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The In and Out Prayer Meeting
Does your church have multiple offerings for adults on the night your corporate prayer meeting is scheduled? Choir practice, worship team practice, kids programs, youth, adult Bible studies? Though it would be wonderful to not have anything that competes with prayer, here’s one church’s creative solution.
Westmont Alliance Church in Westmont, Illinois has a two-hour prayer meeting on Wednesday nights, running from 6:30 to 8:30. Other options are available from 7 to 8, such as a Bible study, worship practice, etc. The prayer time, however, is broken into six 20-minute segments, with each segment focusing on a different prayer topic. Some topics are the same each week, but some rotate through every several weeks. Topics include things such as: missions, pastors, spiritual health of church, the sick, community transformation, etc. While some people come for the entire time, the idea is to let people come in and out of the prayer meeting, showing up for the subjects they are most burdened to pray for. Other ministries that meet on Wednesdays give permission for a person to slip out of their meeting to go to a 20-minute prayer time.
This pattern has done two things:
- It caters to people’s natural burdens, allowing them to just pray for the things on their hearts.
- People who would not have otherwise come because they needed to
be at a practice, or wanted to be in the Bible study, show up more
regularly for a 20 minute segment. This gets more people involved in
corporate prayer. The fact that the prayer time is longer than the time
for other gatherings also allows for more people to participate. Many
will come to the prayer time just before or after their gathering meets.
For this to work, you need leaders who will keep to the time and
understand the need to jump right into prayer. Prayer guides are often
provided for each segment, but prayer requests are never taken.
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March 2006 
