This option has worked well at congregational prayer times, like a Sunday evening service, or prayer during a congregational meeting.

For a specific topic, have three people pray, with slightly different assignments. Three has a good Trinitarian feel to it!

Some examples:

Pray for the Youth program, asking three people to pray, covering the children, the teachers, the leaders. Or possible the Sunday School, the Youth Group, and Vacation Bible School.

Or pray for a college campus, covering the students, the Faculty, and Evangelistic Groups.

Pray for your church: Thanks for God’s past blessings, For Current Needs, Future mission

I recall my early training on bible teaching:  Be prepared, know the material, and expect deviations from the lesson. Be alert to students’ responses, insights and questions that may require tangents from your script. That’s why you prepare broadly so that maybe you have some answers, and that’s why you remember the lessons is about God, not you, so that you can admit when you don’t know the answer.

Two experiential results convinced me. First, if you ask any group which verse in the passage caught their attention (or made them think, or “spoke” to them) there will be a variety of responses. Second, If you did the same lesson a year later and asked the same question, most people’s response would be different the second time around. The Word of God is living and active, teaching each what they need to know at that time.

It turns out that same principle applies when leading a prayer time. It’s good to prepare a list of topics or guiding prayers, but don’t hold too tightly. One morning recently we were concentrating on the joy of the gospel and had printed out the first two questions and answers of the Heidleberg Catechism and the first four from the Westminster Shorter Catechism. After taking turns reading the questions and answers, there were five main topics / directions to consider:

• Praise God for He is holy
• Confess sin because we are not holy
• Give thanks for the gospel, including sanctification and forgiveness of sin
• Pray for God to work in specific people who do not know Jesus as Lord and Savior
• Bring Prayer requests for our church, brothers and sisters, and others’ needs

I expected the Praise, thanksgiving, and requests sections would be most lively. But not today. Confessing sin and praying for specific unsaved people was where we spent most of our time.

This devotion / prayer time is especially for those who are to be able to teach – elders, pastor, Sunday school teachers. Jason led us at an elders meeting a couple of weeks ago and it was encouraging to hear the responses it produced.

Each person in the group is assigned a verse from Colossians 1.15-29, with the instruction, “Given a few minutes preparation time, briefly explain the verse and tell how you would teach it to others.” Note that there are two important parts – the content and the method.

As one might expect, the methods varied with the content and with the ‘teacher.’ Some suggested a study technique (e.g. what does it say, what does it mean, how does it apply?) which would work for most verses. Some had specific method ideas for their verse – understanding the context, citing other related verses, studying the pronouns.

Each person had worked independently in their short preparation time, but it was interesting and uplifting to hear the brief presentations allude to prior verses and methods as we moved around the room.

In the late summer our Tuesday morning prayer group usually uses the schedule of upcoming ministry startups as our launching list for topics. It’s a simple list to put together – contact the people responsible for the various ministries and ask them for meeting, retreat, conference, training, or other dates coming up in the next couple of months.

As we prayed this year, it occurred that this is a good The Trellis and the Vine example. A central theme of that book, by Collin Marshal and Tony Payne, is having enough (but not too much) administrative programming (trellis) to support fruitful ministry workers (vine). The header on our prayer list made it clear that our purpose is to be witnesses, so it included the Great Commission from Matthew 28 and the following introduction: “Here is a chronological list of events, trainings, retreats, conferences, and classes coming in the next couple of months as ministries begin. Let’s lift them up, remembering our mission to make disciples of Jesus Christ.”

The fruitful prayers included thanksgiving for God’s work in setting up the several (fruitful) ministries; equipping the leaders for each ministry; and the worldwide impact as hundreds of people have been brought in, built up, and sent out over the life of the church. Prayers were offered for strong starts for each of the programs this fall, for new visitors to the church to be welcomed warmly, and for God’s provision that some of those new visitors would join in the vine work and bring with them complementary gifts to those already present in the congregation, particularly for outreach and evangelism work.

