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Right Purposes for a Prayer Ministry

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Training Category: Prayer Ministry

If you want to develop a prayer ministry, personally or with a group, one of the first questions you must ask is “Why?” — What are you hoping to accomplish through it?

Effectiveness in Prayer Requires Having the Right Purposes for Praying

Devoted to Prayer
(Click to enlarge image in Pinterest & repin.)

Maybe you are hoping to see God take care of a list of requests.

You possibly want to see Him do great and mighty things in your midst or to bring revival.

Perhaps you simply want to be obedient to His command to pray.

Or, you may be trying to emulate the early church of the New Testament of whom it was said that they devoted themselves to prayer (Acts 2:42).

While all that and much more can happen as people meet together to pray, you will undoubtedly find a greater level of effectiveness when your purposes are centered more on God than on you. When prayer is about Him and not you, you tend to come to Him with the right heart attitudes. Your role, though important, isn’t primary. If you want people to be devoted to prayer, like the Early Church, you must be focused on the right purposes for having a prayer ministry.

Emphasize the following purposes and watch the difference it makes in your prayer ministry:

  1. Use prayer as a means of keeping focused on God.
  2. Use prayer as a means of acknowledging His grace in your life.
  3. Use prayer as a means of keeping His sovereignty in place in your life.
  4. Use prayer as a means of maintaining your relationship with Him.

Check out the Prayer Ministry Manual where you’ll find some thoughts on the above four points as to what heart attitude we need within each of these purposes and the role we have in it. You will also find a parallel of the above points to Jesus’ sample prayer in Matthew 6 (commonly known as The Lord’s Prayer). And, you will be guided in determining if you, as an individual, or as a prayer group, have the right purposes for praying.

For More on what will help you develop and maintain an effective Prayer Ministry, read the following:

For More About Praying: Resources for Prayer Ministry

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4 Replies to “Right Purposes for a Prayer Ministry”

  1. This is no accident. First, we start with God and then we go to ourselves. Here is an important principle in all worship of which prayer is but one mode and means. In prayer, as in everything, our Lord teaches us to put God first. Why? Because this puts everything in the right perspective, it gives us the right viewpoint about life, one that sees beyond our own very limited scope. This is important so that we might genuinely focus our hearts and minds on the who and what of God, that we might seek first the rule and righteousness of God, and that we might walk with Him in obedience and under His enablement, direction, and protection.

    • Thank you for your comments, Max. How true that putting God first puts everything else in the right perspective!

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