I love praying. I love being with people who love to pray! I understand tho, that sometimes prayer meetings have become boring! So..I wrote this message and shared in our church last year. It's definitely meant to be 'tongue and cheek'...but at the same time, hopefully, helps us laugh at ways we've come to prayer meetings and NOT prayed!...So read on...The title is ' Nine Great Ways to Ruin a Prayer Meeting'..I hope you like it! ** any resemblance to people you know, is purely accidental!
Corporate Prayer
9 easy ways to ruin a Corporate Prayer meeting...
or
3 easy
ways to make it successful
Obviously
most of you here probably already know about prayer, or have been in lots of
prayer meeting – or at least enough, that you don’t want to hear me teach you
(again), on what a good prayer meeting is. SO...I’ve decided to start this
message with 9 great ways to ruin a Corporate Prayer meeting – just in case you
were tired of making a corporate prayer meeting exciting, i thought I’d give
you some tips on how to make it boring.
The 9 easy
ways to ruin a prayer meeting are: in no particular order..
1.
Don’t pray. Come out to a corporate
prayer meeting – sit with your arms crossed and don’t open your mouth.
Remember that body language has it’s own
message, so feel free to position yourself in such a way that while not being
out rightly in opposition to whoever has decided to call this meeting – you can
gently let them know you are not going to be cajoled into praying out loud.
After all, you can pray in your head...and God CAN hear your heart and your
thoughts...so WHY should you pray out loud just because someone told you to.
Stay silent...it will definitely bring about
the desired effect in at least some
of the others present, and hopefully they will too, get a sense that they
should be quiet also.
Remember, come as a spectator, not as a
participant – let your only contribution be, that you are adding another body
to the numbers – which hopefully will shrink soon – this way you’re guaranteed
to be guilt free when you hear the meeting as shut down. After all, you did
your part.
2.
Come prepared to pray as if
you were in your personal prayer closet.
This particularly good for
those that don’t like to pray with others – you can pray all by yourself, for
the entire meeting. If someone else should jump in and pray something else,
just pick up where you left off . Remember that you have had hours of practice
at home alone, and this is everyone’s chance to be in agreement with you.
Plus,
don’t downplay the fact that you have ALOT of things to share, and you might
not come next week, so it’s always best to pray everything you know in one
go....you’ll never know when you might get a chance again.
3.
Focus on your needs, and
the needs of the others present.
It is true, that some people come to corporate prayer meetings,
wanting to pray about „the bigger picture‟. Well, that’s so
over-rated. We all know that God is in charge and can take care of the
church...but if we don’t focus people to pray
for US – who else will?!
Definitely
keep the flow of prayer focused on individual needs and ministry- when else
will all these people be together again – so better use them now.
Remember also, if you are at all prophetic or
a burden bearer, you owe it to the Lord and the group, to function in your
gift, and let them know that you are aware of the needs in the room – and get
the personal ministry started as soon as possible.
People may ask you to wait til the corporate
prayer meeting is over to start personal prayer...but remind them that God
wouldn’t have shown you the need in the room, if He didn’t want us to pray
about it right then – and just redirect the prayer to the need or needs that
you’re aware of. I’m sure everyone will pray for the bigger picture another
time.
4.
Teach while you pray.
This is
often a personal favorite for many of us who feel they don’t get asked to share
their knowledge often enough with others, or in church.
Take
advantage of the corporate prayer meeting to explain your prayers to the group
and the revelation God gave to you about them. After all, God already knows
what He showed you, but the group needs
to hear. AND..make sure you remember
important details, such the exact time, place, day of the month and year, as
well as where you were, what you were wearing, the house you were in at the
time, and it’s color scheme, plus what you ate for dinner on that night, and
who you were with, WHEN you got this
particular revelation – those details could change how a person hears or
receives the revelation you are about to share. The more irrelevant details you
share, the better!
Don’t
forget too, that while YOU have had
revelation from God, it’s your job to make sure the others also now get that revelation.
Teaching
while you pray, can also be an effective tool in getting a message across to
others in the room, that you disagree with them, the way they pray, or just
them as a person . Don’t believe the teaching that you should go and talk to
them in private, when dealing with it
publicly is so much more effective
and time efficient; you can teach, get a message across AND rebuke someone all
at the same time – definitely a time management skill .
5.
Silence is golden.
While many teachers on corporate prayer will
tell you that verbal agreement is important – that is only true if you wanting
to encourage those that are praying! Remember that verbalizing agreement is
only going to encourage others, as well as possibly draw you into the prayers,
cause you to concentrate more..and possibly excite you, and those around you.
So...keep
as quiet as possible, it will help the meeting to end faster..and hopefully
quiet down those otherwise irritating people, who just keep praying outloud !
Long
periods of silence are essential to intimidate those people who feel they need
to pray without ceasing or pray outloud!
It also helps turn the prayer meeting into more a listening prayer
experience, than intercession.
Intercession is all about praying on behalf of others, and if we can keep people focused on themselves, or on what God is saying to
them, it will help cut down on those ones who want to actually interceed and
pray in agreement with the others present – such an irritating habit!
Again...verbalizing any type of encouragement
( such as 'yes', 'amen'..'good'..or clapping
) , will just keep these people praying!
6.
