What’s in this Episode?

There’s all kinds of stereotypes about prayer meetings. I mean, some people think they’re long, they’re boring, they’re too sleepy. And then there’s other people who think that they’re wild and they’re out of control. Well, is it possible that there could be another way? And why should we even have prayer meetings in the first place? Well, stay tuned, because in this episode, we’re going to talk about just that.

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Read the Transcript

Dick Hardy 0:17
Had a pastor friend that I’d become close to over the last number of years, and I remember him talking to me about his church and prayer. In the human sense, people would look at his church and say, oh, this is a pretty successful deal. He’s got this thing going. And he told me of a time back a number of years ago, where he remembered being in a gathering of pastors, where a pastor spoke on the subject of the church being called a house of prayer. And this pastor friend of mine said, “you know, my church or the church I’m privileged to serve could be called a lot of things, a lot of great things. And people prayed, but it could not be accused of being a house of prayer.” And that was a convicting moment for that pastor. And he began a journey, to begin to inculcate prayer and corporate prayer into the body of the church. So that was a great, real life illustration of what it means when the church and the pastor specifically will realize my house needs to be called a house of prayer.

Jonathan Hardy 1:37
Well, and that’s really important, because I mean, it’s all about our dependence on God in in prayer. And I mean, we’re not doing church, we’re not reaching people for no reason. And just you know, flippantly was like, well, we’re doing this because this is what God wants, and if this is what he wants, we need to depend on him to make it happen. And I mean, if you’ve listened to Church Tips long enough at all, or any of the stuff we’ve put together at leaders dot church, you’re very familiar with Dick and my desire for pastors and churches to be dependent on God in prayer. And so today we want to share with you three reasons that you should have corporate prayer at your church. Now we’re gonna refer to this corporate prayer as prayer meetings. But we know prayer meetings have, might have a stigma, it has a, you have a maybe a past experience of prayer meetings. Don’t necessarily box it into what it was or you know, some specific thing. We’ll actually probably do another episode, we need to another episode about breaking down in 21st century with the society that we live in, at least in the United States. How can you have corporate prayer that people actually want to be a part of and then…

Dick Hardy 2:46
And, you know, we can do an episode two on stereotypes of prayer meetings, and we probably would have way too much fun with that one.

Jonathan Hardy 2:52
But so anyway, in reference today, we’re talking about you know, it could be a worship and prayer night or you know, whatever, but anyway, we’re gonna be talking in terms of prayer meetings because we’re referencing corporate prayer. So anyway, kick us off.

Reason #1: Prayer Meetings Are Exponential Ministry Multipliers

Dick Hardy 3:05
First one. Prayer meetings. Here’s what prayer meetings will do. Prayer meetings are exponential ministry multipliers. Now what do I mean by that? So you put these big words together here. When a church prays, it will see more people getting saved. The church will see more of God’s grace on that which it does. The church will experience more of his presence, and God will help the church. The more the body prays together, the more you’re going to be able to see the Lord multiply ministry and it will happen exponentially the longer you do it. There’s a layering effect of prayer, where prayer upon prayer upon prayer will do things that you would never have imagined otherwise.

Reason #2: Prayer Meetings Teach People To Pray

Dick Hardy 3:54
Number two, prayer meetings teach people to pray. Now I get a little aggressive with This one but I’ve had pastors tell me, “well are our people know how to pray.” And this is exactly what I say to them and they don’t get too ticked off. But your people don’t know how to pray. You don’t know. You don’t know how to pray. I don’t know how to pray. We’re all learning to pray. The prayer meetings set the stage for people to learn to pray. When you start going through Scripture, you’re teaching the body and you’re teaching yourself. You’re teaching your leaders. People learn to pray, by what? Praying. You can’t just talk about prayer. You need to pray. The pastor can demonstrate prayer in real time. When you’ve got the body together, you literally can demonstrate prayer real time and this again is going to be part of what we’ll talk about in one of these future episodes, and you’re going to debunk the prayer stereotypes. Don’t again, I’m going to reinforce, don’t get stuck in what you remember them to be. You teach prayer, as Scripture teaches us to pray, and if you’ll do this, you’ll help the body move into a biblical communion with God that they’ve never experienced, because you’re teaching them to pray. And the third one, Jonathan.

Reason #3: People Will Never Share Your Vision Until They Pray With You

Jonathan Hardy 5:12
Yeah, the third one is that people will never share your vision until they pray with you. And that’s, you know, there’s just something about a unification that happens, where when people are praying together, they’re united together. Yeah, you know, the more you pray for your spouse, the more you’re united to your spouse. In fact, when you don’t pray for… or when, you know, if you ever have, you know, a disagreement, whether it’s with your spouse or other people where you have conflict, and then you pray for those people, it helps. It helps you. It helps unify you, it helps to bring back that unity. And so the same thing is true, as it relates to the vision that God maybe has given you as the pastor that you feel led from the Lord to be doing things. Well, when you start getting people praying with you, then all of a sudden, they’re buying into the vision that God has for the church as a whole. And so prayer helps unify, it helps to create this. And so, you know, I mean, I guess, you know, it just unites the hearts of people. And it helps people be on the same page. And then you can lead with vision, and you can continue to move, or make the decisions that you feel like the Lord is leading you to make because you’ve got the body praying in unison with you. And that’s huge. And in fact, we talked a little bit about this and some other things in Episode 22, which if you haven’t listened to that, I would encourage you to do that. And we talk, it’s similar but different, on why corporate prayer is a critical church growth principle. And so if you haven’t listened to that, you want to make sure to check that one out. And these three things will be helpful for you as you look… if you don’t have something in place now, hopefully this will help create a compelling reason why you need to start moving in this direction, because corporate prayer is a must. It’s huge.

Recap:

Jonathan Hardy 7:04
So let me recap real quick, three things. The three reasons to have prayer meetings. First is the prayer meetings are exponential ministry multipliers. Second is that prayer meetings teach people to pray. And then the third thing is that people will never share your vision until they pray with you.

Dick Hardy 7:20
That’s good. That’s good.

Jonathan Hardy 7:22
Well, anything else, Dick?

Dick Hardy 7:23
No, I think if you’ll take to heart these things we just talked about, you’re gonna see very, very good things happen at your church. We appreciate you watching this or listening to this podcast. If you haven’t subscribed, we encourage you on whatever platform you’re listening to that you would subscribe to the Church Tips podcast, and certainly on YouTube, click the subscribe as well because it just allows us to get the content to you in a regular fashion, be sure to share this with others. And rate and review. If you’ll be kind enough to do this. We’ve got a guy, Spencer, here who reviewed us. “Always relevant and applicable. One of the things I love about Leaders.Church is the practicality of what they share and the resources they provide. This podcast is no different. It’s real life information you could put into place and put into practice.” Thank you, Spencer. That’s very kind of you. And so if you rate review us, who knows? Maybe we’ll have your review on one of the future Church Tips, podcasts. Anything else, Jonathan?

Jonathan Hardy 8:23
That’s it. Thank you so much for being with us today and we’ll look forward to seeing you next time. Be blessed.

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