I was raised in a tradition that believed the man alone on his knees in the closet is the pinnacle of great prayer–one person one-on-one with the Almighty. Like Moses on Sinai. I still think that is extremely important. But the cutting edge of my personal prayer life lately has been in corporate prayer.
I didn’t understand this very well when I was growing up. I grew up in a church that had midweek prayer meetings, and I hated them. Now I realize that good corporate prayer can demand more of us spiritually than individual prayer does. When I’m alone with God, I don’t have to deal with other people. Frankly, I like God a lot more than I like some people. But the Lord is clear: if we love him, we must love others. Thus joining my heart with others before the throne of his grace is a way of loving God.
In many ways, the same rules that apply to good conversation apply to good corporate prayer. When our kids were young, it was a big deal just to get them to wait their turn to speak in dinner conversations. When that happened we were pleased, but we still had a long way to go, for then the conversations, though orderly, were a string of non sequiturs. Dan would go into excruciating detail to tell us his dream of the night before. Joel would politely wait his turn to tell us, immediately after Dan was done, that he had a yellow T-shirt in his closet. Andy would sit sucking his fingers, with a faraway look in his eyes, and when his turn came would grunt that he wanted a slingshot for his birthday. By the time Mary came along, we had advanced beyond chat (somewhat!).
Some group prayer meetings are like that kind of conversation. We come together to the throne of God, or do we? Are we more like children waiting in line to speak to a department store Santa? We’re occupying the same space, but we’re not together. I’ve prayed countless times with adults and found myself just taking my turn, along with the rest of them, to say to God the things I wanted to say, without much thought for what others were praying.
Agree, Vector, and Build
Good corporate prayer is like good conversation. Through my wife’s involvement in the Mom’s In Touch prayer movement, I have learned a method that we call “agree, vector, and build.” The method is to listen, really listen to a person’s prayer, and to let it sink into my mind and heart before I move onto my particular concerns. For instance, someone may pray for a family member’s health. As I mull over that prayer, I will add a kind of amen to it, agreeing with it, verbally or silently, thus entering more deeply into the concern. Sometimes when I do that, I may find myself moved to add my own prayer, a nuance, to the prayer I heard. Others may do the same, vectoring in their prayers and building on the original prayer.
When I have done this kind of praying in a group, it is remarkable the way we have experienced the leading of the Holy Spirit–not only in how to pray for a matter but in what to do about it after we have. Along these lines, I have also heard my friend Bob Bakke urge prayer groups to make their prayers short and many. Long, sonorous prayers by the “adept” usually have the effect of stifling the participation of those who don’t feel so adept at group prayer. So each should pray short prayers, many times in the course of a prayer session, thus leaving space for everyone to agree with, vector in, and build on the prayers of others.
This excerpt appears in Leading a Group in Prayer and is originally taken from Deepening Your Conversation with God, copyright 1998 by the author.
