Our Saturday blasts from the past are going to continue to feature the series of articles from the 90s called ‘Factotum’. Their practical call to real service among the people of God and the lost are just as timely now as they were when they were first written. The next two Saturdays are all about encouraging prayer.

If there is one sure-fire prayer point in small groups, it's praying that God will make us more prayerful! Everyone believes in prayer; everyone recognizes that we need to pray more, but everyone has trouble making it a priority. Put it down to the bustle of 90s life, or simply to sinful, independent hearts—either way, we can always find something which is more pressing a task than speaking to God in prayer.

This edition of ‘Factotum’ aims at getting Christian groups praying. It's practical, as ‘Factotum’ always intends to be. But it's not about suggesting techniques which, like diets, tend to last for a few days before we break them, feel like failures and give up altogether. Instead, we focus upon enduring ideas which should pervade our prayer life.

Prayer ruts

Most Christian groups pray. Most Christian groups easily drift into prayer ruts. Our times of prayer become hurried intercessions, a quick vote of thanks at the end of the Bible study, prayers for the sick or ‘those who aren't with us’, or general prayers for more love and peace. Of course, these are all great things to pray for, but we usually end up praying for them by default, because we don't put in the time and effort to think about what to pray.

Most groups find it easier to do Bible study (or have supper) than to pray. Prayer gets reduced to a minimum, sometimes included only to relieve our guilt about it.

Prayer warriors

Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful. (Col 4:2)

We want our groups to love praying—to long to pray to God. Our group meetings can be training grounds for great prayer warriors. What is it that will help our group to be devoted to prayer? Here are a few ideas:

• The example of leaders. If you are a group leader, you must first address prayer in your own life. The group will see whether you are a prayer warrior or a prayer wimp. Enough said.
• Give prayer priority in group time. You may need to be creative in order to achieve this. Occasionally, devote the entire meeting to prayer. Start your meeting with prayer instead of leaving it until the end. Pray at several different points during the meeting. Pray spontaneously as issues arise from discussion.
• Keep track of the groups prayer concerns. Some groups use a ‘Prayer Diary’, so they can look back to what they have prayed about, as well as writing in specific events, people and occasions to pray for in the future. It is a very helpful aid to memory.
• Be confident in God through Christ. Ultimately, this is what drives us to pray. It is the truth of the gospel—that we are lost on our own, but have entered into relationship with God through Christ—that will sustain us in prayer. We need to keep teaching the gospel. It reveals the love of the Father in his Son for his people. If we doubt that God cares for us and hears and responds to our prayers, we will never pray. We need to recall that “He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things” (Rom 8:32).

Christian prayer

There are numerous prayer techniques being promoted in churches which are not true Christian prayer. The Christian form of prayer comes from the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father. We pray:

• to the Father
• through the Son (on the basis of his death)
• in and by the Spirit
• using ordinary language.

It is worth modelling this carefully in our groups, and not allowing any special techniques. There is no human technique for prayer. Prayer is available to those who trust Jesus. Believers have marvellous access to the Father through him. The current trends towards meditating in prayer, listening to God in prayer, having dialogue with God, journalling, imagining and having prayer dreams have moved away from the gospel basis of prayer.

Exercise

Think of five or six creative ideas for making sure that your group devotes more time to prayer.

Read the full article online.

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