A House of Prayer?
One of the important elements in the corporate worship service is prayer. Other than songs that express our heart cry to the Lord and time spent reading and preaching His Word, prayer is one of the main ways we seek the Lord in the worship time. If we were to prioritize the elements of our worship service, I think many would say that prayer should be one of the top priorities in the worship service. But when we look at how our time is spent in worship, we might come to the conclusion that prayer in worship is very low on the list because we are actually spending so little time in prayer in the corporate worship service.
In his book Return to Worship, Ron Owens observed that in many parts of the world where he has traveled, prayer had a prominent role in the worship service. Owens asks us to consider this question: “Is my church a house of prayer?” He shares that in an informal survey he conducted while visiting churches in the states, “four out of five churches spent more time in welcoming the visitors in a service than in all the praying combined. Two out of the five of these same churches spent more time making the announcements than they did in prayer…. Might a lack of prayer be the major reason that, in spite of having better programs than ever before, in spite of having bigger and fancier buildings than ever, in spite of there never before being so many megachurches, we are making less impact on society than ever before? Could prayerlessness be the reason the darkness in our land is becoming increasingly dark? Could it be that the prayerlessness of our churches is why so many are powerless?” (93-94)
Here are some suggestions Owens makes to encourage prayer in the worship service:
1. Help the people to break their fear of praying in public. Teaching the people to “pray will take wisdom, time, instruction, and patience, but it can and must be done if we are really to become the people God desires us to be.” (96)
2. In addition to the normal prayer times in the service, “consider setting a block of time aside in each worship service to have one or two people pray.”
3. Notify people in advance to ask them to pray so they can prepare.
4. Teach the people “how to use Scripture in their prayers - praying back to God what He has said and promised.”
5. “Let them know it is not offensive to the Lord to make notes of what they want to pray about.”
6. “Think about prayerfully preparing a prayer for your people to pray, giving them the words they need to say to God.”
Owens says ”if it is time to worship, it is time to pray.” I think he is on target. We need to give a priority to prayer in our worship services and teach our people the importance of prayer and how to pray. How much time does your church spend in corporate prayer in a Sunday morning service? Is there more time spent in announcements?
I would encourage you to read Owen’s book, Return to Worship (1999, Broadman and Holman, ISBN 0-8054-1888-1).