9 Ways to Strengthen Prayer in Your Church
Note: This topic of strengthening prayer in your church is one of eleven essential elements for maximizing discipleship in your church described in Dr. Randy Wollf's video course, Developing a Discipleship Strategy for Your Church.
It’s five years from now. Amazingly, your church has grown incredibly in the area of prayer. People are setting aside time each day to pray. They’re worshipping Him throughout the day. You see life groups and ministry groups making prayer a central part of their group time. You see a church where God is doing amazing things as He responds to the prayers of His people.
Sound exciting? How do we realize this kind of vision? Here are nine ways to strengthen prayer in your church:
#1 – Enlarge People’s Vision for Prayer
How do we challenge people to grow deeper in prayer? Preaching and teaching on prayer can definitely help. In addition, here is an idea that can blow away people’s conceptions about how God can respond to prayer today. Tell people about some of the spiritual revivals that have happened over the past 300 years (for starters, see The Role of Prayer in Spiritual Awakening video or text version). Knowing how God has responded to concerted, extraordinary prayer in the recent past can inspire us to pray in focused and persistent ways today.
#2 – Equip People to Pray
Most Christians know how to ask God for stuff. Yet, do we truly practice thankfulness, confession, and adoration of God? Do we realize deep down that the goal is not just to pray for a set period each day (as good as that is), but to develop a lifestyle of prayer?