Praying in the Service

Weekly Update – January 27th, 2022

Is there value in praying together?  Hopefully you would respond with a resounding, YES! That is why we keep our prayer list up to date, or we take prayer requests during Sunday school, right?  We pray before meals together, before meetings at church, and before various other events as well.  Therefore it should be a given that we would also pray together during our Sunday morning services.  But praying multiple times in our service?  Why not simply open with a quick word of prayer and then perhaps close with another?  Why do we pray multiple times during our service?   Well, this week, I would like to give you three reasons why we pray the way that we do during our services.

First, we pray together with intentionality.  The prayers that we lift up during our services are not simple formalities that we should fulfill as Christians gathering together.  No, there is a purpose behind each one of them.  Consider our opening prayer.  Our normal course of action is to open with a Psalm that expresses praise to the Lord or one that communicates the greatness of our God.  We read this Psalm and then we generally pray through the Psalm to open our service.  In our opening prayer, we are then setting the tone of our service to be focused on God’s majestic character or on some aspect of his power, love, wisdom or grace as we gather together to praise him.  Recently, we also have a short prayer of confession in the middle of our service.  Here the goal is not necessarily to confess every sin, but to allow us a time to reflect on our own hearts as we prepare to hear from the Lord.  The next prayer that we have is usually a little bit more lengthy.  Here we spend time praying together for the needs of the church.  We try to pray for people in our congregation by name, we pray for ministries and events, we pray for our country and our leaders and we pray for the sermon time.  Then the last prayer that we generally have is at the conclusion of the sermon.  Even this prayer has intentionality to it.  Here we pray over the points of the sermon asking God to apply them to our lives as we consider his truth.  Again in all of these prayers there is a purpose behind them. 

Second, we pray together for greater unity.  If we have been brought together by the blood of Jesus Christ, placed together in his church to love and serve one another, then corporate prayer displays the unity that is and ought to already be present among us.  The way that prayer does this is through allowing us to come together with one voice to lift up our praise, confession, requests and thanks to the Lord.  Now this really goes against the grain of the way church might often be viewed.  Typically many will see the church as a way to allow them to individually grow or to individually receive or individually express worship to God.  But the church is not our individual devotion time surrounded by various other people.  Praying together shows how we are knit and tied together as it places us into the lives of those we are praying for or the ministries that others may lead.  Praying together reminds us that we are in this fight for faith together.

Third, we pray together because it’s biblical.  If you take a look through the scriptures you will see multiple occasions when either the nation of Israel or the church come together to pray with one voice to the Lord.  This is clear for example in the Old Testament when Israel begins to cry out together for their deliverance from Egypt (Ex. 2:23) followed by praise to God when they are set free (Ex. 15).  In the spring we went through the book of Joshua together.  A clear example of corporate prayer came when Joshua intercedes for the people of Israel after Achan’s sin (Josh. 7:6-9).  In the New Testament this is clear in examples such as the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6:9-13, where all of the pronouns are not “I” but “we.”  From there you consider one of the purposes of the church was to gather together for prayer (Acts 2:42) and they pray for such things as Peter’s release from prison (Acts 12:12-17) or Paul and Barnabas before their missionary journey (Acts. 13:1-3).  Scripture provides us with a clear pattern of God’s people gathering together to pray, not just individually, but corporately. 

Everything we do as a church has a purpose behind it.  This is true in our ministries and outreaches, but it is also true in every function and order for our Sunday morning service.  We read scripture because it keeps us from error and it transforms our hearts.  We sing songs because we praise God and we recite his truth to one another.  We listen to a sermon because we need to hear God’s word explained and applied.  Likewise, we as the church need to see our dependence upon God and from there praise him, confess to him, intercede to him and thank him.  So we pray, and we even pray multiple times within in our service, as we seek the glory of God and the building up of his people.

Serving Him with You,
Pastor Michael Nelson

Written by Pastor
Michael Nelson

Fighter Verse for the Week

"We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up." - Romans 15:1-2

Announcements:

Leading Worship: This Sunday, Martin Maharas will be back leading worship for us again. Martin is currently a member at Summit Woods Baptist Church in Lee’s Summit and has been leading worship off and on for the last 10 years. He is currently the lead guitarist and vocalist for a group called “Blood and Hysop.”

Ladies Bible Study: Ladies, join us for a Bible study through the book of Exodus starting on Tuesday, February 15th at 6:30pm. The study will be a video based study led by Sheryl Nelson. There is a sign up sheet in the hallway, or sign up by contacting the church office. You can learn more about this 10 week Bible Study HERE

Help Box: In the welcome center there is a new “Help Box” located on the right counter, under the book store. This box is designed to provide you with a form of communication if there is anything physical or practical that you might need help with. The box will be checked on a fairly regular basis and help will be organized as needed. There are communication cards on the side of the box.

First Wednesday Prayer: Join us on Wednesday, February 2nd at 7:00-8:00pm in the sanctuary for an hour of prayer. On these evenings, we will have a mixture of structured and less structured times of prayer as we seek the Lord to move for our sake, the sake of our church, as well as the sake of our community and world.

Awana

Every Sunday at 5:45pm, children ages 3 years to 6th grade are invited to join us for Awana.

Bible Study

Join us in the Sanctuary at 9:15am on Sunday mornings for a study in the Spiritual Disciplines. A women’s Bible Study meets at the same time at then end of the hall near the nursery.

Join us on Sunday evenings at 6:00pm for a 6 week study through the Explicit Gospel. Books are available in the Welcome Center and are $10 each. We will meet in the sanctuary. You can find an introduction to this study HERE.

Giving

To Give Online, Go HERE. 

You can also mail your offering to: 1416 Main Street, Grandview, MO. 64030

Prayer

An updated Prayer Guide can be accessed HERE. 

Prepare for Sunday

Guide for Worship can be found HERE.