By Jonathan Graf
One of the most difficult things to do in a corporate prayer setting is to motivate people to pray beyond personal needs. Finding ways to encourage people to pray for the ministry and life of your church can be a challenge.
Here are some simple ideas for a corporate prayer meeting that may draw your people into new ways of praying. Like any prayer idea, it can get dull if overused. But occasional use can help model new prayer perspectives.
Depending on the length of your prayer meeting, choose one or more of these options. If you do not have a corporate prayer meeting, any of these things can be done in 5–10 minutes in a worship service.
Invite ministry leaders to come forward to receive prayer. Ask them to spread out across the front of the room and have each one simply describe his or her ministry.
Invite people from the congregation to come and gather around each person (two or three around each) and pray for that person’s ministry. Don’t allow time to take requests. Just have people pray God’s blessing and power into that person’s life and ministry.
Invite the people in the room to spend time praying through your sanctuary. They can pray in a variety of ways:
- through the seats—that God will open the hearts of those who sit there
- around the pulpit—that the power of the Holy Spirit will fall on those who preach
- in the area where the worship team stands—that they will exhibit passion in worship and lead people into God’s presence
- next to the altar—that people will respond to God’s Word and the wooing of the Spirit
- around the offering plates—that God will make people cheerful givers.
Invite elders to pray for a spiritual hunger for people in the congregation. If you are in your worship center and have an altar, gather the elders around it. Then invite them to pray out loud for the spiritual health of the congregation.
These simple ideas can model for your people ways to pray beyond the common personal requests.
–JONATHAN GRAF is the president of the Church Prayer Leaders Network
