I was just preparing for tonight’s (which, at the time of publication, is yesterday’s) church prayer meeting and the above segment from a sermon delivered two weeks ago came to mind. You can listen to that whole sermon here.
At our church, we hold a weekly prayer meeting every Sunday before the church service. Our service itself always contains a section for open prayer. We also pray in our weekly community groups and, if they are not running, it is because we have a monthly whole church prayer meeting.
The bottom line is that, outside of the weekly Sunday gathering, the prayer meeting really is the most important. Yet, how often are our prayer meetings so poorly attended? If prayer is the fuel that drives the work – the very essence of our reliance upon Christ – it is absolutely vital to the work.