During my more than 30 years of preaching, corporate prayer has consistently been the least attended weekly gathering in most local churches. Really, that’s an understatement. For many local churches that hold a weekly prayer meeting, it would be rare to see ten people in attendance out of a congregation of two hundred members.
Why is that so awful? Because I am convinced that corporate prayer was one of the keys to the awesome presence of God that the early New Testament church experienced. For example, consider the following:
Jesus said, “Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them” (Matthew 18:20). These words of Jesus are the essence of the power of corporate prayer. Of course, He taught His disciples to prayer individually as well. Most of us came up saying the model that prayer that Jesus taught His disciples. And God hears and answers our prayer even when we pray to Him alone. So imagine how more powerful it must be when a group of believers come together and prayer as one.
A second example of the power of corporate prayer can be seen in the event when the disciples went into the Upper Room to pray after Jesus returned to heaven. According to the Bible, approximately 120 persons attended that special prayer meeting. Jesus had so instructed them to tarry there to receive power to spread the gospel. And after staying in that place for over a week, this group of believers was supernaturally filled with the Holy Spirit:
“And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance” (Acts 2:4). After this corporate prayer meeting and the resulting supernatural experience, the early New Testament church was never the same again.
As a third and final example of the power of corporate prayer, consider the time when Peter was imprisoned because he refused to stop preaching the gospel. King Herod’s plan was to put Peter to death, “but prayer was made without ceasing of the church unto God for him” (Acts 12:5). As a result of the church’s intercession, an angel visited Peter in prison and led him to safety!
I said all that I have to simply say that local Christian churches that are not passionate about corporate prayer are missing out on something that’s indescribably powerful. For when we get serious about coming together and praying in faith on one accord, God will do things in our midst that will absolutely amaze us. He is still the same God today that He was during the early New Testament church. But most Christian churches today have been weighed and found wanting in the area of serious corporate prayer.
Copyright ©2013 by Frank King. All rights reserved.