Early 20th century Presbyterian pastor Wilber Chapman once saw more than 1,300 people come to faith in Christ during a three-year period of time in his Bethany Street Presbyterian Church. He put that spiritual success solely on the shoulders of more than 200 men who were gathering each Sunday morning to pray that the Holy Spirit's power would fall on Chapman as he stepped into the pulpit to preach.

First Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, has more than 100 men who gather two Saturday mornings a month to pray for the ministry of the church. For years in the 80s and 90s Menomone Alliance Church in Wisconsin had 30 plus men gather on Saturday mornings to pray. That church equates much of the growth and powerful ministry it experienced in the past two decades on this praying group of men.

In every church there is a mostly dormant army of men who can be trained to pray. But how do you do it?

Here are a few ideas.

1. The best way to rally men is through an existing men's ministry or men's Sunday school class. If none exists, then you can start with just a prayer group for men. But a key is to make the metaphor or backdrop of the prayer group a Warriors theme. Get across that the men are warring for their pastor and church . . . and families, through prayer.
2. Make the time to pray relatively short and keep to the time. If you have a prayer breakfast (a popular way to draw guys), then have a breakfast, 5-10 minutes of simple prayer instruction, then go to prayer for 10-15 minutes tops. As the group gets used to praying together the prayer time can be lengthened, but I would never lengthen it beyond 30 to 45 minutes max. Perhaps do what Chapman did--have the men pray for 15 minutes prior to the morning service.
3. Provide prayer guides or very specific prayer points for the men to focus on. Guides are great so they can take them home and use them during the week.

Men are more reluctant to pray out loud in public than women, so you need to do safe, creative things to draw them out. Giving them the prayer agenda helps. Teaching everyone to pray one or two sentence prayers at first also helps. Here are a few tips of some things to teach men to do when they are on their own trying to pray (This is also important to try to develop in men, because no one will venture much in group prayer if they don't have a personal prayer life.)

1. Teach them to pray out loud when they are by themselves. This benefits in three ways: praying out loud causes less mind-wandering; hearing the sound of their voice when they pray makes them more at ease when praying in a group; there is a warfare element to speaking out our prayers.
2. This may sound strange, but teach them prayer can happen anytime of the day--they don't have to have a first-thing-in-the-morning quiet time where they learn to pray for 15 minutes or more. That will come, but beginners need to be taught to pray in shorter snippits. Teach them to pray in their car, on the golf course, any time when their mind does not have to stay on task. One of the most genious things I ever saw with men was a simple system espoused by Strategic Prayer Initiative: it teaches men to put a reminder on their tv, have a simple prayer guide on their end table by their tv watching chair, and mute two minutes of commercials a night to pray. Most quickly pray more than that.
3. Teach them to put reminders in their path that remind them to pray. Show them that they can train their minds to pray about something every time they see an item. The best use of a reminder I ever saw was from a pastor in the Seattle area who gave all his men a restaurant-sized bottle of Tabasco sauce (red hot sauce). He told them to put it where they would see it every day (he recommended their shower). THen he said remember to pray two things when you see it: pray that you'll be red hot for God and pray that I'll be red hot for God.

Resource Ideas for Teaching Men to Pray

Praying Like Paul by Jonathan Graf
Becoming a Man of Prayer by Bob Beltz
Power Praying by David Chotka
Prayer Coach by Jim Nicodem
Prayer Power by Peter Lundell
The Prayer Dare by Ron Kincaid

If you have ideas on teaching or motivating men to pray, we want to hear them. Please send them to me at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Jonathan Graf is the president of the Church Prayer Leaders Network. He is available to speak to churches or men's groups to fire them up in the area of prayer. COntact him at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .