A Bunch of Ways to Pray for Your Church

Prayer shows our dependence on God. It honors Him as the source of all blessing, and it reminds us that seeing individuals converted and growing is God’s work, not ours (1 Cor. 2:14-16; 3:6-7). In our Sunday prayer times as a church (both in the morning and evening gatherings), we had been praying for a number of church wide requests. It is good for us to pray, remember what we've prayed, then stand in awe of how God has answered prayer.

Christ reassures us that if we abide in Him, and His words abide in us, we can ask anything according to His will and know that He will give it to us (John 15:10, 16). 

Though hearing this promise over and over can become trite…we must hear it as that which rouses us from our sleepy prayerlessness and drives us joyfully to our knees. It is good to pray for whole church issues, and personal items. 

Take a moment to recall church wide issues that we have been praying for, and want to be growing in as a church (NOTE: prepare to be encouraged as how God has been answering the prayers of his people over these strange Corona months. He is at work!): 

Outreach & Evangelism

• Pray for our church’s witness of unity in diversity (ages and life stages, ethnicity, various stages and phases of ability or disability, etc.); that we would reflect Trinitarian love and unity to the world (Gal 3:28; Rom 12:4-5; Rev 7:9-10)
• Pray for our daily lives this week at work and at home (2 Cor 5:9). Pray that we would display Christ to our children, love our spouses sacrificially, do good in the world, honor God, and proclaim the gospel faithfully with a desire to see the lost come to know Christ as their greatest joy (Rom 1:16)
• Pray that we would see hospitality (Rom 12:13) as an important part of being a Christian, with discipleship and evangelism driving our efforts.
• Pray that the members of our church will be full of zeal in bearing witness to Christ in our community, (1 John 1:3; Romans 12:2), encouraging one another as participants in the Great Commission of Christ.

Relationships & Discipling

• Pray that members of our church (young and old) would be increasingly faithful to take interest in (Phil 2:4), and ownership of one another’s spiritual health and walks with Christ (Col. 1:28).
• Pray that we would see intentional relationships in the local church as part of what it means to be a Christian. That isolated Christianity would cease, and community flourish.
• Pray that we would understand the need to make our relationships at church transparent, to be willing to share even the most vulnerable things about ourselves and to ask serious questions when needed, that we might grow in holiness and help each other fight sin and for Christ.
• Pray that we would expect conversations with other church members to be deep, and often theological in nature (Ps. 119:18)
• Pray that we would think it important to encourage each other with Scripture (Col. 3:16; 2 Peter 1:12) – so that our intake of sermons, small group studies, and personal Bible study would result in a Word saturated church community that glorifies Christ together (Jas. 1:22).

Service & Sacrifice

• Pray that we would see part of being a Christian as being a provider, and not a consumer. Asking: “how can I care for others?” first, not “who is meeting my needs?”
• Pray that we would not see service in the local church as being primarily about meeting our own felt needs by utilizing our giftedness, but about bringing glory to God and seeing others built up in love.
• Pray that we would see it as unusual when the church isn’t the focal point of much of our energy and ambition – Christ died for a bride. How could we not love his Bride?
• Pray that we would see it as unusual when a member’s life seems to keep the church family on the periphery, and grow increasingly oriented toward life in the Body.

Leadership

• That our elders would be faithful to use Scripture to train members to do the work of ministry
• That our leaders would be devoted to prayer.
• That elders & deacons would remain above reproach, kept from temptation and impurity, complacency, idols, and worldliness.
• That our Deacons would have wisdom in facilitating and assisting the Elders in the spiritual/practical care for the needs of the Body (.
• That for our Elders to be pure, peace loving, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial, and sincere (James 3:17).

How have you been praying for our church, and how have you seen God answering those prayers?

 

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Some of the above is adapted from "The Compelling Community: Where God's Power Makes a Church Attractive" by Mark Dever & Jamie Dunlop