10 Things You Should Know about Corporate Prayer by Megan Hill, author of Praying Together: The Priority and Privilege of Prayer: In Our Homes, Communities, and Churches.
1. A Christian never prays alone.
When we think about prayer, we might first envision something like Eric Enstrom’s iconic print, Grace, in which a man bows his head at the table alone. We tend to think of prayer as primarily a solitary and private activity, but the Bible tells a different story. According to Romans 8, the prayers of even one Christian are the occasion of a divine conversation in which Father, Son, and Spirit all participate. When we pray, God talks to God.
What’s more, Revelation 8:3-5 pulls back the curtain of heaven to show us that the prayers of all the saints are gathered together in the heavenly places and are poured out together to accomplish God’s great purposes. Even one person in prayer is never truly alone.
2. God’s people have been praying together since the book of Genesis.
We don’t have to wander too far into the new-created world before we stumble upon a prayer meeting. Adam and Eve’s children, Cain and Seth, form the two families of humanity’s future, and these families could not be more different. The Cainites were extremely talented—they raised livestock, made music, and invented metal tools. They were also godless.
The Sethites, on the other hand, didn’t seem to have much in the way of outward credentials. We don’t read of any great strides in science or technology. Instead, we read that they “began to call on the name of the Lord” (Gen. 4:26). In humble dependence on Yahweh—their relational, covenant-making God—the children of Seth held the world’s first prayer meeting.
3. God’s people will keep praying together for eternity.
The Westminster Shorter Catechism tells us that “prayer is an offering up of our desires unto God,” and when we read Revelation 19:1-8 we see that God’s people in heaven are doing just that. Their sin is removed, their human weakness is put to right, and they eternally shout with thanksgiving the perfected desire of their hearts: “Hallelujah! . . . Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory!” (v. 7).
4. Corporate prayer is valuable work that every believer can participate in.
Sadly, even in the church, we sometimes value people who do things over those who can’t. We value the twenty-something, college-educated woman who rescues sex-trafficking victims over the seventy-year-old widow in a suburban nursing home. We value artists and organizers and big thinkers over children with disabilities.
But corporate prayer is valuable work for everyone in Christ’s church. The hosannas of children are no less precious to Christ than the eloquent praises of adults (Matt. 21:15-16), and, to quote John Owen, “the prayers of the meanest saints may be useful to the greatest apostle.”
5. Praying with other people teaches us about prayer . . .
Chances are, most of what you know about prayer you learned from hearing someone else pray. Mary learned to pray from Hannah (Luke 1:46-55; 1 Sam. 2:1-10). Saul (later Paul) doubtless learned something about prayer from Stephen (Acts 7:57-8:1). Even Jesus taught his disciples to pray by giving them an example (Matt. 6:9-13) and by taking them by the hand and leading them together to the place of prayer (Luke 9:28; 11:1; 22:39-46).
