CALL TO PRAYER: Developing a yearly rhythm for church prayer

Nine years into my pastorate of a small, suburban congregation all heaven broke loose. On a Sunday in December 1989, like the Berlin Wall that had recently crumbled half-way across the globe, a wall came crashing down in our church. Our creative but comfortable evangelical congregation suddenly went from singing three short choruses each Sunday to worshipping for 30 minutes or more. Our theology of the Holy Spirit went from belief to experience. We began a journey that took us into realms of prayer we had never imagined.

Looking back on that experience more than a decade later, I realized the Holy Spirit had led us into a rhythm of praying. The rhythm of our praying allowed all of us, not just individuals, but the church as a whole, to move closer to the Apostle Paul's command to "pray continually" (1 Thessalonians 5:17). Hardly realizing how it had happened, we had developed an approach to praying that was daily, weekly, monthly, seasonally and annually. With a variety of prayer opportunities, we involved more than just the praying core of the congregation in different forms of significant and strategic prayer.

Here is a sample of some of the things our congregation did as we developed a rhythmic pattern for prayer.... Read more