Thursday Morning Prayer Meeting From 7am to Noon Meeting Leading to “Concerts of Prayer”
Let Us Pray, New Horizons, Page 4
At New Life Church in 1983 we were overwhelmed by our own inadequacies.
We were launching the New Life Northeast daughter church, we needed to call an additional pastor and our youth ministry was fading away.
At the same time I had a major heart attack in late June.
Out of our deep needs was born a new desire for sustained prayer.
We leaders began to meet every Thursday morning for prayer from 7 A.M. to 12:00 noon with any member of our church who could come. Total attendance averaged between 20 to 30.
We prayed for the felt needs of those who came: but we tried to use the prayer meeting as a school of prayer to train believers to pray for a larger vision of the whole church.
We especially used the format of praying for the inward life of the church, its upward worship and its missionary outreach. Within six months we saw ministries begin to revitalize. The youth ministry stabilized, the daughter church was well launched and we were making progress on calling a new pastor.
The concert of prayer concept at New Life Church grew out of this Thursday morning prayer meeting.
For us the basic idea was for a number of people to agree to come together and to agree to pray for a specific thing in the name of Christ (Matt. 18:19, 20).
The intent was that with one mind we would pray with authority in the name of Jesus about key areas in the life of the church.
Following this format we have organized in the fall of each year a full week of evening prayer meetings (7 to 9 P.M.).
In November the congregation meets each week during the Sunday school hour for concerts of prayer.
On the last Sunday of every month we also have an hour-long concert of prayer in which we pray for missions and revival.
Small groups in the church pray along similar lines throughout the week.
Our congregation is a praying one. But we have much to learn and must constantly fight a tendency to let prayer decline into intercession for emergencies and felt needs.
Our burden is to become more God-centered in our praying and to see his name glorified through great revival and missionary expansion in our time in response to the prayers of his people.