When looking ahead as a group, Psalm 90 is a refreshing resource to use for prayer or a group devotion.

For a prayer time, hand out a copy of the words (with verse numbers) and have each person read one verse, going around the room until finished. Then read the following quote from the ESV study Bible:

“This psalm stresses time and how it passes, as can be seen from the various time words throughout (days, years, eternal, in all generations, everlasting to everlasting, etc.).   The awareness of how short human life is leads to earnest prayer for God’s help, without which his people can accomplish nothing of lasting value (vs 16-17).”

Then add a list of prayer requests that cover upcoming issues and events in the life of your group. For example, type up something like the following:

Let us plead with the LORD for

• Thankful hearts to proclaim His praises; contrite hearts to confess our sins
• Keeping his promises to forgive our sins and to work all things together for our good
• His guidance, power, and favor for what we do as individuals and as a church
• Understanding for members retiring in next few years to not waste their lives
• Continued equipping of the saints for God’s service
• Making our days count for the good of God’s kingdom
• Jesus returning to find us awake and faithful (vs 13; Matthew 24.45-46)
• Other items suggested by the psalm

 

For more of a devotion time, replace the ESV quote with questions that cover the time emphasis and God-centeredness of the psalm, e.g.

• Identify “time” related words in this psalm.
• How is God’s time different than our time?
• What are some instructions for not wasting our lives?
• What is our best option for accomplishing something of lasting value?

 

Psalm 90 A Prayer of Moses, the man of God.

[1] Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations.

[2] Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

[3] You return man to dust and say, “Return, O children of man!”

[4] For a thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night.

[5] You sweep them away as with a flood; they are like a dream, like grass that is renewed in the morning:

[6] in the morning it flourishes and is renewed; in the evening it fades and withers.

[7] For we are brought to an end by your anger; by your wrath we are dismayed.

[8] You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence.

[9] For all our days pass away under your wrath; we bring our years to an end like a sigh.

[10] The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty; yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away.

[11] Who considers the power of your anger, and your wrath according to the fear of you?

[12] So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.

[13] Return, O LORD! How long? Have pity on your servants!

[14] Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.

[15] Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us, and for as many years as we have seen evil.

[16] Let your work be shown to your servants, and your glorious power to their children.

[17] Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands upon us; yes, establish the work of our hands!

I know that prayer works. Not always with the answer I desire, but I know that God hears and is indeed working all things together for my good. I recall two major prayer events that changed my life; there have been many more, but these are the two that cry out for attention because the results have been powerfully long-lasting. One was personal and affected my work. The other was on a Sunday evening in 1982 when the elders came to pray at my Sparrow Hospital bedside.

Two weeks’ prior, I started getting weaker and weaker and was diagnosed with Guillian-Barré Syndrome, a neurological disorder that presents with ascending paralysis. The treatment for Guillian-Barré is called “expectant therapy”- they expect you are going to get better eventually and they want to keep you alive until you do. I had been on a ventilator that was doing my breathing for me, since Friday afternoon. The machine’s setting was initially too strong and had caused a lung to collapse; I had pneumonia; and my breathing was difficult. The doctors decided they would do a tracheostomy on Monday morning, placing the ventilator tube in my throat to provide oxygen better.

Having the elders get together to pray for a sick person, as commanded in James 5, was a fairly new thing at our church.  I was actually one of the elders at the time and did not have much experience as the prayee OR the prayer. Our friend Glen encouraged Diane to ask the elders to pray, and they arrived shortly after eight o’clock, just as visitors’ hours were ending.

I don’t remember what they prayed. I think there was some laying on of hands and maybe making the sign of the cross on my forehead with oil. The amazing thing was that God chose to work in a dramatically positive way that night. After prayer, the elders commented that I had an ashen look when they arrived, but was pink when they left. The next morning the pulmonary specialist looked at the new x-ray and saw enough improvement to call off the tracheostomy. It was another month in the hospital and five months off work, but the improvement began with the elders’ prayer.

