It starts with Prayer

It wasn’t obvious to me in my situation, but it should have been – and it is now.  Every functioning church I could find (except ours) has and needs private and corporate prayer time[1].  Some versions of corporate prayer time were more well attended than others, some longer, some shorter, some do it as part of something else entirely – but a designated time where prayer happened was completely missing in our church.  One of the older gentlemen had tried to start one, but he didn’t get much attendance, so it fizzled out about a year before we were elected deacons.

If you’ve not been praying as an individual and/or as a congregation and aren’t clear about it,  look no further than the Westminster Shorter Catechism question 98: 

“Prayer is an offering up of our desires unto God, for things agreeable to His will, in the name of Christ, with confession of our sins, and thankful acknowledgement of His mercies.”

I won’t print them all here, but the next few questions outline how and why to pray through the Lord’s prayer. 

Simply put, before you get mired down in the details of church politics and problems, please make time for prayer by yourself,  with your fellow leaders, your congregation, your church and your community.    After all, the church is ultimately His, not ours, and we are simply to be stewards of these resources.   

[1] Acts 2:42, et al.