While there is a vision for prayer – a purpose and a need, knowing and understanding how prayer needs to work doesn’t mean that it will.

For prayer to actually happen, and become stronger, widespread and potent, certain things are necessary.

Firstly, when we come together we are bringing together our individual conversations, our individual friendships with the Lord and the Holy Spirit, and come into an agreement with each other concerning the questions we are asking as a group, and the answers we are receiving. Prayer is sweet, and we enjoy it first of all individually, then corporately, and prayer that is practiced like this is sustained, because it is enjoyable and sweet.

The secret to the sweetness of prayer is the presence of the Lord. There’s a hymn that says, “Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus, just to take him at his word. Just to rest upon his promise, just to say ‘Thus saith the Lord'”. Let me emphasize that last phrase “Thus saith the Lord”. What a joy when God speaks in the midst of the prayer time. It makes the travail. the warfare, the knocking and seeking, all worthwhile. In the midst of the struggle, we are refreshed.

The refreshing of the Lord in the prayer room, can spill out of the prayer room and affect the spiritual atmosphere. The sweetness of the Lord in the prayer room can affect our church services, and the mission work in which we are involved. This, however, is incidental , ancillary to the direct impact of prayer on the missions, as specific spiritual barriers and strongholds being addressed and overcome will have unpredictable results in terms of spiritual atmosphere.

Maximizing effectiveness

All prayers are not equally effective, and the effectiveness of prayer is not necessarily increased by the number of persons participating. This is not an exhaustive list, but there are a few things that I’ve learned about prayer over the years:

1. Humility makes prayers more powerful
2. Submission increases spiritual authority
3. The prophetic (prophecy, prediction, declaration and preaching) increases faith and the spiritual dynamic of prayer
4. The Word increases faith and lines up with prayer warrior with the will of God
5. Each of the five fold ministries bring a different type of contribution to prayer, and a prayer topic that has contributions from each of the five fold ministries will be maximally effective, because it is being addressed from a number of different perspectives.
6. Prayer can consist of loud, raucous praise and bold, taunting victory shouts
7. Prayer can consist of deep sobs with tears and convulsions
8. Prayer should always express an underlying confidence in the love of our Heavenly Father, and should always end on a note of hope and joyful confidence in the future.
9. Prayer can be highly focused, and structured around pre-prepared prayer sheets.
10. Prayer meetings can be virtual, in-person or hybrid
11. Prayer should always flow out of worship, and conclude in worship according to the pattern in the Lord’s prayer
12. Prayers will sometimes contend against spiritual strongholds and spiritual forces
13. Prayers of desperate hunger will result in a move of God
14. Prayer is often sandwiched with ministry of the word, and this represents a good format for a virtual or in-person house of prayer