How important is community prayer?
One aspect of church worship that’s always been a challenge for me is communal prayer. Partway through the church service every Sunday morning, a designated member of the congregation leads the church in community prayer, incorporating prayer requests from the community and sometimes asking the rest of the congregation to add their voices to the prayer as they feel called to do so.
Community prayer doesn’t come easily for me. I’m a private person for whom public and community prayer doesn’t come naturally. But there’s something powerful in a group of believers gathered together for prayer, and Bible Prayer Fellowship argues that it’s a crucial part of Christian worship:
Every congregation and all believers everywhere need united agreement in prayer and faith. True, we can play privately, but we must also come together with the church expecting to find one accord in prayer. The church in Acts began in one accord in prayer (Acts 1:14; 2:1). United prayer was a top priority of the apostles and the people (Acts 6:4; 4:18-33; 12:1-25; 15:1-30). United agreement in prayer is necessary because of who we are.
We are related to Christ and each other like the members of our natural body are. Our head coordinates the life and action of all the parts of our body (I Corinthians 12). Christ is the head over all things to the church.
We are one family. We pray to “OUR Father.” Andrew Murray said that it is unnatural for the children in a family to always meet with their father separately and never know a shared relationship with him.
Read the rest of “Why Pray Together?” at the Bible Prayer Fellowship website.
What’s been your experience with communal prayer? What does it bring to worship that private prayer doesn’t? Have you seen tangible effects of community prayer in your community?
I have been part of an experience where communal prayer was used in a very powerful way, to bring unity and focus of the body in prayer. It does not replace my quiet prayer, but adds to it.
I believe both articles have validity. God is Just and does not require more knowledge than is available to them. God has made evident in creation, and in the human conscience that He exists, and is to be sought after. I believe that those who followed the commands of God before they learned of Jesus will make it into His Kingdom. Also, God has the ability to teach unreached people in His own way. Just as the Macedonians pleaded with Paul through a dream.
Good answers to vexing questions I must say. Nevertheless I am still unconvinced abt the 2nd line ” We are confident ” …Is there more evidence of the patriachs actually securing a place in heaven who have lived by faith evn before knowing Jesus who is the only way to reach God.
Excerpt from main article…
God is fair as well as just. We are confident, for example, that the Old Testament patriarchs who lived by faith before Jesus’ earthly ministry, are in heaven. So certainly some people have gotten to heaven without knowing Jesus in the personal way that the New Testament speaks of. Ultimately only God can judge as only He knows the individual’s heart. We hold out hope that for those who have not heard but have not rejected God, those have been misinformed, or those who are unable to understand (children, mentally ill, etc) may be pardoned by a just God