At training camp back in September, I experienced a concert of prayer for the first time. This form of prayer constitutes a group of people praying individual prayers out loud at the same time. Now, I have experienced corporate prayer before in the form of liturgy in both Catholic and Protestant settings, but in those instances, everyone is saying the same thing at the same time. In a concert of prayer, there is a seeming cacophony of sound as each person speaks their heart to God. For someone listening, only snatches of phrases or even just words would be distinguishable in the chaos and jumble of what is being said. And yet, there is something quite beautiful about this form of prayer. At training camp, 150 of us were praying different things, and yet God was hearing each prayer as though it were being spoken alone in a quiet room!
On Sunday night, my fellow England FYM’s (Hilary, Jarred, Josh, and Robby) and I gathered for a time of prayer. This was the second week we had done so, and we took time to review the prayer requests from last week and add new ones to the list. Then Jarred suggested we do a concert of prayer. I was okay doing that when I was one voice among 150 others, but being one voice among 5 was quite a different thing. Even so, I started to pray along with my teammates, and the words just poured from my lips. There’s something different about the atmosphere when you pray all at once instead of waiting for one person to pray. First of all, you don’t get bored. 😛 Secondly, as I heard phrases from my teammates’ prayers, I was prompted to pray something similar about the situation for which I was praying. It was cool to incorporate their words into my own prayers.
I want to invite you to be a part of this concert of prayer. We meet on Sunday nights around 9:00 our time (4:00 EST). After listing prayer requests, we take time to pray, usually finishing between 9:30 and 9:45. If at all possible, would you join us in praying during that time? How cool to think that we could be raising our voices to God together in an international concert of prayer!
I will post later some of the specific prayer requests we’ll be lifting up so you can be praying for them as well.
