Looking at the task of establishing a prayer strategy and ministry for your church can be overwhelming. You might be asking yourself, “Where do I begin?”, or “All this information makes sense, but how do I implement it in the church I attend?” There is an old joke that asks the question, how do you eat an elephant? The answer is the key to where you should begin…one bite at a time. So grab a fork, and let’s begin!

Ronald Dunn points out in his book Don’t Just Stand there, Pray Something, “I’m not sure you can start a prayer ministry by organizing one…we did not organize our prayer ministry in order to create a prayer ministry-we organized the ministry after [the need] arrived. There is a great difference between the two.” It’s important to know as mentioned in previous sections of the website, the health of your church and its members. The first part of your strategy, as mentioned in other sections of this site, should include making some honest assessments of your church’s state of health. To find more information on this, click here.

If your assessments show that your church is not at a place where they desire to learn and grow in this area of Kingdom living of prayer, other actions may be more important to focus on before you start putting together a full blown prayer ministry. As people in your church begin to confess sins, seek forgiveness, and grow in their relationships with Christ, a desire to incorporate better communication, or prayer, will develop.

Secondly, prayer strategy needs to begin with the leader of your church, the pastor. Dunn’s book mentioned above is highly recommended as a great resource for any pastor, prayer coordinator, or member interested in seeing prayer become more important in their church. If prayer is modeled in leadership, it will trickle down through the levels of the church as the body follows that leadership.

Next, see who is most interested in prayer. There may be a few people in your church that already meet on a regular basis to pray. If so, ask to join in, and share your vision with them. You may be surprised by how quickly the numbers of those interested in a prayer ministry will grow out of this one group praying for your church.

For the complete list of suggestions of resources for help in starting a prayer ministry, or growing an existent one, check out our resource page here.