The medical staff exercised expectant therapy. The elders exercised expectant prayers. I thank and praise God regularly for his healing and comforting mercy he exercises for his people.

Our church operates an email listserv Prayer Chain.  Members are invited, but not required, to participate.  Anyone on the listserv can submit requests and all receive the messages (some have to tweak their email service to avoid the spam folder).

Most of the prayer requests are for ongoing illnesses or relationship issues.  Some are praise statements for ways they have seen God at work.  There are also cases where many are called to immediate prayers on a specific topic.  This past week a member had an allergic reaction to an antibiotic and was being transported by ambulance to the hospital.  The Prayer Chain notice went out and people were praying even as the member was in route.

We have learned several things over the years of Prayer Chain operation.  As mentioned, members are invited, but not required to participate. Regular notices on how to sign up are placed in the church bulletin.  A special invitation is issued to those in the New Members class.

Comments and encouragements have been very helpful.  We urge that replies go to the sender, not to the whole listserv.

After several unfortunate posts, we changed to a monitored service, where requests are vetted and approved before being emailed.  This can result in delays, but has prevented unnecessary or unhealthy correspondence.  We also opened a second listserv specifically for NEWS items that were not prayer requests.

Facebook or other social media offer private group options which could be used in a similar fashion.  The speed and availability of electronic communication offers a wonderful opportunity to stay in touch with and support others.  James 5.16 says, “The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.”  The listserv helps us know what to pray for.

Jason led a very specific prayer time the other night.  It was an elders meeting discussing, among other things, the Book of Church Order (BCO) of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA).  Our opening prayer time appropriately focused on Chapter 8, The Elder.  We read the first four paragraphs, and then prayed for each other that our lives and service would reflect what we had read.  The instructions were to review the descriptions, definitions, and admonitions and pray for one another in light of what we read.

There was a similar reaction to these paragraphs as one has when reading the qualifications for elders in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 – these goals are too lofty, I can never measure up.  So it was right to pray, recognizing our helplessness and need for a mighty God who provides wisdom, assistance and good gifts in abundance.

Jason noted that the BCO, although written in the 1970s, draws from a long heritage of such documents in Presbyterian history.   Accordingly, there is wisdom in the pages.  As the Westminster Confession of Faith makes clear in its first chapter, the BCO (and the WCF itself, for that matter) do not have the same level of authority as the Bible, but it is still a trustworthy guide. An additional prayer of our is that PCA elders and members pay attention to all three (WCF, BCO, and especially the Bible) for many decades and centuries into the future.

Often at our 7:00 AM Tuesday morning prayer meeting the leader will bring a handout with bible verses, lists of suggested prayer topics or needs, and a few instructions.  The last couple of weeks Laura added a new feature – pictures!

The general topic has been praying for leaders – government, university, corporate, church.  The handout contained more than titles – the names of the President, our Senators and Representatives, the Governor, Mayor, Supreme Court justices, pastors and other leaders were all named.  The bonus feature: there were pictures of some of the people we were praying for!  It added a human touch to the titles we learned in high school government classes.

One of the segments in a recent Sunday evening prayer service was a time to pray for specific people who are not believers in Jesus Christ.  The instruction was simply stated, “Call out the names of family members, friends, neighbors, co-workers, and others that you suspect do not yet have a saving faith.”

We spent some fifteen minutes doing just that. It was impressive that many of the hundred or so people gathered spoke the names of loved ones and acquaintances.  Some prayers mentioned the relationship as well as the name. There were many phrases used in the requests – Open their eyes; call them to yourself; fill them with your Spirit; find them on your list of the elect; cause them to be born again – but each prayer was a heartfelt plea for a lost soul.  This was a good gauge of the burden our congregation feels for unbelievers and our understanding that God the creator is the providential, sovereign decision maker in all conversions.

Other prayers were also offered, for us to do our part as witnesses to the good news and for specific outreach ministries and workers for the harvest.   It was comforting to lay all these requests before the One who can answer.