No New Testament book references prayer more than the book of Acts. To be fair, Acts is longer than almost every other book and covers thirty years of early church life, so you might expect it to have more of one thing or another.
It’s trendy to read in the latest church how-to book or hear a national speaker call for a return to a “first century church” model. If the call is a return to corporate prayer, I say, “Amen!”
Acts 2:42 And they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers.
As the years pass chapter after chapter, the practice at the beginning of Acts continues. From city to city the prayers of God’s people deliver the apostles from captivity, introduce the gospel to new frontiers, and support those whose labor is the preaching of God’s Word. A common feature in the prayer references in Acts is the corporate nature of prayer, that is, Christians praying together with other Christians.
When Do You Pray Together with Other Christians?
At First Calvary Baptist Church, we use the phrase, “Christianity is always personal but never private.” By that we mean while each of us comes to Christ individually, none of us lives the Christian life individually, and that includes our time in prayer. Reading beyond the pages of Acts to the rest of the New Testament, the common assumption is that Christians pray together. When do you pray together with other Christians?
In our church we emphasize corporate prayer in multiple venues. In our Sunday morning worship we spend a significant amount of time in corporate prayer. At the start of worship, we all bow in silent prayer before God asking for his blessing on our worship and his ministering to his people in our worship. Midway through our worship we pray together as a pastor or other mature man in our congregation leads us before God where we praise, confess, and ask together. At the close of our worship, we pray together in response to the Word of God we received together.
On Wednesday evenings a group of people gather together for prayer, remembering our ministries, our missionaries, and the people of our church.
On any given night of the week, one or more small groups meet and a significant component of their meeting is corporate prayer. One of the most valuable aspects of a small group may be their connecting with each other through corporate prayer and their conversing together with God in prayer.
On various days throughout the year, we will gather for 12-Hour Prayer Meetings or something similar.
Everyone agrees the New Testament teaches that Christians pray. Beyond that, we can make a strong argument that the New Testament teaches that Christians pray together. If you do not or cannot pray together with others on Wednesday night or in a weekly small group meeting, the onus is on you to find a way to pray together with other Christians. For good reasons if you miss a prayer meeting or your small group meeting, then determine to initiate corporate prayer with another Christian.
Why Is Corporate Prayer Important?
When you pray together with other Christians, you become more keenly aware of the needs, burdens, and challenges other Christians carry.
When you pray together with other Christians, you take your eyes off self and set aside a “woe is me” mentality as you discover others have trials not all that different from yours.
When you pray together with other Christians, you fight against disunity in the church and promote unity among followers of Jesus Christ.
When you pray together with other Christians, you encourage a weaker sister by your approach to God on her behalf.
When you pray together, you remind other Christians that problems are not too big for God and that God is the solution not self.
When you pray together with other Christians, you prompt in another Christian the truth that Christianity is always personal but never private.
I want our church to become a healthier body. I want our church to experience the blessings of God like what we read in the book of Acts. I want our church to be more effective in our gospel outreach. I want our marriages to grow stronger, our children to believe the gospel, the preaching in our pulpit to be powerful, and the relationships in our church to be wholesome. I’m sure you want all of this too. No church, including ours, will experience the reality of any of these apart from corporate prayer. Let’ s make it happen.
As always I welcome your feedback and any suggestions you might have for an upcoming Lunchtime Musing.
Mike VerWay
Pastor for Preaching & Vision