An Audience of One

Here's why it can be so hard to pray together as a small group.

Community prayer is to private prayer what a symphony is to a solo. An orchestra playing together—with various sections picking up refrains from each other, with chords dependent on the contributions of multiple instrumentalists, with a beautiful collective voice raised to the audience—this picture begins to describe the ideal of group prayer.

Often, however, group prayer turns out to be more like a collection of soloists each playing their own piece than a concerted voice arising out of teamwork. One particularly experienced soloist plays a very long piece, and others are intimidated to follow. Multiple soloists each play a piece of their own, but there is no relationship between the pieces, no common refrain. The result is a cacophony of individual prayers and not true community prayer—not the picture Jesus had in mind in Matthew 18:19-20 when he spoke of two or more people coming together and agreeing in prayer. To read more, click here.