Developing A Prayer Strategy

Providing a Framework for Prayer

Although prayer should be a natural and frequent part of every Christian's daily routine, it can easily get neglected. Prayer needs nurturing and encouraging if we are to spend quality time with God regularly, as individuals and together with other Christians. Leaders have a critical role in developing the capacity of the church for prayer. This may be in an un-structured way, which is fine, as long as unstructured doesn't mean non-existent! Just as prayer itself can benefit from some structure, so too can the development of the prayer life of a church through a prayer strategy.

A Prayer Strategy is typically a short document, possibly only with a few bullet points, that outlines how a church plans to develop its prayer life, and ensure that prayer needs are adequately covered. It is best formed by a church council or leadership team, arising from a review of the prayer life of the church. Like any strategy, it will need to have people identified who will be responsible for ensuring that required action happens.

A review of the prayer life of a church is an excellent way of beginning the process of developing such a strategy - by examining what is happening, it is possible to identify ways of encouraging further growth in what is already going on, and also spotting the "gaps".