Prayer in the Church

In the years before I retired, I invited Terry Teykl to come to the church I was serving to lead a Prayer Conference.  In 1987 he sensed God calling him to lead the church in growing its prayer ministries which involved creating room for prayer.  Even now I remember the fervor and power of the Spirit that he brought to our congregation.  One of the things I learned as I sought to make prayer a priority in the life of the churches for which I was responsible was that it was easy to create a prayer room but it was another matter to enable it to be a place from which prayer originated.    

For those seeking such a ministry, know that there will be much enthusiasm in the process of planning, organizing the room, and getting it ready for use, but its use will be determined not by the enthusiasm of a beginning.  It will be a powerful place of prayer only if there are a core of people who believe strongly in such a ministry existing within the church.  It may seem strange to say that such a core is necessary when it would seem that everyone would be an advocate for praying, but a prayer room ministry requires people who are committed to pray by getting on their knees.  

The church does many things well, but for some reason, praying seems to be one of its more difficult tasks and one that often never gets beyond just listing some prayer concerns in the Sunday bulletin.  Unfortunately, praying does not excite the masses within the church.  What is likely to be true is that a strong prayer ministry will happen after some discouragement, a lot of perseverance, and enough praying to infuse it with the power of the Holy Spirit.