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Key Bible Verse: Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, "Surely the LORD is in this place, and I wasn't even aware of it!" (Genesis 28:16) Dig Deeper: Acts 2:42-47

When I was growing up, my family moved from the booming San Diego area to the rural desert of Southern California. We left a vibrant, growing church of over a thousand members for one with fewer than 50. But it was in that little church I encountered God's presence in a way I had never known before.

It was the praying that changed my life. There was the row of little old ladies with "blue" hair in the next-to-last pew who prayed me through my adolescence. There were the pastor and his wife, long past retirement age, who always found time to sit down in a quiet corner and pray together. There was old Mr. Gibbs who interceded in the front of the church with Bob Offe and Jim Strain. I can still hear their voices, encouraging one another as they prayed.

There weren't a lot of people in that little desert church, but something [powerful] was happening there. Only later did I realize that the presence of God was at work. Like Jacob waking up [in today's Key Bible Verse], I finally understood the Lord was in this place, and I didn't know it. The lasting impact God made on my life through the members of that little church was in direct proportion to their prayers.

—James Banks in The Lost Art of Praying Together

My Response: I will spend time thinking about my own experiences with group prayer.

Adapted from The Lost Art of Praying Together (Discovery House, 2009) by permission. All rights reserved by the copyright holder and/or the publisher. May not be reproduced.

Copyright © 2010 by the author or Christianity Today International/Men of Integrity magazine.
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Prayer for the Week

Heavenly Father, show me the importance of praying regularly with others; help me to overcome any fears or misconceptions I have about praying out loud; reveal to me the power to be found through praying with fellow believers.

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