The most important thing is that we are gathering regularly as God’s people to seek His face, ask His blessing, and thank Him for the manifold gifts He has given to us as a church. A right view of God assisted by the Holy Spirit will lead to warm, joyful, and vibrant practice, which includes regular evangelism, a commitment to world and domestic missions, church planting, and vibrant prayer meetings.
As Reformed and Presbyterian Christians, we believe in prayer. We may not be as good at it as we want to be, but every true believer will yearn to spend time with the Lord. This is true of private prayer, but it it’s also true of corporate prayer.
The early church is a good example of this. On the day of Pentecost, we see the church “with one accord in prayer and supplication, with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with His brothers” (Acts 1:14-15). Later on, we see them praying again, this time in the face of persecution: “And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness” (Acts 4:31). Thus, we are not surprised to find out that corporate prayer was one of the distinctives of the early disciples: “And they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers” (Acts 2:42).
Although corporate prayer has always been an important element of the church, it is no secret that many of our prayer meetings are boring, dry, and slow. It is also no secret that they are typically very poorly attended. We can’t help the latter, but we can certainly do something about the former. And who knows, maybe implementing a few tips or rules just might help the attendance factor.
Below are nine helps that have guided our prayer meetings for the last several years, with more or less “success.” I use the word success loosely, knowing that ultimately the Holy Spirit must bless our meetings with His presence if we are to truly call it a success. After all, we aren’t just lobbing up words into the void in order to check a box. The purpose of corporate prayer is to meet with God as His people. However, that doesn’t mean we can’t use a little sanctified common sense when approaching such meetings. If you find these helps useful, great. Use them as you wish. If they’re not helpful, that’s okay too. There is no hard and fast rule when it comes to such meetings, so long as we are doing it. But these pointers have come from both experience (good and bad) and my personal study of the subject.