be a place for those types of prayers in a prayer meeting.

I am convinced that these sorts of prayers don’t pass the sniff test of edifying the church. The church cannot be built up by praying for something that they don’t know about, something that they cannot, by virtue of their ignorance, celebrate the answering of or watch for God’s working in. I don’t think that it fosters trust and openness and authenticity among the pray-ers and it becomes a hindrance to what God wants to accomplish in that gathering. It’s not that those prayers, or those burdens are unimportant to Jesus, or that they shouldn’t be brought before God in prayer – it’s just that they need to be brought forward in a different way. Either, you need to trust your fellow brothers and sisters in Christ to bear your request in confidence and actually share the details (if you can – see the above comment on gossip disguised as prayer) or you need to find a different (perhaps smaller) group of people who you can trust with the details and ask them to pray with you through this issue. It’s not just about you when you pray corporately, it’s also about what is happening in the body of Christ through your participation – never forget that.

2. Develop a culture of acceptable silence – allow people to pray silently during (and overtop of) other prayers.

You may not think that we pray over top of each other in this culture but you may have been introduced to that sort of prayer under all sorts of foreign sounding names – but we do. Every time you hear someone but into a prayer with an “amen” or a “yes Lord” or a “please Jesus” or the good old Alliance “mmmm” we’re engaging in polyphonic prayer (that’s a musical term for many lines being played at once). But just as you don’t assume that because someone is not making those noises or saying those things when you pray that they are not praying along in agreement with you – also realize just because they don’t “take a turn” and say something when the time arises that they are not praying along with you either.

Corporate prayer is about coming together in agreement in prayer – and sometimes you go to pray in a prayer meeting and realize that someone has already just prayed everything that was laid on your heart and all you really have left to add is “amen”. That’s okay. There is nothing unspiritual about that. Create a prayer environment where the heartfelt “amen” is an acceptable prayer. It helps put the focus on God and off of our words.

3. Challenge attendees to think about what it is they are saying and who they are saying it to.

In the same way ask people to think long and hard about what they are praying for and who they are praying to. When I was travelling with the Canadian Bible College choir during my college days we had a specific pattern of prayer before we went out to minister to the crowds at concerts. There was a hard and fast rule that we didn’t engage in any “poor me” prayers. We had a corporate devotional time every morning for our own personal needs but when we got ready for a concert we intentionally focused our prayers on the people in attendance and the things God wanted to do. It took the pressure off of us to consider each other for a time and only focus on God and his ministry.

In the same way encourage people in prayer not to praise people. Prayer is for praising God. If you want to tell someone how wonderful they are don’t wait until a prayer meeting to tell God (in front of them of course) how thankful you are for them, and what a blessing they have been in your life. Go tell them that before the prayer meeting, or when they are being a blessing. A Prayer meeting is not the time for social posturing of any kind no matter how heartfelt or genuine it might be. And in the same way, there are times and opportunities for praying for your personal needs in a corporate setting. Some prayer meetings are designed for those very issues to be addressed (what you pray about with your small group is a perfect example of that) but there are other times when the focus needs to be taken off of us and put on others. For example, at our monthly Acts 2 prayer meetings we are committed to not praying for our own needs but instead to pray for revival in the church to spill into the community so that the Gospel may go out and the world may be transformed starting with our little corner of the city. We don’t entertain personal prayer requests at that gathering because that is not the focus. Keep your focus on the right things and make sure everyone at the meeting knows the “rules” so that we can all pull toward the same goal.

And lastly:

4. All eyes on Jesus

“So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; those who seek find; and to those who knock, the door will be opened.”

Luke 11:9-10

The secret – if there is one – to God honouring, powerful effective prayer corporately or privately is very simple. Keep your eyes on Jesus. Keep focusing on the object of our prayers. Keep coming back to His truth, seeking His will, asking for His plans, praying for His power while being moved by His heart. That’s what everything is all about. And that brothers and sisters is how we move toward becoming a people of prayer.