Corporate Prayer Time Guide
Thank you for being willing to lead Corporate Time of Prayer for our church family. We wanted to put a doc together to help us with leading others well during this time. Currently, after the second song in the 11am service, we enter a corporate time of prayer. The congregation remains standing and music will softly continue to play. It is our desire that we might continue to worship through corporate prayer in this time. Later in this document, you will see some important best practices for this time as well as some things to stay away from as well.
Corporate prayer is the term used to describe praying together with other people – in small groups or larger gatherings of people. Corporate prayer is an important part of the life of the church, we read in Acts 2:42 that the early church gathered to pray together- “42 They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.”
When we come and pray together with other believers this is both edifying and enriching, one pastor described it like this, “When we pray together with other believers, the effects can be very positive. Corporate prayer edifies and unifies us as we share our common faith. The same Holy Spirit who dwells within each believer causes our hearts to rejoice as we hear praises to our Lord and Savior, knitting us together in a unique bond of fellowship found nowhere else in life.”
John Franklin in his book “The Place Was Shaken” says it this way, “The greatest workings of God come by corporate prayer; and will we not see the power of God in sufficient measure to transform the world around us until we pray together.”
There are numerous positive outcomes of God’s people coming together to pray:
Encouragement – Praying with others can bring encouragement to the members of the group. There may be people in the group who are struggling with trails. As they are upheld in prayer, the Holy Spirit brings them encouragement and reassurances.
Unity – Corporate prayer has the ability to connect people together, “a unity of purpose”. People are built up and unified in the faith that they share together. As people pray together, they build a love and concern for others and the mission of God.
Worship – Corporate prayer brings about intimate communion with Jesus. The body of believers, praying in unity is an act of worship.
Dependence on God – As we cry out to God in prayer it demonstrates our reliance on God to do the work of God.
Some things to consider when leading Corporate Time of Prayer:
- Reading Scripture
- Giving a call or purpose to pray for
- Giving direction to get in pairs/groups/family
- Open the altar for prayer, kneeling, etc….
- Giving quiet space 30-60seconds for individual prayer
- Inviting everyone to pray aloud with you
Some things to stay away from:
- Jokes or stories
- Announcements or event promotion
- Anything that distracts or takes away our focus from Jesus
SAMPLE CORPORATE PRAYERS
PRAYER OF PRAISE
Father, we praise you that you are a God who makes wonderful promises. We praise you that you promise life, peace and joy; you promise a world ruled by a perfect ruler who loves and cares for his subjects.
Father, we praise you that you are faithful to all your promises. We praise you that you have the power to ensure that not a word of your promises ever falls to the ground. We praise you that even when men seek in their evil to obstruct your plans you use their evil to bring your plans to fulfillment. We praise you that we can have complete confidence in all your promises, including the promise that one day we will see the Lord Jesus Christ face to face in glory. Father, we praise you that you make your promises to those who do not deserve them.
We praise you that, though we have rejected your authority and refused to give thanks for your provision, you have promised your people an eternity under your perfect rule and a world full of abundance, a banquet of the best of meats and the finest of wines.
We praise you that you have done what was necessary for these promises to come to fulfillment, that you have sent your Son to seal the covenant of your promises in his own blood, so that we may have confidence that, though our sins are scarlet, you will wash them white as snow.
Father, we praise you that when we have received every blessing that you have promised, we will not rejoice so much in the glory of the world around us but in the face and presence of our beloved Saviour, Jesus Christ. We praise you that every blessing we receive from your hand is the overflow of the glories of your character. Amen.
PRAYER OF CONFESSION
Father, we come before you as our maker and our judge, conscious of our rebellion against you; conscious that, though you are our provider and our sustainer, we reject you.
Father, we confess that, though you are the most glorious, beautiful, awesome thing in the universe, our hearts are cold to you and we consider knowledge of you cheap.
Father, we confess that we do not do your will.
We confess that throughout our lives we reject what you have said to be good and embrace that which is evil.
Father, as we consider that Jesus Christ was obedient unto death, we confess that at the smallest inconvenience or hardship or denial of pleasure involved in obedience we quickly turn away from doing what pleases you. Sometimes even the effort of trying to understand whether or not something is your will is too much trouble for us.
We confess that, if disobedience makes the slightest offer of pleasure or comfort, we too often take it, ignoring the promises of life that you have made to those who follow you. Please forgive us and change us that we might have hearts responsive to your word.
Father, we confess that one of the ways we disobey you is in our lack of service toward others. We know that so often we refuse to relinquish our interests for the sake of others. Though we know that Christ was prepared to go to the cross in the service of us who deserved nothing of the kind, we are so often slow to lay aside our needs for the sake of others. We make excuses and rationalize why our needs should come first, forgetting that the Lord Jesus Christ has called us to follow him as a servant.
Father, as we consider our sin, we are sorry for how little we pray to you that sin might not reign in our hearts, how little we cry out to you for strength to resist sin in our lives. We pray that you would give us a greater concern for obedience so that we would pray daily for your strength to resist evil.
We bring our hearts before you Lord, full of evil and selfishness; and in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by his blood shed for our sake we ask that you would hear our prayer, have mercy upon us, forgive us, cleanse us and change us. For your name’s sake, amen.
Hear the Word of God: “Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior, who daily bears our burdens.
Our God is a God who saves; from the Sovereign LORD comes escape from death.”
PRAYER OF THANKSGIVING
Dear Lord, we come before you now to give you thanks for your grace and mercy to sinners like us. Every day you shower us with blessings we don’t deserve, in addition to the supreme gift of your Son Jesus. We give now out of an overflow of your kindness towards us and we pray that through them your Word would spread and bring you glory. We pray these things in Christ’s name and for his glory, amen.