One of my pet peeves is praying only for sick people. I know that praying for the sick is important and should be a priority. I know that it is something that can bring great blessing to the church and great glory to God. If I were sick, or my family were sick, I would want you to pray for them. My gripe is that churches can fall into a rut when it comes to prayer. It has been my experience in most every church I have ever attended that the prayer time was actually a list of who was in the hospital, who was down with the flu, or who was about to pass away. It always seemed to me in those moments that we were praying for what we knew would already happen. We would pray for healing if someone had the flu and for the doctors to have wisdom if someone had cancer. It never seemed that we were praying for the glory of God to be deomonstrated in powerful and miraculous ways through our prayer for the sick. That doesn’t necessarily mean healing, although I think the bible teaches us to pray for that.
Over the years, I have developed the opinion that you can gauge the spiritual depth and health of the church by simply listening in on their corporate prayer. If the language used in prayer only deals with the physical well being of the body, then there might be some deeper sickness present that we need to deal with.
If my opinion has any truth to it at all, then I am greatly encouraged by my church fellowship in Frankfort. Every Monday we recieve a copy of the prayer requests of the congregation which they fill out via a tear-out in the bulletin. Many in our congregation take advantage of this powerful yet quiet ministry. Still many more could. A cross sampling of these requests looks simply like a list of names. Many of these names are indeed prayers for the sick and dying. Yet the names on these sheets also represent those struggling with addictions, failing marriages, and financial difficulties. There are missionaries present. The pastors and staff of our church are lifted up. Government officials are named. One person prays that “Buck Run [would be] on fire for revival.” One woman prays that “her older daughter would come back to God.” Another prays for “my husband…to come to know Jesus as his Savior.”
When the church prays well, we become well. There is no substitute for the power of prayer in the individual or corporate life. I am encouraged to hear these very honest and sincere prayers issue forth from our congregation. They tell the story of a people who, although struggling and sinful, still seek God’s face on matters that bring him glory. They tell the story of a people who realize their dependence on God. So now, when I pray for the sick it is accompanied by a joy that I must confess I have not felt in a long time. That’s my sin. My soul rejoices that I am among a people who has learned to pray expectantly, with fervor, and in faith. There are many graces yet to enjoy from Him who gives us every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. May we continue to seek Him.
Reformation Station 
Thank you for this post brother. I am encouraged that the fellowship you are now a part of prays in such ways. What a joy.
I have also been blown away by God’s people in prayer here at Immanuel . Every wednesday night is like a 20 minute expostion of Scripture, much singing, and about 45 minutes of prayer for numerous things. Yes we do pray for the sick. But we also pray for the lost, wisdom and faithfulness etc. for the pastors in the area, our missionaries and other missionaries, along with many other things.
What a joy to be around a praying people who pray that whether in death or life, poverty or riches, sickness or health, God would be magnified and glorified in it and that His name would be made great among many people.
Miss you man.
Yea, I just was reading last night, “The Hearts of the Hypotcites Revealed in the Neglect of the Duty of Private Prayer” by Jonathan Edwards. Many, of these were things that you had already learned and had taught to me, but one point that he made was that you can guage the truth of your own prayer life, by what you pray for when in public. And so, it is an indicator of our hearts as to how we view God based on what we ask him for in prayer. We would not ask him for something we did not want him to do nor that we thought he could not do. And so when we pray only for health, it shows we are only concerned with God’s power when it has to do with our physical well being, not the well being of first his kingdom around the world (which was Christ’s first proposition in the Lord’s Prayer), and second for the power of God to be displayed in all areas of our inadequacies. When we only ask for better health, it shows that we think we can manage when we are healthy and that his kingdom is of little concern to us. But this is contrary to the Gospel, and evidence of an unconverted heart. Wow, that offends me!
It has been a blessing to be encouraged to spend much time in the duty of praying for the now over 300 missionaries Eastwood PCA has helped to send out, and to spend time asking Him to grant us the power to persevere in His promises. It has also been a privilege to pray for you and your ministry in Louisville. I miss you and love you brother. Also, Westminster Seminary California is the joint. You need to poke your head out there for your TH.D or something. They have the Reformed Baptist Institute as an option in their curriculum.
You forgout about only praying for safety when on long trips….
But I have to agree, prayer does reflect alot on the spiritual health of a church. I believe this is because it is an application of what is learned through the scriptures on how and what to pray for. Everyone may know that we are to “pray to God to send out laborers,” but do they actually do that?
Thanks for the post.
You also forgot about praying for children’s safety in the home when close in proximity to rubber balls and light globes.
I feel I have to “weigh in” on this one. It is, I believe, presumptuous on anyone’s part to believe that when we are involved in “corporate prayer” that each individual believer in that particular congregation is ONLY praying what the pastor or teacher is praying. Some, I’m sure are simply listening, however, many are lifting their own prayers to God about whatever is on their hearts and really that is just between them and God.
(Quote)”Over the years, I have developed the opinion that you can gauge the spiritual depth and health of the church by simply listening in on their corporate prayer.” I just don’t agree with that. I believe the “spiritual depth” of a church is manifested by many different fruits, or lack thereof; not simply a prayer offered by a pastor, teacher or leader. And, yes, our leaders do sometimes focus on the sick and dying . . . read James 5:13-16.
I just think we should be careful about judging the sincere prayers of other brothers and sisters in Christ.
Oh, absolutely Gary. I knew when I wrote this that it had the possibility of coming off the wrong way. I’m not saying that praying corporately for the sick is wrong in any way.
Let me put it this way – you can tell a lot about the cares of a congregation by listening to their prayers.
I have no doubt that other prayers are going up during corporate prayer. I’m referring to corporate prayer requests and the prayer that follows. Corporate and pastoral prayer is the time that the congregation joins together to petition God, it is not individual. I have been part of congregations where there was very little prayer for anything outside of the sick during this corporate prayer. I believe that this does say something about the congregation. At the very least, it tells us the level of understanding a congregation has about prayer.
Praying for the sick is healthy. Praying only for the sick is not. It would be the same if we only prayed for the lost – to the exclusion of the sick.
That’s not really my main point in this post though. I was simply moved by some of the prayer requests at Buck Run and rejoicing that as I pray for the needs of the congregation, there seems to be more there than just one type of prayer request. I appreciate your weighing in on this. Your wisdom is always a pleasure.
I couldn’t agree with you more, Adam. I don’t want to talk about prayer at other churches but I have been truly blessed by corporate prayer at Morningview. We pray for the sick. We also pray for lost people by name. Since it is a smaller group there are individuals (besides the pastor) who pray publically and petition for so many things like healing for sick people, for salvation for the lost, for God to be glorified in our lives, and for true worship to exist among all nations. This is not a criticism of other churches but I have been truly blessed by corporate prayer at my new church.
Great post.
Most of the Baptist churches here where I live have Wednesday night Prayer meeting. The attendance is not very high, yet when there is a get together for a potluck or a church picnic, there is always a big turn out. I guess the bible is correct where your your tressures are……..
Cristina
I remember being challenged by a friend once on this. I was griping about how prayer was taken out of school etc, really just repeating what I had heard, and he stopped me to say: ” You know, the real problem is that people don’t even pray with their own families anymore.”
That shut me up in a hurry 🙂