Why Corporate Prayer is So Important & Central to Effective Church Life

The five of us gathered for prayer. Pastor Perkins began. I followed. Each person who followed the other prayed with a little bit more sincerety until Gary, the fifth to pray, broke down and began weeping under the weight of the truth of God's undeserved love. Then we all joined with him in that same Heart. The presence of God fell. We prayed with power. This is why corporate prayer is so important. Jesus exhorted us not to be like hypocrites (meaning actors in the Greek) who wish to be seen by men (Matthew 6:5) and want others to believe them in the know like the John 9 Pharasees. Corporate prayer runs that haughty religious attitude away as there is enough love for all.
 
"Each person who followed the other prayed with a little bit more sincerety until Gary, the fifth to pray, broke down and began weeping under the weight of the truth of God's undeserved love. Then we all joined with him in that same Heart."  
 
 
The model for public prayer can be found when Jesus said in John 11:41 "Father, I thank you that you have heard me." but then said "but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here..." Jesus, weeping for all those gripped by death, was already communing with the Father; But audibly and publicly repeated what was already expressed privately for the purpose of pulling others into what was really happening. Corporate and public prayer works this way. Unlike Jesus, who was in constant communion, we each go through cycles where we have to re-enter into His presence. And it is easier to do so together. Sunday church services centered on preaching was not what the writer to the Hebrew church had in mind when he spoke of not forsaking the assembly of coming together, (Hebrews 10:25) but rather the whole letter is about corporate prayer and our need to go into a Throneroom - together. And 1st Corinthians 13:9 says we each "know in part and speak in part". Nobody has a corner on God and Ephesians 2:21 and 4:16 says "we all are jointly fitted together" as a building or body.
 
"And all of a sudden - we are all truly praying. But it took each part to get us to Him." 
 
This concept of a Body is key to getting into His presence, which is key to praying effectively. In Matthew 18 Jesus talks about getting rid of unforgiveness, dethroning anger and clearing the spiritual air over us. This was essential for an effective prayer gathering. Binding and loosing have more to with taming attitudes in our hearts and the air over us than angrily beating up the devil. (Jude 1:9)  Besides, it is impossible to beat up Satan with our religious vanity. (James 4:6) Can't beat him being like him.  Ephesians spends chapters 1-5 focused on humble unity in every arena; Then and only then does Paul get to the subject of prayerful warfare. First Heaven comes to us and then through us. Which is why Jesus then says that where two or three are gathered together, He manifests among us. God is in each of us who know Him.  We need each other in corporate prayer. We start off praying focused on the Humble Heart on the Cross. Someone is mildly sincere. Then someone else is more sincere. Then someone begins to weep. And all of a sudden - we are all truly praying. But it took each part to get us to Him.
 
The three stage cycle of human experience involves seeking, encountering (finding) where we worship and the petitioning (releasing). We must seek God together. Consider that the Holy Spirit travels the path of our reborn spirit into our souls where our minds see Him, our wills choose Him and our emotions feel Him, then He flows through us into this foreign world through tears, spoken words, utterances, bended knees, lifted hands and even reverential silence. He inspires prayers within and rides them into the lives of others. "My words are spirit and they are life" (John 6:63) And consider the greater impact when this happens in numbers. "One can put a thousand to flight, two 10,000" (Deut 32:30) We must encounter Him together. And for the exponential results, we must pray together out of that Heart we've just been bathed in during worship.
 
"The written Word of God is our point of reference for sound doctrine and structure, but the corporate prayer meeting is the real point of reference for the actual spiritual condition of any fellowship." 
 
This is why one says that the written Word of God is our point of reference for sound doctrine and structure, but the corporate prayer meeting is the real point of reference for the actual spiritual condition of any fellowship.  Leaders who fail to facilitate this in their lives and those under them eventually succumb to the tyranny of their own hearts and minds. It makes one wonder what is actually happening in a majority of churches today. It is more of a form of godliness than anything else. And this is why the Holy Spirit is limited to His prayerless people's disobedience and/or ignorance. This is why people are not coming to Christ en masse. It's time to unclog those holes and come together. It's time for God to rain through us - those holes. He deserves the right to flow through us into the lives of others via the corporate prayer meeting. He needs nothing else. The time to seek Him together has come.  

...know them that labour among you... 1 Thessalonians 5:12 * ...pray for one another... James 5:6 * ...the eye cannot say to the hand I have no need of thee... 1 Corinthians 12:21 * ...there is one Body and one Spirit... Ephesians 4:4 * ...the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth... Ephesians 4:16 * ...I pray that they may be one with us so that the world will believe...John 17:21 * ...how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity...Psalm 133:1 "The purpose of life is companionship." *** "Worship is that form of companionship where we love on Him in response to His great love for us." *** "The most powerful drive in the human heart is the desire for companionship." *** "We inherited this drive from the One we were patterned after." *** "The difference between manipulation and leadership is motive." *** "Motive is purified and guided in the presence of God: Prayer." *** "Pride is a lifestyle of self-sufficiency, an attitude of self-entitlement and a motive for self-glorification." *** "Pride starts subtly and then turns into the aggressive enemy of real companionship" *** "The Cross and the presence of God brings fellowship (heart to heart), but the world offers only socializing (facade to facade)." *** "Every relationship has a foundation. The pride of public ministry has been a foundation for too many. At some point it consumes" *** "There is a difference between worshipping the idea that we worship God and actually worshipping God." *** "Why do we want to see prayer back in the schools, when it is no longer in our homes or churches?" *** "Corporate prayer around the Throne must return the center of church life if there is to be any hope for the masses." *** "Corporate prayer produces effective preaching, not preaching produces corporate prayer." *** "If we are so in the know, why do we no longer gather together to seek God, navigate through our haughty hearts to get a glimpse of God's heart and then pray in the lost?" *** "Christianity is not an enterprise, venture for self-discovery or political or civic organization. It is a Blood-bought fellowship of prayer focused on One." *** "Prayer-based friendships are the only ones that last." *** "Prayer-bathed friendships are not incidental to ministry, they are foundational." *** "Prayer is not a ministry of the Holy Spirit. It is the ministry" *** "It's one thing to tell somebody what we believe about Jesus, it's quite another to be able to introduce someone to our Best Friend." *** "We are more like Martha than Mary; More like Christian activists, than people of prayer." *** "We need unity in humility found at the foot of the Cross, not prideful uniformity that says: 'Look at us doing God's work'" "There has got to be a practical, excecutable strategy in place for us to dethrone the ministry of Hollywood in our homes and bring families and communities together via corporate prayer inspired by the Spirit. Technology is not the enemy; Our disobedient laziness is the enemy." ***