Prayer 101: Back to the Basics
A few months ago, on a beautiful fall day in Minnesota, my church tried something new—and perhaps a bit unusual for us. We hosted an all-day “Drive-Thru Prayer” event in our church parking lot, designed to bless others in our community. We posted several “May We Pray for You?” signs at the entrance to our church, and positioned some of our most engaging people along our busy street to smile and wave at drivers.
We had no idea what response to expect, but we prayed we would have at least one or two success stories. We waited an hour and a half for the first “taker.” A man in a large black pickup truck pulled in between our parking cones and said, “This is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen!” He wanted prayer for his recent back surgery and his wife’s health issues.
After that, the cars began pulling through more frequently. By the end of the day, 20 cars had driven into our lot to ask for prayer—all people with no previous connection to our church. These people related a variety of concerns and were touched that someone was willing to pray for them.
In advance I had given some training to our intercessors so we were all on the same page in the way we approached the cars, interacted with people, and prayed for them. But I told our intercessors that all our guidelines could be summarized into two basic instructions: 1. Pop a breath mint before you approach a car. 2. Don’t be weird.
I trusted the Spirit to guide our prayers as we listened to people’s requests. But I also wanted to remind our intercessors that in this situation, the basics of prayer were the most important.
Patterns of Prayer
We are witnessing so much growth in the prayer movement in our churches and across the nation. New prayer initiatives and strategies are on the increase, especially as pastors and intercessors grow in their sensitivity to the Holy Spirit. The Lord has led many to explore things like spiritual mapping, 24/7 worship, healing prayer, or prayer for revival and spiritual awakening. While many intercessors are implementing new approaches that God is revealing, we also observe patterns of prayer practiced throughout history. It’s always good to come back to the basics and review general prayer principles that have served the Church well over the centuries.
In this issue, Dr. Ronnie Floyd reminds us of the most basic principle: prayer demonstrates our dependence on God. Floyd outlines the way understanding scriptural truths will shape appropriate prayer for various situations. As Jeff Eckart addresses prayer basics, he hearkens back to his early years of learning to play the guitar. His confidence grew as he mastered the basics of chords, meters, keys, and transitions. He encourages our readers not to worry about “getting it right” but instead to keep practicing prayer and growing in confidence. Barbara Ho points out that we tend to overthink or complicate prayer. She shares some basic concepts that can help increase effectiveness in prayer.
During our “Drive-Thru-Prayer” event, I told our intercessors one more thing—perhaps the most basic of all: Our role is not to fix things. Our role is to bring people and their concerns to Jesus. He is the One who heals, restores, delivers, and gives hope.
Sometimes we need reminders of the simplest things.
CAROL MADISON is editor of Prayer Connect magazine.
