Have you ever been to a prayer meeting? I went to my first prayer meeting in 1973 in a high school gym filled with hundreds of lay men and women and a few nuns and priests. What my husband told me about his first prayer meeting experience came true for me. He was right about the aura of love. The music was filled with joy and the singing was loud.
The words we sang reminded me of camp songs from the Protestant retreats of my teenage years when I first gave my heart to Jesus. People were passionately praising God and praying aloud. We went back the next week. By the end of the second meeting, I was hooked.
Since then I’ve also worshipped in small home prayer groups and at conferences held in college stadiums. Now, if I miss our community prayer meetings on Sunday afternoons with about 100 worshippers, something is missing in my spiritual life that next week.
If you are unfamiliar with how prayer groups operate and how they evangelize, here’s my experience.
The prayer meeting provides a structure for worship, but it’s not a Mass. Bible passages are always read by at least one person, but it’s not a Bible study. Bible study groups convene at other times with a different agenda.
The people praise and worship the Lord spontaneously with all kinds of prayer expressions, but it is not a devotional service. A rosary or Divine Mercy Chaplet may be said before or after the prayer meeting or during special Adoration services.
Often one of the leaders gives a prepared teaching. The focal point of prayer meetings not a lecture but praise and worship of God. Although people share with the group how the Lord is working in their lives, the prayer meeting is not a share group. Small share groups meet at other times in homes.
Individuals are prayed with for healing, but it’s not primarily a healing service. Intercessory prayer teams meet separately for extended prayer. Music enhances the prayers for healing and everyone joins in singing praise and worship songs, but it’s not a concert.
There’s plenty of fellowship before and after the prayer meeting, but it’s not a social hour.
The prayer meeting bears much good spiritual fruit, but it’s not a retreat or a structured study of how to form a personal relationship with the Lord or find spiritual direction. Separate retreats, Life in the Spirit Seminars and other formation courses cover many aspects of spiritual growth.
The prayer meeting unifies you with the prayer community worshipping with you. It doesn’t teach you how to form or equip disciples; it helps you become one. For me, the prayer meeting is a place to love God freely and let him love me.
If your diocese has an area-wide prayer community or charismatic center, that’s a good place to start. Most of their events are open to the public and their leaders can point you to websites and local resources. The larger covenant communities will send a team to give a Life in the Spirit Seminar in your parish.
To evangelize your parishioners, first grow your own relationship with the Lord. Equip yourself to lead them by example to the heights to which they can rise. From a personal commitment to the Lord comes a deep prayer life, a close connection with the Holy Spirit and everything else you need to recognize those whom God is calling to form a core group to evangelize your parish. With the inspiration, teachings, example, and support of a prayer group you can discover and yield to the charisms needed to form a core community of disciples.
A prayer meeting is one of many paths toward discipleship. Pray for guidance and understand that evangelism doesn’t depend on your strengths and hard work. Free from that burden, you can receive the confident assurance that God will manifest his power and presence in you and provide whatever you need to build up his body.
© 2013 Nancy H C Ward
Nancy Ward
Nancy HC Ward, author of Sharing Your Catholic Faith Story, was once a shy convert. She has spent decades writing about conversion, Christian community, and the Catholic faith. After earning a journalism degree, she worked for many years for the Texas Catholic (newspaper of the Diocese of Dallas) and the Archbishop Sheen Center for Evangelization, and later began her own editing service. An active member of the Catholic Writers Guild and a regular contributor to a number of high-profile Catholic publications online, she also has a busy blog on spirituality called Joy Alive.net. She’s a contributing author to The Catholic Mom’s Prayer Companion. Now, through her Sharing Your Catholic Faith Story workshops, retreats, book, and DVD, she shares her conversion story at Catholic parishes and conferences, equipping others to share their own stories.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.