The notorious…. prayer meeting. For me the mere phrase conjures up a vision a group of old ladies circled up in a basement gossiping about the people in the church who need prayer. “Ole Johnny really needs prayer because you know what he’s been doing….”
As someone in full-time worship & prayer ministry for years, I have attended and led hundreds of prayer meetings. Quite a few of them, if not most of them, were bad (including many that I was leading or hosting). By bad I mean lifeless, awkward, boring or even prayerless.
So from personal experience, here are some great ways to ruin a prayer meeting.
1. Do not start on time
It is hard enough to get people to show up to a prayer meeting at all, better yet to arrive on time. So if you continuously start late, then people will feel justified in arriving late. Then people will start to show up even later and later because it seems pointless to arrive in a timely fashion. Even if there’s only two people there, go ahead and start on time. Folks will learn that when you say 7am, you mean 7am, and if they show up late then they will miss part of the meeting.
2. Skip the prayer part
Not praying can come in multiple forms…
- The meeting gets cancelled. Sometimes I show up to an advertised prayer time and the entire prayer meeting has been cancelled for a staff meeting or other activity. Unfortunately prayer always seems to be one of the first things to get cancelled when there’s a scheduling conflict. If you schedule a prayer meeting with the Lord, keep it!
- The meeting is spent on things other than prayer. I can not tell you how many times I have showed up to attend a prayer meeting and spent very little time actually praying. Maybe 90% of the time is spent talking about “prayer requests” and 10% of the meeting is given to actually talking to God. I have been to men’s “prayer meetings” that are actually just morning coffee and hangout time. Some “prayer meetings” are really just Bible studies or small groups. If you are hosting a prayer meeting, then spend 90% or more of the time interacting and communicating with God. Enough of our lives are spent on other endeavors. If we set aside time to be with the Lord, let’s do it!
- Everyone is too shy to pray so much of the meeting is awkward silence. This is usually a result of poor leadership & planning (see point #3), a lack of focus (see point #4) or a lack of teaching (see point #7).
3. Go unprepared & leaderless
This is by far one of the most important points on the list. A good prayer meeting has been planned and is focused. Church’s plan their preaching, their worship, their youth ministry and special events. Why do we think we should not plan our prayer meetings?
Leaders should be able to clearly answer these questions, and those in attendance should know how to properly engage in the meeting.
What are we praying for? Is the whole prayer meeting focused on one topic or are we jumping around? Who is leading and directing the meeting? Is prayer being spoken by the leaders or is everyone to jump in and prayer? How long should people pray at one time?
I have found that when the purpose and format of the meetings is planned and clearly communicated, people are a lot more bold to engage and participate.
4. Just pray whatever comes to mind
Tagging onto the previous point, prayer meetings should be focused. One of the biggest challenges to enjoyable prayer is pure randomness. One minute the guy with the shofar is praying for Israel and then the next minute Sally is praying for aunt Suzy’s sick grandma’s and then the pastor chimes in with a prayer for the upcoming evangelistic crusade. Wait… what are we praying for again? Random prayer meetings without focus are confusing. When I attend a meeting like this my default response is to shut down and disengage. Since I do not know what exactly we are to be praying for, I do not know how to jump in, come into agreement or participate.
The prayer meeting organizer can either chose one prayer focus for the whole prayer meeting – such as the church’s needs, Israel, revival in your city, salvation of the youth, etc. – or break the prayer meeting up into 15-20 minute segments and pray for a few topics in one gathering. The key is to stay focused on only one topic per segment. If you cover multiple prayer targets in one meeting, be sure to have a bold leader (see point #3) who is announcing the prayer targets and helping people refocus when they inevitably get off topic.
5. Be loud and dominate the meeting
Especially within Pentecostal and charismatic circles (my circles), it is common to find people who pray loudly and aggressively. While I am not opposed to praying boldly and loudly (see Acts 4:24), I find that someone who is unusually loud and dominating can really stifle a good prayer meeting.
God does not hear loud prayers more than quiet prayers. Certain people’s experience and personalities push them towards praying more quietly. We need to create a prayer culture than invites everyone to participate, engage with God and pray in an honest way. If the loud, aggressive prayers are seen as more spiritual or powerful in our prayer meetings, then we need to take some time to validate the value of quiet prayer and encourage timid folks to join in. And we might need to ask the dominating personalities to tone it down in the name of love for their brothers and sisters who are in the prayer meeting with them.
Another factor in this is simply praying too long. Jesus’ longest recorded prayer (John 17) only takes a few minutes to read. I find that prayers that are about 1-3 minutes work great, with about five minutes being the limit before people start zoning out from the rambling.
6. Leave your Bible at home
Learning to use Bible-based prayers is one of the best things that individuals or groups can do when it comes to prayer.
- Praying the Bible grounds our prayers theologically. I have heard quite a few prayers that were spoken that were downright unbiblical. Forcing ourselves to pray from the Scriptures helps us orient our prayers in the truth of God’s word. We do not ask for what we want but for what God wants.
- Praying the Bible unites the Church. This is especially helpful when praying with Christians from multiple churches or denominations. All Christians agree on the authority of God’s word, and praying Bible prayers gives us common ground from which to cry out to God together.
- Praying the Bible gives us language. Many times we do not know what to pray or how to pray. When we pray from the Bible we always have something to say. If we’re having a bad day or our mind is scattered, we can just flip open our Bibles and speak God’s word back to Him. We always have language for our prayers.
Below I have provided a PDF of some new testament prayers of the apostles called “apostolic prayers.” This list was compiled by Mike Bickle and is a fantastic resource to help you begin praying the Bible. At our prayer meetings, we always had copies of these apostolic prayers available for people.
Free resource —-> Apostolic Prayers PDF
6. Whatever you do… don’t sing or worship
Without a doubt, the best prayer meetings I have ever attended were worship-based prayer meetings. Musical worship and intercession flow together in the heavenly throne room (Revelation 5:8), and adding musical worship to your prayer times is a great way to add joy to a meeting. When we draw near to God in worship, He gives us His heart, and we can pray back His desires to Him (this is called intercession). Here are some ways to incorporate musical worship in a prayer meeting.
- Open up the prayer meeting with 10-20 minutes of music worship. A live worship leader is great, but recordings are fine as well.
- If you have a worship leader, have them continue to play their instrument as you pray (or keep recorded worship music playing quietly). This helps “fill the gap” and creates a sense of “flow” between the worship and different prayers. The rhythm of music also helps people focus and get less distracted.
- If you are feeling really adventurous, have the worship leader or other singers echo the prayer with spontaneous songs and choruses – singing the prayers that have been prayed.
7. Do not teach or train
Jesus’ disciples did not ask how to do miracles or heal for the sick or walk on water. They asked Jesus how to pray. It is amazing that we expect people to intuitively know how to pray without any kind of teaching or training. Teaching people to pray can happen multiple ways. Learning by example is a fabulous way for prayer to be “caught” rather than just taught. Obviously pastors can teach on the value and biblical basis of prayer on a Sunday morning. Those who lead prayer meetings could also take a short time (5-10 minutes max) at the beginning of a prayer meeting and give a short teaching and exhortation to help people learn how to pray. We can also provide books, videos and resources to people in our communities. Mike Bickle’s book Growing in Prayer would be a great resource to provide to people.
No More Ruined Prayer Meetings
Dear prayer friends… let us do our best not ruin anymore prayer meetings!