Several years ago, I came across an article by a man who had spent two years working among the Christian churches of Romania. In the article he talked about how much he learned from their prayer life. A typical Sunday morning service starts at 9:00am with a full hour of prayer. Bigger churches in the country have an open time of prayer and smaller church go row-by-row, as the believers lift up their prayers to God. The author goes on to say that for the Romanians believers “Prayer matters. Prayer is not a waste of time.”
Compare that to one church I visited on vacation about the same time I read that article. The pastor got up and offered for anyone to come up and pray with the pastors to get counsel, encouragement, or prayers for healing. But it stuck in the service between a song and the sermon, which meant the prayer lasted less five minutes. Among other reasons, I think they didn’t want to run long because of their second service.
Consider too that in many other churches any kind of corporate prayer service is gone altogether. The only prayer time that takes place when the entire church is gathered together happens before the offering and maybe before the sermon.
It’s important as believer and as church members that we ask ourselves: how important is prayer to us? How important is it for us to come before our God and Savior with praise, confession, thanksgiving, and concerns? Can we get along in life and ministry without his help?
More specifically, is it important that we pray together with God’s people?
That may not be something we think about too much, but we need not look much further than Paul’s letters to see specific commands to pray together as a church. Often, we read the New Testament letters and see personal, individual applications. That’s not wrong as long as we remember that they are written to churches, not Christians. So, when he says things like—
- Rom 12:12, “Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.”
- Eph 6:18, “[be] praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication.”
- Col 4:2, “Continue steadfastly in prayer,” or
- 1 Thess 5:17, “pray without ceasing,”
—he is writing in the plural.
Paul intends for the whole church to pray together. Thus, God intends for his people to pray with one another, not just for one another.
We see this played out in the life of the Church in the book of Acts. Prayer of some kind shows up in fourteen out of the first fifteen chapters of Acts alone! But we also see an emphasis on the church praying together in Acts. For example, as soon as Jesus ascended to heaven, we read that the apostles returned to Jerusalem and that “all these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers” (1:12-14). Later, they prayed for wisdom as they choose Matthias to replace Judas (1:14). Then, all 120 disciples were praying together as the Holy Spirit came upon them at Pentecost (2:1). Later in chapter 9, Paul and Barnabas were called and sent out on the church-planting mission to the Gentiles in the midst of the church praying together.
The early church was marked by corporate prayer. In fact, it was something that they were devoted to. That’s what God tells us in chapter 2. After the Spirit falls and three thousand people get saved, this new church “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers”(2:42).
If we were to unpack that, we could say that they were devoted to—
- Gospel-centered, biblical teaching;
- a shared life and ministry;
- worship at the Lord’s Table;
- and praying together.
That seems pretty simple, but what happened as a result of their devotion to these core values? Luke says:
Awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved (2:43-47).
This group of believers were becoming the people that God desired them to be. They became a loving, faithful, serving, growing church. Being together in prayer was central to their identity as the people of God.
So, again we ask: what about us? Is praying together part of PBF’s identity? Is it central for us? We may affirm that it is essential for us, but is that clear from our life together? Would a visitor spend time with us and say, ‘Wow, they really take prayer seriously’?
Just as in the past, we have emphasized 1-2-1 Bible reading as a way to encourage one another in the faith and help our body to mature as disciples, so now we want to suggest praying 1-2-1. This doesn’t mean we are dropping the emphasis on reading the Bible together. But we do want to balance out, or deepen the essential spiritual rhythms of our life together.
Perhaps praying together is not important to you because you don’t pray often by yourself. Maybe you feel like you are weak in prayer or even simple in your prayer-language to God and fear others will look down on you for it? Or perhaps you are embarrassed to pray with others because you simply don’t know how. At the same time, some of you may be what we used to call “prayer warriors” and have much to teach others by your example. Others of you may need encouragement and discipleship in your prayer life. Regardless of where you’re at, God wants us to pray.
Next month, the elders want to encourage you to set aside any fears about the mechanics in prayer in favor of actually praying. And more than praying on your own, we want to encourage you to pray with other members. So, beginning at next week’s prayer gathering (July 3), we are introducing Praying Together—a resource for helping you learn, and be committed to, praying with others.
The Lord invites his children to pray and loves to give gifts to them when they do (Matt 7:11)! Why would we not seek after him all the days of our life and allow ourselves to be spurred on by the faith and love of our brothers and sisters in Christ?
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