Use Wooden prayers, or
"fill in the gap‟ prayers.
While
many people try to encourage us to just pray what’s on our heart – heck those
prayers can get really carried away and passionate. Remember we are hoping to
be in and out in an hour...so keep control of the prayer – don’t let it get out
of hand. Written out, prayers by rote can keep things on track and stop those
"Holy Spirit " prayer people who are
wanting to be led by the Spirit, or just start praying out whatever they sense
God is telling them. Controlling the
prayers will enable us to keep to a timetable.
7.
Let the prayer meeting drag
on.
Don’t
believe the teaching that is out there that says an hour prayer meeting is a
good idea. If you can let the meeting have a) no definite start time, or
b) end time..and c)you let it go
as long as you feel the anointing is present, (at least in you ) – you are guaranteed a longer than needed prayer
meeting. This will be a non issue if you’ve managed to keep the other 6 points.
Most people will come to a prayer meeting that
starts on time and ends on time. So try to keep everyone waiting for the latest
person...as well as keeping everyone extra long, will ensure many will not
commit to coming out the next week.
This is
particularly effective in keeping working people away, or those that need to
get up early in the morning. These people have already come tired, so if you
can draw the meeting out, you will be helping to send them the message that
they will be even more tired when they go home.
Allowing
the prayer time to be constantly disrupted with personal stories, teaching
times, or explanations of dreams, visions or recent Prophetic words you
received on the internet or ten years ago,
will also help use up the allotted prayer time and cause the hour to go
longer. This particular tool can also help in lulling the already tired prayer
warriors into a catatonic state, or cause them to begin to day dream or doze
off in a short nap. This embarrassment alone (especially if snoring is
involved) , should stop them from coming back.
8.
Don‟t pray specific or
concrete prayers.
Keep things vague. Remember to give God as many ”outs” as possible for not answering your prayers – after all, He is
God, and you wouldn’t want to take Him at His word, or declare something He’s
promised or spoken – He may change His mind, and you wouldn’t want to cause Him
to look bad – or make yourself look foolish !
Pray with
as much uncertainty as possible, always injecting words like:’ maybe’ , ‘ if You’...’You don’t have
to’......’This is probably a bad prayer’....or ...’This probably isn’t You but’
.....Those types of phrases and prayers, will certainly cause those in the
group who continually keep praying out with ridiculous faith, to step back and
take a hard realistic look at the growing possibility that we are
wrong......God is probably not interested ..And we’re just lucky we’re still
breathing!
Remind
those people in your meeting that keep
pulling out or reading scriptures, that
they need to realize that no one
can understand God, and that we
can’t take the bible literally AND besides
those promises were for then, not now! Some people make take numerous
reminders of this, but persevere!
If you
don’t take charge of the situation quickly, some of these incessant people who
actually LOVE to pray may start declaring or standing on promises they think
He’s spoken to them or to the church – which will just stir people up. Quickly
jump in if that happens, and remind people that we don’t have to all excited or
emotional AND that you don’t want people to be excited about things that may
never happen. After all, let’s keep their feet firmly planted on the ground.
Praying
vague prayers will help give God lots of room to not answer, and keep
„us‟ from actually anticipating God to move on our behalf. People who get
expectant or have anticipation of God to actually DO something, will become a
disruptive force in a prayer meeting – which we wouldn’t want , right??
9.
Last, but not
least...because we are in no particular order –
Keep
things quiet and respectful. Displays of passion must be dealt with immediately
or others may begin to be effected by them.
Remember
that if we MUST pray out loud, it should be quiet, controlled, solemn voice.
What is with these people who insist on getting emotional! We are PRAYING
people – PRAYING!! Not having fun! This is serious business – remember that!
While others may tell you that there are „’flows’ to a prayer meeting – times when
things are quieter, and times when it should get louder – do not believe them. If
you are a quiet personality, then you know, that
it is the only way to pray..and in fact may be why God created prayer
meetings – so that we could all be quiet and unemotional. I mean..it has worked
in monasteries for centuries!
Remind those that get excited ( and loud) that
God is not deaf..and they need to be quiet..or at least quieter – we
wouldn’t want to give people the impression that prayer is fun or lively –
let’s keep it serious people!
And
what’s with those ones that want to cry when they pray? At all costs, deal with
these ones. They are getting way too emotional and may end up
causing other to get in touch with the heart or Love of God – this can
absolutely ruin a well structured and quiet prayer meeting. Besides that...it's just embarrassing and
definitely NOT manly!
The Love
of God can cause laughter, a release of joy, exuberance, passion, faith to move
mountains, prophecy and the list goes on...AND it can also cause repentance,
weeping – all of which can be noisy .
Sooooo...remind
people that prayer is not about our emotions – God is not deaf . If they need a
visual to help them, get them to picture praying in a library
- that should keep the lid on things! Remember, if you let a prayer meeting get
out of control and be lively or passionate, you are just going to keep
attracting people who want to pray - and we wouldn’t want that, would we?
So...if
we can follow those 9 points, I’m sure we can manage to keep corporate
intercession from regaining a hold in our church, and many others. After
all..we’re doing fine so far....and why fix what aint‟ broke, right?
** Next week: 3 ways to make a GREAT prayer meeting! Stay tuned!
