The mid-week prayer meeting started early in the life of the church. While Sunday was often a day of worship with focus on God’s Word, the church reserved the mid-week meeting for prayer. For many, in time, the prayer meeting became a tradition and soon lacked its vitality.

Tradition is not a vice. Apathy is. Often the issue with tradition is not the tradition, it’s forgetting what it is about. The prayer meeting started as a way to act on the priority of prayer. The tradition becomes a vice when its reason for existence is “because we’ve always done that, that’s why.”

Apathy is the tarnish of tradition. So, how do we polish tradition so it can shine? There are three critical needs for the prayer meeting:

• We need to realize that prayer demonstrates our dependence and focus on God.
• We need to understand that prayer is a way we show direct access to God.
• We need to see that corporate prayer is as vital and important as private prayer.

Corporate prayer will look different for each church, but it is an essential part to being a church. A church’s success is best measured by two things: It’s sending capacity and its prayer capacity. The first demonstrates its ability to make disciples. The second demonstrates is total dependence upon God.

The bottom line:
Corporate prayer is an essential aspect to church. The Prayer Meeting, like many things in life, needs constant attention. It is easy to let important traditions become tarnished by apathy. Keep the prayer meeting a polished and bright. Pray together because we need God and enjoy His presence.