What a blessing it is to hold up someone else’s name before the Lord so that they might be blessed, healed, or experience God’s never-ending love in some way. The Prayer Shepherds at Grand View Methodist in Iowa do just that every week, and we want to tell you about what we do, how we are growing, and inspire you to step closer to Jesus to help make your church a house of prayer.
The Prayer Shepherds at our church meet once every week for an hour, and we pray for our community (people drop their prayer requests in a box at the church entrance, via an online form, or by contacting the Prayer Shepherds). We also pray for ourselves and our own prayer needs. We pray aloud, by name, for each person who has been attending worship or other church activities regularly (and update this every 6 months). We have a time of praise/thanksgiving prayers, centering, repentance, and we especially make sure we pray for our pastors. This group has also made a commitment to visit people in hospitals, nursing homes, etc., who need healing or other prayers. It’s not just the pastor’s ‘job’ to do these things. We are not visiting experts but people of prayer who believe in God’s power through prayer. Some of the Prayer Shepherds feel comfortable praying ‘off the cuff,’ while others prefer written prayers that we have a collection of. When someone joins the group, there is no pressure to pray out loud if the comfort level isn’t there, but it’s been our experience that our comfort zones grow exponentially here!
Most of us Prayer Shepherds would call this hour the highlight of our week. Just meeting together to pray, even when the requests can be very heavy or controversial, is uplifting and encouraging, moving us forward in our own sanctification.
One thing that was proposed at our last charge conference was “what if everyone at Grand View was a Prayer Shepherd?” – meaning what it would take to have many more people here available to pray with others in public, in our families, or at any given moment? What would happen to our church if we did this regularly? A member of our ad board and one of the Prayer Shepherds have envisioned and put together an easy teaching/training to equip and encourage people, should they be interested in this. We want everyone to be brave enough to pray for others. We have had one training session, and it went well, with feedback that ‘we need more opportunities to practice praying for each other.’ Other times for practice and more training are hopefully on the horizon soon.
What would it look like if most of your churchgoers were able to pray for others in any circumstance genuinely? What if each of our churches became a house of prayer? We pray that you might first consider praying over how God might be leading your own church to step closer to Jesus in prayer, and ask for clear guidance on your next step. Each church’s prayer ministry will look different, but imagine what might happen in our communities, our churches, our own families, and our lives if our GMC’s identity were associated with being houses of prayer. This is our prayer for you to seek this out. So be it.
