I don’t wish to shock anybody, but the bible does not command prayer meetings. There, I said it. It tells us to pray, says all manner of things about praying and the kinds of prayers we might pray, but it doesn’t specifically command prayer meetings. Which means that prayer meetings in and of themselves must be filed under the category of ‘a helpful way to do some specifically biblical things’. There may be other ways to do the things it is designed to do, but this is one way, a legitimate way, even a helpful way of accomplishing some of those biblical things.

I mention that at the front end to be clear that, if prayer meetings themselves aren’t commanded in scripture, we don’t have any right to be overly specific and fussy about the form our prayer meeting takes. You might find the way you do it helpful, but that doesn’t do much if someone else finds an altogether different way helpful. None of this is knock prayer meetings or suggest we shouldn’t have them. For the record, I think we very much should have them. I am just very conscious that their form is not biblically mandated and such as we think they are a helpful way to accomplish certain biblical things, we need to recognise them as one means not a biblical mandate.

With that said, I thought it might be helpful to share how we use our prayer meeting. It is in my mind as I am leading ours tonight. I don’t presume to suggest our model is perfect. I don’t presume to suggest our approach is the biblically faithful one. I just present it as what we do that we have broadly found helpful. Perhaps there is something in it that you might find helpful too.

We tend to have different forums for different kinds of prayer. On Sunday morning, we have a time of open prayer in response to the Word. It is designed primarily for praise, thanksgiving, intercession and specific response to what we have been hearing. In our community groups, we break into single-sex groups and focus on pastoral concerns, praying for one another and the various issues we would like personal prayer for. In our monthly prayer meeting, we tend to focus on our mission partners and the work of mission that we are involved in ourselves. It is the last of these I want to focus on here.

The way we do it, we ask all of our mission partners for their latest prayer letters and any further updates they want to give us. We promise if they send us a letter and any update, we will read it in full at the prayer meeting and we will specifically pray through each item they have shared.

The way we do this is to compile a pack for everybody. This means everybody can follow along as the letter and update is being read out. It also doubles up as something people can take away and pray through at home throughout the month. We then read through one partner’s prayer news, have an open time of prayer focused specifically on that news, then when we have prayed through it all, we move on and do exactly the same for the next partner. We do this until we come to ourselves and our own mission/ministry, where we might offer a few specific points that might not be immediately known by most the congregation, and then we pray for the work the Lord has given to us.

Again, I don’t share this as any sort of biblical mandate or perfect model. I am convinced that different settings lend themselves to different kinds of prayer. We want to try and encourage all kinds of prayer in all sorts of forums. We have chosen to make our monthly prayer meeting one that primarily focuses on mission partners and the work of ministry where we are.