What is our church’s most urgent need?

How would you answer this question? Do we need more moral purity and integrity among our leadership? Do we need a fresh commitment to biblical truth? More zeal in evangelism? More generous giving? More desire to follow Jesus in every area of our lives?

I’ve recently been re-reading the Christian classic, “A Call to Spiritual Reformation” by Don Carson. He writes: “if we seek these things without passionately desiring a deeper knowledge of God, we are selfishly running after God’s blessings without running after him.” Carson says what the church really needs the most is prayer. Because prayer is how we grow in relationship with our Father and align ourselves with his priorities. As we pray more, we will find ourselves growing in all those other vital areas as well.

We all find prayer difficult. I certainly do. We live in a world of distractions and deadlines. But will you join me in the battle to pray more? Here are eight helpful tips taken from Carson’s book, which I hope will encourage us all…

  1. Plan to pray! We won’t grow in prayer until we actually pray. And we won’t actually pray until we set time aside for it. That’s what Jesus did (Luke 5:16).
  2. Help your brain stay on track. Sit somewhere quiet and switch your phone off. Try praying out loud or write down your prayers to stop your mind drifting. Or use a biblical prayer to structure your prayers – maybe the Lord’s Prayer, or Paul’s prayer in Colossians 1.
  3. Make use of prayer partners. Why not consider a prayer triplet – three friends of the same sex who can grow in intimate friendship as you pray together. Or pray with your spouse if that’s possible.
  4. Choose good models. Look out for more mature Christians in the church family, people who love the Lord and have grown in their own relationship with him. They can teach us much about how to pray. You don’t have to copy their words and phrases, but do copy their attitude to prayer.
  5. Develop a system. Unless you have a perfect memory, it’s hard to remember what to pray for each day. So write it down in a prayer notebook. Or use an app like PrayerMate. You could pray for mission on Monday, your family every Tuesday, your work colleagues on Wednesday, and so on. Whatever works best for you.
  6. Tie your prayers to the Bible. Use the Bible to shape your prayers. This will give you God’s perspective, and stop your own worries dominating your prayers. Try using a Psalm to help you adore God and confess your sins. And align your prayers with whatever lesson you learned in your daily Bible study.
  7. Work at your public prayers. If you’re leading prayers at the front of church or a children’s group, carefully prepare what you will say. It’s a chance to model to others how we relate to our Father in heaven.
  8. Pray until you pray. Keep praying until you get past that weird feeling of formality and begin to delight in your Father’s presence. Let’s not be like a little child who rings a doorbell and then runs away!

Richard Crane