Let This Verse Be Our Prayer
Corporate prayer is the time of prayer when the Body of Christ comes together with a unified voice to pray the Lord. Corporate prayer can serve a number of functions: encourage the church (Hebrews 12:28–29), foster a unity of purpose (Acts 1:13, 2:1), serve as an act of worship (1 Chron. 16:28–29), or as an act of repentance (2 Chron. 7:14).
Acts 2:42 speaks of the fellowship of believers and highlights corporate prayer.
They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common.
In the same way that individual prayer speaks with our own voice, so must corporate prayer capture the corporate voice. It must address the needs and concerns that we all have in common; therefore preparation and planning is important when planning for a time of corporate prayer.
Practical Ways to Pray Corporately
We can incorporate corporate prayer in a worship service in several ways. Depending on the liturgy of your church, these examples can supplement times of prayer that are already in an order of worship:
- prayer by the pastor
- prayer by congregation member
- the congregation could read or sing a prayer in unison
My home pastor teaches themed sermon series like most pastors and there is usually a certain verse or chapter that he focuses on. In an effort to encourage corporate prayer, he could pray the scripture back to God on behalf of the church. In this way he not only unifies the congregation in one prayer, but he is also discipling parishioners on the method of praying scripture, that they in turn can emulate in their own prayer time.
There are many gifted writers and skilled prayer-warriors that have special gifting in public prayer in our home church. Throughout the year, the pastor highlights specific emphases by recruiting these gifted members to lead in times of prayer for revivla, stewardship, salvation, and other topics. Growing up, I always thought that pastors would be the best at praying, and while our pastor has an amazing ability to pray corporately for the church, this one particular Sunday I’ll never forget. One of our “sweet old ladies” of the church was asked to prayer and even though the service was over in regards to the printed “Order of Worship,” the spiritual atmosphere shifted dramatically in the worship auditorium and you would have thought the entire church congregation was about to erupt. I say this to shine a light on the gifting of prayer in the church that can be tapped into to be an effective tool for discipling the church in corporate prayer.
I saw this last suggestion of corporate prayer during a visit at church while out of town with family. The liturgy was similar to my church back home and the musical forces were similar. It differed however in the way that corporate prayer was integrated throughout the song and scripture selections. The method used in this particular church was to incorporate prayer during instrumental interludes of a song. While the guitarist played, the screens display scripture that reinforced the upcoming bridge of the song and the worship leader invited the congregation to read along with him. Before finishing the second half of the song, he simply said, “Let this chorus be our prayer as the body of Christ as we glorify God with our voices.” The worship song was used as a time to unify the church body in song, prayer, and meditation on the word.
These three examples demonstrate how corporate prayer can be successsfully implemented in any worship service. The pastors and worship ministry leaders designed these moments and intentionally used them to unify the voice of the church in the use of corporate prayer. Much like how Jesus gave instruction to the disciples on how to pray, so must we, as worship pastors, disciple our congregation in corporate prayer.
