Episode 222: Are You Teaching Your People to Pray?

Episode 222: Are You Teaching Your People to Pray?

Contact Alan: alan@dtbatogether.com

Contact Trent: gasconadevalleybaptist@gmail.com

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Pastor, Teach us to Pray

One. Model good praying for your congregation, pastor. “Being examples to the flock” (I Peter 5:3).

 

Two. Teach us to pray faithfully in the privacy of your home/office/car without ever telling anyone. Let this be between you and the Lord. Anything less turns us into hypocrites.  Telling people to do what we are not doing is never good.

 

Three. But in worship services, understand that people will be learning from you how to pray.They’re listening, and they are learning.

 

 

Four. Therefore, give advance thought to your public prayers. Work on praying better and more effectively.

 

Five.  Always be aware that people are not only praying with you, but listening to how you pray so they will know how to do it better. Even if they are not aware of it, they will be copying some of the things you do.

 

Six. . Teach us to pray when in public prayer:

 

–Most public prayers should be short.  Especially, those spontaneous prayers which we all do from time to time should be brief and to the point. Otherwise we will ramble and become repetitious.

 

 

 

When you pray in public, you are speaking to the Lord on behalf of everyone there.  So, your prayer says “we” and “our,” not “me” and “mine.”  See the Lord’s prayer for guidelines on this.

 

–The exception to short public prayers is when you are praying a formal dedicatory prayer, such as for an ordination of a minister, the dedication of a building, or some such.  David’s and Solomon’s prayers for the temple were long and profound and inspiring.

 

Seven.  You will also want to teach us about our private prayer.

 

–To have a definite time and place for prayer, preferably in the morning, and in a spot where you can leave your Bible and notebook.

 

–To continue praying throughout the day, in snippets (aka “prayer arrows”), as they have  a moment here and there. This surely is what “praying always” means.

 

–To pray as Jesus did: Beginning with praise, and then moving into our requests, and ending with praise and committal.

 

–To excise dead phrases from their prayers.

 

–To retain a sense of holiness in their prayer while at the same time being conversational.