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Prayer Watch
Posted by MikeJ
This is a time when a group of the church members meet together to bring before God the activities of the church, those who are sick, events in the community and nation and individual people as requested (in strictest confidence).
When does it meet?
Friday evenings throughout the year, except on Bank Holidays
8.00 pm to 10.00 pm
Tynings Lane Church Intercessions Guide
Posted by MikeJ
1 INTRODUCTION
Thank you for offering to lead the church in the intercessions on a Sunday. This briefing is to help you understand what we are doing when we pray, to explain how intercessions fit into the service as a whole and to give some hints, which will help to improve delivery. Then finally attached to this note are some different ideas on how intercessions could be approached. First lets remind ourselves about what prayer is.
2 WHAT IS PRAYER
A Prayer is central to Christian life and there are plenty of biblical examples we can find to show how believers prayed, and how believers are either taught or shown how to pray. Have a look at some of the examples attached. It is in essence, children of God talking with their Heavenly Father about the things that concern them and listening to His response.
B Prayer is not just asking things. It has been suggested that the word ACTS is a good model to follow to help avoiding that mistake:
A: Adoration, praise of our Holy God
C: Confession, seeking forgiveness of our sins
T: Thanksgiving, grateful thanks for all that the Lord has done for us
S: Supplication, asking for God to help/intervene in our affairs.
C If prayer is talking to our Father and the Bible is God’s word to us, it’s a good idea to pray using scripture, to talk back to God with His own word. We can do that easily after reading a portion of scripture each day eg “Lord you promised this please will you do the same today….”
D Praying can be difficult, so call on Jesus to help or ask the Holy Spirit to come and help. We see in the gospels that when Jesus prayed things happened because he was filled with God’s spirit. Lets ask the Holy Spirit to fill us so we discover how to pray as Jesus would do in our circumstances.
E Remember a key aspect of prayer is our faith/ trust in God.
If this is a snapshot of prayer generally lets look at leading prayers in a service.
3 INTERCESSIONS AS PART OF A SERVICE
A Intercessions are just part of a church service. Since one would expect Adoration to occur through song and that most services will have a time of Confession, the Intercessions do not normally need to include these. The Intercessions normally concentrate on the supplication part of prayer but it is good to do so in the context of thankfulness (Phil 4 vv5,6). However check with the Service Leader for he/she may value the intercessions being done in particular way to fit in with the service plan.
B Intercessions in a church service is leading others in prayer, so it needs more structure than you may have in your personal prayer, so people can follow what you are doing. Normally therefore prepare notes in advance.
C When the disciples asked Jesus how to pray, He taught them the Lords prayer. It’s therefore quite normal to include it, as occurs in most Anglican services.
D Pray before you start preparing and continue to do so before you deliver your prayers. Ask for the Lord’s anointing for this task.
E Although trust and faith are important, it doesn’t need to be yours! When leading in prayer other people’s faith is being brought to bear, so don’t feel the things you pray for can only be those that you can trust God for.
F We believe God heals so we often have prayers for those who are bereaved or sick.
G We are a church family so we often have prayers for our family including those who are working away from our church – our mission partners
4 PRACTICAL HINTS - PREPARATION
A Prepare in good time. Look at the ideas attached and prayerfully consider how you would like to approach the Intercessions.
B Think about time. As a guide think about 5 minutes, and if you intend more or less consult the Service leader. The Service can overrun on the day so think about items you might drop if things are running late.
C Think about the type of service and plan to make it relevant e.g.
§ All Age: make sure language is understandable to children and sentences shorter / perhaps include a child to prepare and say a prayer / include issues relevant to children
§ Youth: Include relevant issues
D Check with the Service leader concerning your ideas before you prepare in detail
E Run through what you intend to do, so that you can keep to time and avoid talking too quietly or quickly on the day. If you intend to do any of the more unusual ideas on the attached list, (and you have agreed with the service leader that you announce this) practice explaining clearly and concisely what you intend.
F Those who are sick - check with churchwardens or Steve HArrison (pastoral coordinator)before the service begins. In a prayer on this topic, the congregation is used to being asked to “name out loud or in your hearts any sick or bereaved person on your heart”
G We sometimes get bereavement parties joining us with no notice. Check with Mike / the Wardens whether any may be coming to your service and make special inclusion in your prayers for the family of those bereaved. People do come to church specifically to hear these prayers so please do check this.
