Is this four prayer meetings every day? Imagine how much they could be doing in the community to be an answer to prayer!
After we recognize the problems of prayer meetings, we can start taking practical steps to help people better understand what prayer is, how to pray, and how to become answers to our own prayers.
Cancel Prayer Meetings
You may want to cancel all your church prayer meetings, or at least the regularly-scheduled prayer meetings. There is nothing wrong with having a time of corporate prayer on an occasional basis in response to a deep need or issue that is facing the entire congregation. But a regularly scheduled prayer meeting is most often unhealthy for the life of the church, and leads to many of the problems mentioned above. So cancel it.
But this does not mean we cancel prayer. Not at all!
Don’t Cancel Prayer
With some targeted teaching on prayer, and modeling of a healthy prayer life, pastors and church leaders can actually unleash the power of prayer within their congregation. Rather than meet simply to pray, meet to go serve the community, and before you go, spend a few minutes in prayer for eyes to see and ears to hear the needs and issues that people in the neighborhood are dealing with.
Then remind the people that as they serve others, to maintain that prayerful communication with God to listen for what He might be leading His children to say and do. This sort of prayer can set a church on fire!
This is the active prayer life of the church. This is the prayer of faith that moves mountains, feeds the multitudes, cleans up the city, and reaches thousands for Christ.
As a church moves out into the community with prayers of faith and acts of service, the true power of prayer is unleashed within the community of believers, and they begin to see prayer for what it is and how it works.
Let prayer meetings cease, not because prayer is unimportant, but because it is too important to be held hostage in a back room of the church building.
