Begin a Prayer Circle

by Jered Spano

When I graduated from Walla Walla College and entered my first church district God placed a burden on my heart to give prayer a more prominent pace in our church. I was an intern at the time and so I approached my mentor, the senior pastor with the idea. He loved it.

There were several challenges we were facing in pulling this off, however. For one, we already had a prayer meeting, and it was more of a book reading time than an actual time of prayer, and the leaders were pretty set in their ways. Changing something that is established, and a tradition is not usually easy, so rather than try to change prayer meeting at that time we decided it would need to be at a different time. The problem then was, when?

We decided that Sabbath would have the best chance of exposure and participation. So, we approached the worship coordinators. They were all excited, except one, the head. We wanted it to be part of the actual worship service, but the head coordinator said it would make the service too long and suggested that people would be frustrated at getting out later. The head coordinator then said, "this idea will never work." 

I left the meeting really discouraged. I shared my heart with the senior pastor after the meeting and his reply was simple, "We are the pastors, and we are going to do it anyway." To avoid conflict with the head worship coordinator we decided to do it at the end of the worship service, after the church had been dismissed.

I preached a sermon on the privilege of prayer and the power God promised to give us if we would humble ourselves and pray. Then as I closed the sermon, I said, “After the postlude we will start a new tradition for all who want to join. I invite you to meet me at the front of the church for prayer.” So as others exited the building after church, those who wanted to stay and pray went to the front of the church.

The first Sabbath we probably had about a dozen people who joined us to pray together. The focus of our prayer was ultimately, the direction God would lead us as a church, and His blessing of our efforts to be faithful and live a life of service. Some would share burdens on their hearts as they prayed, but we all kept the main focus the main focus. It really was as simple as creating a space for those who wanted to pray to come and do it. We didn’t take a lot of time, sharing requests, because the group got so big so fast and we didn't want to break into smaller groups at that time. We didn’t do anything complicated, we just felt the need and joined together to pray.”