As a young child I remember going to our church prayer meeting on Wednesday nights and hearing the adults pray through the requests and burdens they were carrying.  They would pray over each other and help carry the burden of others that were suffering.  As a child I was usually bored and either sleeping or talking quietly to a friend in the back pew but I remember how fervently the adults prayed together.

I don’t see that anywhere any more.  We are all in our own little bubble of spiritual growth and seem scared to share our burdens and struggles and pray for each other out loud.  The spoken word is so powerful and yet we rarely pray this way any more.  We leave this to the pastor or church leader that is in charge of prayer time.

Our prayer times at church have also become just a hospital list.  A list of ailments not a list of spiritual battles.  Don’t get me wrong, we should be praying for our physical struggles but that is not ALL we should be praying for.  Where are the verbal cries for the lost in our families?  Where are the anguished pleas for the sin that is overtaking our towns?  Where is the fight for our families and friends trapped in addiction?  Where is the plea to be used by God to help those around us?

2 Timothy 3 begins this way:

But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God—  HAVING A FORM OF GODLINESS BUT DENYING ITS POWER.    Have nothing to do with such people.

Are we denying the power God wants to display because we are not calling out to Him? I believe the answer to seeing the power of God work in our families, in our churches and in our communities is through corporate prayer.  Praying together, fighting the battles together and being united for the cause of Christ.  Will you join a local prayer group and change your community for the better?