Ten Reasons Your Church Needs a Prayer Gathering

There is a resurgence happening in the Western Church right now around the importance of prayer.

Coming from streams of Christianity that had very little place for a corporate prayer gathering, I was skeptically curious. But as I began to dive into the theology, historical precedent, and lived practice of prayer, I became convinced that a consistent prayer gathering is essential to my philosophy of ministry.

At Artisan City, we have tried to make prayer central. For over a year now, we have had a weekly prayer gathering.

It isn’t polished or sexy.

It looks like 20–30 people gathering every Wednesday night from 7–8pm in our church office. We sing two songs, read the Lord’s Prayer, and then pray through each section together.

And honestly, it has been one of the most important things in the life of Artisan City.

Here are ten reasons to have a consistent prayer gathering at your church. Much of this isn’t original to me. These insights have been gleaned from friends like Jon Tyson and Sam Gibson at Church of the City New York, along with other prayer leaders around the world.

1. Jesus said the gathered people of God are meant to be a house of prayer.

When Jesus rebuked the moneychangers in the temple, he quoted Isaiah 56:7: “My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations.”

Jesus said prayer should be one of the primary markers of the gathered people of God.

Not production.
Not polish.
Not programs.

Prayer.

2. There are real spiritual dynamics happening, and prayer is the only antidote.

When the disciples asked Jesus why they weren’t able to cast out a demon, he told them that some kinds only come out through prayer. Some manuscripts add fasting.

Our context in Downtown St. Pete is spiritually charged. There are witchcraft stores, crystal shops, tarot card readers, and all kinds of neo-pagan spiritual options swirling around us.

One pastor told me, “Downtown St. Pete is where church plants go to die.”

Secularism’s promises haven’t come true, and a massive number of young people are seeking spiritual things again. Intellectual arguments still matter. Clear preaching still matters. Thoughtful apologetics still matter.

But prayer and spiritual power matter more than many of us have wanted to admit.

3. It creates space to gather the hungry.

Mark Sayers has identified one of the key aspects of John Wesley’s ministry as creating a third space to gather hungry people who were seeking renewal in the city.

That is what a prayer gathering can become.

Not another event for consumers.

A room for the hungry.

Some of the most potent moments I’ve had with the Holy Spirit in my life have happened in these kinds of rooms.

4. It creates space to practice spiritual gifts in a non-public way.

The aim of making our Sunday gatherings intelligible to outsiders is good, true, and beautiful. But if we’re honest, it can sometimes limit the practice of some of the more charismatic spiritual gifts, like prophecy.

We lean into this during response times at the end of our public gatherings, but the prayer room gives us another kind of space.

A safer space.
A smaller space.
A less performative space.

It is a place to practice hearing from God, take a risk, share what we sense, and grow in maturity.

If this topic is new to you, I highly recommend Sam Storms’ work Practicing the Power.

5. Every significant move of God begins in prayer.

If you want to see beauty come from brokenness in your city, pray.

If you want to see many people come to faith in your city, pray.

If you want to see addictions break, pray.

If you want to see marriages reconciled, pray.

If you want to see your church marked by more than strategy, charisma, and human effort, pray.

What if God allows us to play a small part in his sovereign work of revival in our time?

6. It teaches your people how to pray.

Every time we gather, we pray through the Lord’s Prayer.

Over time, this gives people a framework for prayer when they are not in the corporate gathering. This is how Jesus taught his disciples to pray, so we want to do the same.

Each line gives us tracks to run on:

Adoration of who God is. Gratitude for what he has done.

Intercession for anything that is not yet like heaven.

Asking for personal needs.

Confessing sin and forgiving others.

Asking for help with temptation and demonic oppression.

This framework has helped give our people a way to pray in their everyday lives, not just in a church gathering.

7. It allows leaders to be recipients rather than producers.

One of the dark sides of modern church leadership is that leaders are rarely recipients.

We are almost always in leadership mode.

Planning.
Preaching.
Executing.
Carrying.
Producing.

And over time, that can hinder our unhurried experience of the presence of God.

The prayer gathering is a space where I rarely lead. It allows me and many of our other leaders to come and receive.

That has been a gift.

8. It retrieves confession, which has been lost in many streams of the church.

Confession is an essential part of the life of an apprentice of Jesus.

Its absence in the Western Church is one of the reasons many pastors fall, not to mention the multitudes of others who remain trapped in the deceitfulness of sin.

This is one practice that was deeply emphasized in my recovery background, and I believe it is essential for spiritual flourishing.

Praying through the Lord’s Prayer has allowed confession to become a weekly rhythm for me and for many of our people.

Not shame.
Not performance.
Not hiding.

Honest confession before a holy and merciful God.

9. Incredible breakthrough happens.

I can’t tell you how many times people have shown up to prayer and experienced real spiritual breakthrough.

Not every week is dramatic. Not every moment is wild. But over time, a room of people consistently seeking God becomes a place where breakthrough happens.

I can’t wait to hear the stories that come out of your prayer gathering.

10. It empowers the rest of the church.

Few of us start out in ministry hoping to become the HR director of a nonprofit or give a mediocre TED Talk every week.

But ministry in the West can drift there if we are not careful.

We can become polished and powerless. Organized and anemic. Busy and prayerless.

If your church has been lacking power and potency, God may be leading you into a deeper personal experience of prayer, and then allowing that to bleed into the corporate life of the church.

Prayer does not replace strategy. But prayer empowers the whole thing.

Where to Start

If you’re convinced prayer needs to become a bigger part of your church, here are a few action steps that have helped me.

First, make prayer and fasting part of your normal rhythm. In addition to your morning devotions, carve out an hour in the afternoon to pray. Consider fasting one or two days a week until dinner.

Once prayer becomes part of your life, invite your leadership team into the same rhythm.

Then, start a weekly prayer gathering on the day you are fasting, and refuse to make it anything other than an authentic place to pray.

Don’t overproduce it.

Don’t make it impressive.

Don’t try to build a brand around it.

Just gather hungry people and pray.

After it is strongly established, talk about it weekly from the stage and begin multiplying prayer sets throughout the week.

The Western Church does not need more cleverness without power.

We need the presence of God.

So pray.