Advice and instruction for prayer meetings?

[Chad Hutson]

We are a "Reforming" Baptist Church. Located in an area that is devoid of Reformed Theology, our church has embraced the Doctrines of Grace and the Sovereignty of God in Salvation. We are slowly but surely reforming our worship. We have a designated meeting for corporate prayer, but I would love to receive advice and/or instruction on how others hold prayer meetings. Currently, our men lead in public prayer, one at a time while the group at-large prays silently.
Any suggestions, corrections, improvements?

 

[Reformed Covenanter]

Thomas Houston's book on the subject may be of interest to you (Houston is the guy in my profile picture).

 

[Joshua]

We have a mid-week voluntary meeting on Wednesdays wherein folks are welcome to gather. We sing a Psalm, have a brief exhortation (around 5 minutes or so) from scripture, then one of the church officers prays for a list of "big ticket" items (usually things with regard to our culture at large), then do another revolution of the same. Here is an example of an order:

https://ccrpcorg.s3.amazonaws.com/Prayer Meeting/Prayer Meeting 06-05-2019.pdf

 

[Ryan&Amber2013]

We are a "Reforming" Baptist Church. Located in an area that is devoid of Reformed Theology, our church has embraced the Doctrines of Grace and the Sovereignty of God in Salvation. We are slowly but surely reforming our worship. We have a designated meeting for corporate prayer, but I would love to receive advice and/or instruction on how others hold prayer meetings. Currently, our men lead in public prayer, one at a time while the group at-large prays silently.
Any suggestions, corrections, improvements?

We have a sheet of paper covering a wide variety of prayers - presbytery, members, persecuted church, worship, kingdom advancement, etc. Lately we have been doing a few circles of about 10 people, and we each have a turn to pray for whatever we want, mainly from the list though. Everyone prays, and the whole circle will say amen together when one is finished praying. We pray for half an hour between morning and evening service. We typically open up with a responsive reading from the Psalms, most of the time dealing with adoration, confession, thanksgiving, and then move to supplication with the prayer sheet.

 

[Jack K]

Twice in my life I've been part of a church that had a strong, well-attended prayer meeting people really wanted to attend. There were a few common characteristics:

- The meetings were not just all prayer. There was much prayer, but prayer was broken up by the occasional song, Scripture reading, report on mission efforts, etc. The meetings moved along and felt shorter than they actually were.

- Prayer had a personal and relational element because a good chunk of the time was spent praying for people in the congregation (or perhaps visiting missionaries and such) who were there to be prayed for. You felt like you had missed out on participating in the work and ministry of the church, and didn't know what was going on with folks, if you missed these prayer meetings. Interestingly, both of these churches included a time to pray for the children present, by name in small groups.

- There were opportunities for anyone to participate aloud, but no feeling that anyone had to. The awkwardness of wondering if you'd be expected to pray aloud, and what you might say and how it might be received, just wasn't there.

- Probably most importantly: there was an underlying culture of prayer in both of these churches. They were places where you were likely to run into little groups of praying people even when there wasn't an official prayer meeting going on. It was not unusual for any conversation with anyone in leadership to include a brief (or sometimes not-so-brief) prayer for the matter you were discussing. So the prayer meetings felt like an extension of a church life you already knew, rather than a forced activity you were pulled into because you knew you should be doing it. I suspect that before a pastor can launch a great prayer meeting, he needs to be a constantly-praying pastor outside of such meetings.