When people pull together in prayer, the results can be astonishing.
The Bible is dotted with stories of people fervently praying as one. The early church grew rapidly as the young believers joined together in bold prayer in the face of persecution.
But that's not just a story for the distant past. It's happening today.
I have written before about one of my modern heroes - Jim Cymbala - and his church, the Brooklyn Tabernacle in New York City. His book Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire describes how God led him to make group prayer the central focus of his struggling congregation and the amazing results in transformed lives.
Now, I am reading Prayer Explosion: Power for Christian Living which again talks about prayer as fundamental to the life of a church - this time, the Kensington Temple in London, England.
Colin Dye, the book's author and senior minister of Kensington Temple, believes that leaders and people need to pray together regularly, seeking what God wants in their church and the world around them.
Kensington Temple has long placed a strong emphasis on group prayer. And, as a result, the church has felt led to evangelize, become involved in serving people in the London area and abroad, and has planted churches and small groups widely.
But, as frequently happens, busy church activities began to intervene and the church's prayer gatherings started suffering. The church "began to lose power and effectiveness".
So Dye and the church leaders realized they had to change their way of thinking and their priorities.
"To do this we needed to know we were moving in the will and way of God," Dye writes. "We needed to be open to receive his focus and direction, not only individually but together as a church."
They approached this by asking God for an understanding of his will in the situation they were in. They knew that God would never ask them to do anything that was contrary to what he has already revealed in the scriptures.
Dye says God will make his will known through reading a particular scripture or hearing a song or a comment from someone. As we are open to God, the Holy Spirit will open our minds to these prompts.
As the church leadership pondered their problem, Dye had a picture in his mind of a house with the pillars crumbling. The Spirit brought to his mind Jesus' words in Mark 11:17: "My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations."
"This scripture then became our 'prayer line', the general thrust of what God was saying to us."
They then looked at what was stopping the church from being a house of prayer. They found "apathy, slumber . . . and the spirit of prayerlessness itself." They prayed against these things.
The church concentrated for nine months on these issues. They prayed this 'prayer line' consistently and intensely throughout.
They spent a great deal of time in praise and thanksgiving, considering this an entrance into God's presence. They pictured the people of the church as a surrounding wall - the walls of salvation - as those who entered the church community would become believers.
They prayed for occultists, drug addicts and gangsters to come to their church "and they started to come in and turn their lives over to God".
Kensington Temple is too large a church to meet in one place - hiring large 10,000 seat halls for joint celebrations. Otherwise, the church meets for prayer in smaller groups - and that suits Colin Dye just fine.
Small groups permit easier sharing "and greater spontaneity in the use of gifts of the Spirit".
At his church, there is strong direction and focus to the prayer gatherings. Leadership, he says, must always be listening to God and gaining a sense of what the Lord wants to do next.
Prayer meetings vary in style - sometimes stressing prayer and thanksgiving, sometimes breaking into small groups for praying about personal needs, sometimes engaging in spiritual warfare.
"There have been times when I've come to lead a meeting with four or five things to pray through and haven't got past the first one," Dye says.
The church has periodic "nights of prayer" where prayer continues throughout the night. Times of prayer are interspersed with segments of teaching and singing.
In Dye's eyes, one of the most powerful aspects of praying together is the "principle of agreement". Jesus makes the point in Matthew 18:18-20 that if two of us agree about anything we ask, the Father will do it for us.
"It is about aligning ourselves corporately with God," Dye writes. "It is not about trying to manipulate him."
He continues: "Our task is to discover the things that are already accomplished in heaven, those things that are planned in the purposes of God!"
This searching for what God wants is characteristic of Kensington Temple.
Another characteristic is that all the church's leaders are involved in prayer - group prayer as well as personal prayer. For Dye, this is vital to the spiritual growth of the body of believers.
Praise God for praying churches!
The Bible is dotted with stories of people fervently praying as one. The early church grew rapidly as the young believers joined together in bold prayer in the face of persecution.
But that's not just a story for the distant past. It's happening today.
I have written before about one of my modern heroes - Jim Cymbala - and his church, the Brooklyn Tabernacle in New York City. His book Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire describes how God led him to make group prayer the central focus of his struggling congregation and the amazing results in transformed lives.
Now, I am reading Prayer Explosion: Power for Christian Living which again talks about prayer as fundamental to the life of a church - this time, the Kensington Temple in London, England.
Colin Dye, the book's author and senior minister of Kensington Temple, believes that leaders and people need to pray together regularly, seeking what God wants in their church and the world around them.
Kensington Temple has long placed a strong emphasis on group prayer. And, as a result, the church has felt led to evangelize, become involved in serving people in the London area and abroad, and has planted churches and small groups widely.
But, as frequently happens, busy church activities began to intervene and the church's prayer gatherings started suffering. The church "began to lose power and effectiveness".
So Dye and the church leaders realized they had to change their way of thinking and their priorities.
"To do this we needed to know we were moving in the will and way of God," Dye writes. "We needed to be open to receive his focus and direction, not only individually but together as a church."
They approached this by asking God for an understanding of his will in the situation they were in. They knew that God would never ask them to do anything that was contrary to what he has already revealed in the scriptures.
Dye says God will make his will known through reading a particular scripture or hearing a song or a comment from someone. As we are open to God, the Holy Spirit will open our minds to these prompts.
As the church leadership pondered their problem, Dye had a picture in his mind of a house with the pillars crumbling. The Spirit brought to his mind Jesus' words in Mark 11:17: "My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations."
"This scripture then became our 'prayer line', the general thrust of what God was saying to us."
They then looked at what was stopping the church from being a house of prayer. They found "apathy, slumber . . . and the spirit of prayerlessness itself." They prayed against these things.
The church concentrated for nine months on these issues. They prayed this 'prayer line' consistently and intensely throughout.
They spent a great deal of time in praise and thanksgiving, considering this an entrance into God's presence. They pictured the people of the church as a surrounding wall - the walls of salvation - as those who entered the church community would become believers.
They prayed for occultists, drug addicts and gangsters to come to their church "and they started to come in and turn their lives over to God".
Kensington Temple is too large a church to meet in one place - hiring large 10,000 seat halls for joint celebrations. Otherwise, the church meets for prayer in smaller groups - and that suits Colin Dye just fine.
Small groups permit easier sharing "and greater spontaneity in the use of gifts of the Spirit".
At his church, there is strong direction and focus to the prayer gatherings. Leadership, he says, must always be listening to God and gaining a sense of what the Lord wants to do next.
Prayer meetings vary in style - sometimes stressing prayer and thanksgiving, sometimes breaking into small groups for praying about personal needs, sometimes engaging in spiritual warfare.
"There have been times when I've come to lead a meeting with four or five things to pray through and haven't got past the first one," Dye says.
The church has periodic "nights of prayer" where prayer continues throughout the night. Times of prayer are interspersed with segments of teaching and singing.
In Dye's eyes, one of the most powerful aspects of praying together is the "principle of agreement". Jesus makes the point in Matthew 18:18-20 that if two of us agree about anything we ask, the Father will do it for us.
"It is about aligning ourselves corporately with God," Dye writes. "It is not about trying to manipulate him."
He continues: "Our task is to discover the things that are already accomplished in heaven, those things that are planned in the purposes of God!"
This searching for what God wants is characteristic of Kensington Temple.
Another characteristic is that all the church's leaders are involved in prayer - group prayer as well as personal prayer. For Dye, this is vital to the spiritual growth of the body of believers.
Praise God for praying churches!
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