By Esther Leonard
At Mountain View Church we believe the prayer room is the boiler room, the furnace, and the nuclear power plant of the church. Because of this, we keep it fueled and ready.
Naturally there are many questions about establishing a specific, designated room in your church for prayer. Why would a church have a prayer room? How big should it be? Who will maintain it? How creative does it need to be? How do we get people to use it?
The answers are harder to come up with than the questions. At our church we have addressed these questions and many others around the issue of prayer with one answer: “It’s not our problem to solve. The prayer room is one way we encourage people to enter into God’s most Holy Presence.”
If our questions revolve around whether people are excited about it or how many are lining up to get in, then we will find ourselves discouraged. Just as we can’t create revival, we can’t create a prayer culture that all will embrace.
Creative and Ever-changing Prayer Room
We are committed, however, to our church’s passion to be a “house of prayer for all the nations.” So let me offer a few suggestions for establishing a prayer room in your church:
- Pray for people to receive a God-glorifying, Jesus-given, Holy Spirit-empowered passion to pray.
- Put passionate service into your prayer room preparation even if you and a few prayer leaders are the only ones who will use it. Remember, we are doing this for God. It needs to be excellent and creative.
- Throughout the course of a year, resources in the room should regularly change to track the sermons and follow national and international days of prayer. Resources should also focus on revival, evangelism, missions, etc. As your church changes, your prayer room should also change to match the emphases.
- Be creative in setting up the prayer room. Recruit a team of people who will help resource it so there is variety and clear instruction on what to do when you enter the room. Encourage prayers of praise, prayers of repentance, prayers for the lost, missions, youth, preaching, Sunday services, the world, and finances. Be sure to include a children’s section so they can come with their parents and not be bored.
- Faithfully use the prayer room yourself and invite your staff, leadership, and ministry leaders to use it as well. Model your enthusiasm for making use of the room by inviting others to join you.
- Preach about the power of the prayer room in Sunday messages and other teaching opportunities.
- Offer prayer room “open houses” to give people tours and entry into a prayer experience. This means the room must be clean, organized, and always ready for guests—just like your home.
- Communicate often that the prayer room is not only for the super-spiritual or those who are mature in their faith. It is crucial that intercessors be sensitive when speaking of “great joys and spiritual experiences” in the prayer room. Avoid using prayer jargon that intimidates most people.
- Use the prayer room only for personal prayer or specific prayer meetings. Try not to let it become a meeting room for various groups in the church. Instead, reserve it as a special place for individuals to pray at any time.
- Have a sign-in book so you can track real numbers—not just what you think is happening. This will keep you encouraged and provide accountability to you, your staff, and leadership about the actual use of the room. People track what they value. Thus, if we value the prayer room we will track its use.
- Enjoy the room. Make it fun. God is not a hard, difficult Lord and Leader. It is fun to hang out with Him!
Prayer is not a ministry of the church that we delegate to a few or pass on to a select group. The priesthood of all believers is the center of everyone’s life and calling. It is the intimate communication part of our relationship with God—connecting our lives and our hearts. We can never delegate this to an individual or a committee.
Each follower of Jesus is to have his or her own personal lifeline of communication with Jesus as our Leader, spending time each day interacting with our Savior. And the prayer room is one intentional way we are blessed to do this.
ESTHER LEONARD serves as prayer coordinator at Mountain View Community Church in Fresno, CA—a Mennonite Brethren Church that she and her husband Fred (lead pastor) founded in 1994.
