Practical Steps For Starting Prayer Ministries
By Joseph Kidder
1. Pray for a hungering and thirsting after God.
2. Ask God to give others a burden for prayer. Then identify a group of praying people who can provide leadership in a prayer movement.
3. Appoint a prayer coordinator or prayer director in the church who will plan, program, and manage times of prayer. Such an individual’s main task is to keep the vision of prayer in the front of the people.
4. Promote prayer in connection with projects of the church, such as ministries, events, the work of the local Adventist school, and evangelistic series.
5. Regularly publish and distribute a church prayer list.
6. Emphasize intercessory prayer for unsaved people. Aim to have at least 50 percent of your congregation praying for others.
7. Have more than one prayer meeting. Develop a whole program of prayer meetings according to ages, agencies, tasks, and needs (prayer of the sick, a ministry to Jewish people, men and women in the armed forces, college students, missionaries, etc.).
8. Plan interesting and special programs with a special emphasis on prayer. Some ideas are:
• Hold a prayer conference in your church.
• Provide two or three prayer retreats each year.
• Host a prayer banquet.
• At least once a year, preach a series on prayer.
• Offer a small group Bible study or Sabbath school class on prayer.
• Establish a men’s and women’s prayer breakfast group that will meet for prayer every month.
• Schedule, during the corporate worship hour, testimonies about prayer every two or three weeks.
Taken from Joseph Kidder’s book The Big Four, reprinted with permission.