The Breath of the Church: Embracing the Importance of Prayer

On Today’s Monday Musings, I want to share some quotes from a book I began reading just the other day, entitled, “A Praying Church” by Paul Miller. At FSBC Wickenburg, we have a Sunday night prayer gathering, where we gather to pray for requests, pray for our church leaders, pray for our community, and many other things that the Lord brings to our minds. It is unscripted and unplanned. It is a time of spirit led, corporate prayer, and it is refreshing to my soul to have those prayer times before the week begins.

I began reading this book to think more about corporate prayer, and praying together as a church. Paul Miller writes:

You likely agree prayer is important, but let’s be realistic; not many of us have the luxury of praying for an hour and a half in the morning. Life comes at us too fast. Actually, I slow down to pray with other believers because life is coming at me too fast. Instinctively, I respond to life’s speed with my own speed. That creates a ten car pileup not only in my outward life, but also in my soul. I can’t imagine leading my family or community without corporate prayer. I do these morning prayer times not from discipline but learned desperation.

Paul talks about some of the corporate times of Prayer he engages in, but says he engages in these prayer times out of learned desperation! We need to learn to be a desperate people. We must see just how much we need Jesus and his grace. One of my favorite hymns is “I Need The Every Hour:”

I need Thee every hour
Most gracious Lord
No tender voice like Thine
Can peace afford

I need Thee, O I need Thee
Every hour I need Thee
O bless me now, my Savior
I come to Thee

I need Thee every hour
Stay Thou nearby
Temptations lose their power
When Thou art nigh

I need Thee, O I need Thee
Every hour I need Thee
O bless me now, my Savior
I come to Thee

I need Thee every hour
In joy or pain
Come quickly and abide
Or life is vain

I need Thee, O I need Thee
Every hour I need Thee
O bless me now, my Savior
I come to Thee
O bless me now, my Savior
I come to Thee

I love this song, because it reveals our need for Jesus. Psalm 42:1-2 state, “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God.” Psalm 63:1 says, “O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.”

These verses wouldn’t mean much to me until I moved out into to desert of Arizona. A waterless river is something unusual to me. A deer can’t just go up to the Hassayampa in Wickenburg, AZ for a drink. There is no water. We are in desperate need of Jesus just as the deer is in desperate need of water in the dry Arizona desert. And I don’t just need the Lord every hour, I need him every minute.

Paul Miller continues: “I have no interest in doing anything that hasn’t been prayed for and prayed over. What I pray over lasts, and what I don’t pray over, doesn’t last.”

This is such a great perspective and truth. As a pastor, I desire to have that perspective. Every day of sermon preparation, every delivery of every sermon, every visit to a church member, needs to be prayed over. He continues,

Praying together is not a luxury, nor is it something just for “spiritual Christians; it’s the very breath of the church.

Praying together is the breath of the church. Joining together with other believers sometimes feels awkward, but it should be so normal in the life of the church, it feels just like breathing. Just as I need breath to live, I need the prayers of God’s people to function as a pastor, and as a Christian husband and dad. You need the prayers of God’s people to function as a member in His church. Paul Miller shares a quote from Edith Shaeffer, the wife of renowned Frances Shaeffer in Switzerland. Here are her words on prayer:

To live without prayer being woven into every part of every day is stupid. foolish, senseless, or is an evidence that your believe in the existence of the Creator, who has said we are to call upon Him, is an unsure belief. Common sense Christian living takes place in an atmosphere where prayer is as natural as breathing, as necessary as oxygen, as real as talking to your favorite person with whom their is no strain, as sensible as reaching into a bag of flour for the proper supplies of making bread.

Prayer should be as normal as breathing and it is as necessary in the life of the church as oxygen in the human body. It is no secret that the American church has been in decline, and I think one of the biggest reasons is prayerlessness. I believe God will bless the church that prays together. Do you find prayer to be like talking to your favorite person with whom their is no strain? it is as normal to you as breathing?

I hope so. But my guess is that it probably isn’t. Maybe you wonder if prayer really works. Whats the point of all this. Many of us believe in God, and say we trust in him, but our prayer lives indicate that we really don’t, and we think things are better left in our own hands.

I love our prayer times as a church. Prayer is the fuel I need to keep doing what God has called me to do. If I let my car run out of gas, it won’t run, no matter how great the body is, or even how great a shape the engine and transmission are. Without gas, it won’t run. In similar fashion, it doesnt matter how much I have studied and prepared for a sermon. It doesn’t matter how much theological knowledge I have. If I haven’t prayed, and I haven’t been prayed for, I will quickly “run out of gas.” Just as I need to breathe oxygen to live, I need prayer to live spiritually. I need prayer to love my wife as Christ loved the church. I need prayer to not exasperate my child, but to bring her up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. I need prayer to shepherd the flock that God has entrusted to me with eagerness, according to the will of God. I need prayer to “preach the Word in season and out of season.”

How can a church pray together?

• Scheduled times of corproate prayer. We do this on Sunday nights.

• Organic times of praying for one another. Praying with a church member over the phone, or during a meal or coffee.

• Praying during the worship gathering: Not rote, memorized prayers with overused phrases like, “Bless the gift and the giver.” But an elder or deacon leading the church in genuine, honest prayer before God, whereby the members hearts are joined in prayer as the leader prays out loud.

• Corporate, private confession of sin. At our church we spend time in private confession before God. It is important to do this as we seek to confess our sins before God and prepare our hearts to worship Him.

There may be more ways, but I encourage all churches to pray together during the week. It is the breath of the church.