Living in the Upper Room

Permeate Your Church with a Culture of Prayer

I’m not sure I can adequately describe Joe. This very elderly, stooped-over Jewish man was rejected by his family when he became a follower of Jesus Christ. He was a bit quirky and had very few possessions. In fact, everything he owned fit into a suitcase. When Joe needed a ride, he would call and say he “needed a little fellowship.” That meant you were to pick him up, take him to church, and then perhaps buy lunch for him on the way home.

My greatest appreciation for Joe came during times of prayer with him. He never missed a prayer gathering, and, in private, he prayed through the church directory every week, name by name.

I don’t remember how I joined a little prayer group with Joe and two other friends. But for a season, we prayed in what we called “the upper room.” It was a tiny storage closet above the baptistery. We had to climb very steep stairs to get there and then duck to avoid hitting our heads once we were in the room. Getting Joe up there always presented a challenge, but if it was a prayer time—nothing could deter him!

In that upper room, we prayed for the church. We prayed for the salvation of the lost. We prayed about broken families. We asked the Spirit to do a fresh work in our congregation. Perhaps we were repeating some of the same prayers of the early believers in the original upper room.

Obviously it was not the room itself that made this prayer time special. It was because four people had something in common—we longed for Jesus to be powerfully manifested in our lives, church, and nation.

Now I can look back and understand that praying with Joe, in all his quirkiness, was a privilege because Joe was completely devoted to his Lord. Joe’s life was permeated with prayer. It was simply what he did, day after day, without fail.

Back to the Upper Room

Now, several years later, I believe God is awakening His Church to our desperate need to “live in the upper room.” He is calling us to return to the same devotion to prayer that the early believers lived out. It is time again to assertively incorporate prayer into the very culture of the local church.

A culture can be described as the particular behaviors and characteristics that define a people group in a place or time.

If your church is marked by a culture of prayer, it means that prayer—like breathing—is a natural and rhythmic necessity.  You are known for your prayer lives. Your entire church embraces the mindset that it simply cannot survive if prayer is not foremost.

In this issue you will read from Fred Hartley about upper-room, God-encountering prayer as the launching pad for all ministry. Fred Leonard lists ten ways your church can move toward becoming a house of prayer. And you will gain insight from several pastors about how their churches have wrestled with creating cultures of prayer.

As it turned out, I missed Joe’s funeral because we had a Minnesota snowstorm that day. But I so wanted to see the many people who were touched in some way by Joe’s prayer life. I had heard that he knew people all over the city. I’m not surprised. A praying man—and a praying church—always have great impact for the Kingdom of God.

CAROL MADISON is editor of Prayer Connect.