Church Coming Together to Pray

A blessing for more than three decades – that’s my sincere testimony about our church’s mid-week gathering for the study of God’s Word and prayer – which we commonly refer to as ‘Church Prayer Meeting’. On Tuesday nights (8 pm), as we regularly met together, we rejoiced in the Lord as we sang our hymns, meditated on God’s Word and prayed together.

Church Prayer Meeting Resumed

However, the COVID safe measures hindered our gathering; the result was that we met online for the church prayer meeting. Though our online meetings were held efficiently and orderly, they lacked the joy of us coming together as a congregation to have fellowship with our God and one another. Besides, it had been very tedious to plan and hold the online prayer meeting.

Now that we are allowed to meet physically (with the safety protocols), the Church Prayer Meeting is being held again in the SingPost auditorium every Tuesday night. We urge all the church members and friends to come together for our prayer meeting and be blessed by the blessed ministry of the Holy Spirit amongst us through hymn-singing, meditation of the Word, prayer and fellowship.

Church Prayer Meeting Webcast Halted

As announced some time ago, the live webcast of the Church Prayer Meeting has been halted. The webcast of the entire meeting was made available only because of the mandated restrictions to our physical gatherings. The proper practice is that believers ought to come together in one place for the meetings. It is the Scriptural injunction and pattern that the church members get together to pray. Secondly, it is improper and unwise to share over the internet the prayer items that we mention amongst ourselves during the prayer meeting. Nonetheless, members can listen to the sermons preached during the prayer meeting from Bible Witness Web Radio’s ‘Faithful Men’ segment (available from the on-demand page).

Church: A People in Prayer

“These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication…” (Acts 1:14). True Christians (not pretentious) within the church have always been fond of coming together to pray. The church recorded in the Scriptures has always been characterised by prayer gatherings of her members. The church’s legacy in the New Testament portrays it as wholly given to prayer to give thanks to God and to plead for the Gospel work, the preachers, the fellow believers. Though faced with many treacherous circumstances, the church thrived everywhere by the continuous engagement of her people in prayer.

The record of the early church in the Book of Acts alone mentions prayer to God in heaven about 50 times. Most of the recorded prayers in Acts are public prayers, though a few are private ones, such as Cornelius’ prayer. The prayers recorded in the first four chapters of Acts are all public prayers led by the apostles. Various people offered the prayers in this book: Christ’s disciples in general (1:13-14), new believers (2:42), apostles (6:4; 8:15), a deacon (7:59-60), leaders of a church (13:3), a centurion (10:4), the concerned brethren of a church (12:5), women (16:13), a repenting persecutor of believers (9:5), etc. The book of the Acts of the Apostles also records prayers of people in different situations: as the disciples waited for the power of the Spirit (chp. 1), in appointing an apostle (chp. 1), for the releasing of Christ’s witnesses (chp. 4), at death (chp. 7), on a journey (chp. 9), when believers were still in prison (chps 12, 16), while thrusting missionaries forth (chp. 13), in strengthening churches (chp. 14), when fasting and praying (chps 13, 14), while facing persecution (chp. 16), in bidding goodbye (chp. 20), and in thanking God for food (chp. 27), etc. Indeed, prayer is strategic in Acts – from close to the start (1:14) to near the end (28:15)!

Church Prayer Meeting & Its Benefits

There are some unique practical benefits when church members pray together. Though more can be listed as benefits of praying together, a few are listed below:

• Coming together to pray helps brethren to encourage one another to seek the LORD and His blessings (cf. Acts 2:46-47; Hebrews 10:24-25). We also will be encouraged by others’ exhortations and examples.
• Coming together to pray unites the congregation. Praying together creates a deep feeling of belonging, resulting in strengthened fellowship and solidarity of the church. The brotherhood within a church that prays together will be healthy and vibrant.
• Coming together to pray enables the church to receive the Spirit’s guidance to identify and ordain godly leaders (cf. Acts 1:24; 6:6).
• Coming together to pray enables the church to seek, find and send Gospel workers for the soul harvest locally and abroad (cf. Matt. 9:38; Acts 13:2-3).
• Coming together to pray opens our hearts to the struggles, fears and needs of other brethren and reminds us of our duty to intercede for them, as expected by God (1 Thess 5:25; Gal 6:1-2).
• Coming together to pray provides an opportunity to listen to others pray and improve our attitude, manner and presentation of prayers to God.
• Coming together to pray increases our faith, knowledge, wisdom and discernment as we hear and understand how the will of God is discerned by the pastors, elders, preachers and deacons who pray for various needs, difficulties, problems, etc.
• Coming together to pray comforts and strengthens us in our painful situations as others pray for our nourishment, healing, guidance and steadfastness.
• Coming together to pray grants an increasing sense of responsibility towards one another, the ministries of the church, and all other matters presented in prayer. Thus, each member grows as a part of God’s glorious purposes worked out in and through the church. Besides, the Lord may then show us how we can be the answer to someone’s need and prayer.
• Coming together to pray as individuals and families offers us a unique opportunity to witness the answers to our prayers together. It is like the experience of the Jerusalem church (praying together for Peter who was earlier arrested) that was suddenly taken by surprise when Peter, being miraculously released by God’s angel, went to them while they were still praying (Acts 12:12-17)!

Conclusion

It is downright disobedience and a dishonourable attitude to consider church prayer meetings as not obligatory. Church members and leaders must put off the tendency to think of prayer gatherings as an optional “extra-curricular activity” in the church’s life.

When church members come together to pray, they honour God, who Himself has sovereignly ordained the corporate praying of the church. May God, who down through the ages has been pleased to work out His mighty purposes through the churches that have prayed together, also grant us the grace to increase our commitment to pray together and thus be channels of His blessings.