H Be topical. Check the news on the Sunday morning so you can pray for any particular crisis.
I Consider praying for our Leaders: national, local, in church. If you are going to pray about political matters, be even handed so that all can say Amen!
J If praying for those on the mission field, see below for a comprehensive list and check the web site for latest news.
K Don’t be frightened about including silence to allow us to listen to God
5 PRACTICAL HINTS - DELIVERY
A Come and pray in the pre-church prayer meeting half an hour before the service begins.
B Certainly come in good time to the service, ask for a service plan to give you the position for the prayers, check which microphone you should be using with Service leader and make sure the person on the sound desk knows.
C If more than one of you is delivering the prayers make sure the sound desk knows and you think through how to do it without noise of moving microphones.
D Remember its normal to be nervous. Its good to be, for it makes us depend on God more.
E Don’t worry if you stumble over words, or if things don’t work out. We are not performing, we are just praying with our family.
F All those who take part in services experience doubt and concern afterwards. This is the Devil trying to get us down. As it says in James 4 v7: “Resist the Devil and he will flee away from you, and draw near to God and He will come near to you”.
6 FURTHER HELP
Mike Jones will be glad to help further.
7 ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
MISSION PARTNERS
John + Judy Ellison
Paraguay
South American Mission
Ian + Rachel Bevington
Thailand
Overseas Mission fellowship
Hilary and Reza,
Indonesia
Independent
June Hathersmith
Based in USA but operating worldwide, at the moment particularly in Papua New Guinea
Wycliffe
Terry + Simone Lockyer
Brazil
Latin America Link
Robin and Joyce Hill
Lee & Becky Plummer
China
Independent
Paul and Kathy Middleton
S Africa
Mercy Air
SOME BIBLICAL REFERENCES REGARDING PRAYER
Faith
John 15 v7
Faithfulness in
Luke 11v1 / Romans 12 v12
For Forgiveness
Psalm 51, Luke 11 v4, 1 John 1 v7
And God’s will
1 John 5 v14
Importance of
Mark 9 v29 / John 15 v16
Instruction in
Luke 11 vv1-4
Intercessory
2 Kings 19 v4
In Jesus’ name
John 14 v13
And praise
Psalm 17 v7, Psalm 66
Stated time for
Acts 3 v1
And thanksgiving
Philippians 1 vv3,4 / 4v6
8. SOME PRAYER IDEAS
There are many ways that we can communicate with God through prayer…try to think of imaginative and new routes for us to explore the prayer that we use in our regular church services.
Visual based prayer
What about using candles, newspaper pages, popular images that reflect society.
Sound based prayer
What about recording conversations on the high street, everyday sounds and using that as inspiration for prayer that God would work in our everyday lives.
Or use music whilst you pray
Meditation based prayer
Try some creative text or meditation to encourage the congregation to think laterally about praying. Maybe retrace Jesus steps within a particular passage. Encourage people to think about looking at the world around us through Jesus’ eyes.
Community based prayer
Try taking a map of the parish and split it into sections so that groups can pray specifically for an area. This can also be done with institutions or organisations in the area- for example schools; councils; other churches; shops; local pubs; the list is endless.
Word based prayer
Why not take a verse or a section of the bible to focus on through prayer.
Or use one word to pray through for the church…for example GRACE and how that affects the sick, the parish, our church, our world, and our sin.
One line praise
Encourage the congregation to lift up one-line praises to God. It may be helpful if you have certain sections or topics to help structure these prayers.
What is on your mind prayer…
It might be helpful to give each member of the congregation a piece of paper and to write down things that are on their minds at the moment. These may be situations, people, or past hurts. Encourage the congregation to take time thinking through these and then giving them over to God. Why not have a Cross-at the front of church and a basket where members can put their burdens over to Jesus in a symbolic way.
Listening Prayer
We have 2 ears and one mouth for a reason! It might be suitable to have a section of your prayers as time to be still and to listen to what God has to say top individuals or to the church as a whole. This may be followed by a time of prayer.
Group prayer
Get the congregation to split into groups and to pray through topics. Other ideas suggested above may work well with group prayer.
These are just a few suggestions. It is a real privilege to be able to pray freely. Lets use this situation for the good and think of ways to encourage one another with inspired, creative and imaginative means of talking to our GREAT God.
Adapted from ideas generated from an APC GAP MEETING 7.1.05