How To Lead Bigger Prayer Meetings
Ideas for how to engage people and lead larger scale corporate prayer meetings
In the UK our most common model for prayer goes like this…
Sit in a circle, go around the room and ask people what they want to pray for, make a list, everyone prays one at a time. End
Works fine if you have 5 people there but 20? … or 60?!
If we use a model that only works well for up to 10 people then we shouldn’t be surprised if our average attendance is 10!
Here are some ideas for getting people praying in a larger meeting. And if you’ve been asked to prayer lead at Pursuit feel free to try some of these ideas out!
· Prayers on the mic: invite 3-5 people to come and pray prayers no longer than 1-2 minutes on the mic. (smaller meetings)
· Prayer circle: gather everyone into a circle where everyone prays for the person on their left for one minute and then for the person on their right for one minute (smaller meetings)
· Prayer duos: invite everyone who would like to be involved to stand up and find someone else to pray with. Spend 3-5 minutes praying for each other (men with men/women with women).
· Small group prayer: invite anyone who would like to be involved in small group prayer to stand and then gather with 2-5 other people in groups around the room. (State that they do not need to be invited to join a group but can just join the nearest group)
· Biblical Prayers: invite people to use general or specific passages/prayers from the Bible to pray from. (This can be done individually or for prayers from the front)
· Praise and Thanksgiving: invite people to declare their worship / praise / thanks on the mic, or for everyone to simultaneously speak it out where they are.
· Prayer for Healing: invite anyone who is sick and would like prayer for healing to stand up. Then invite everyone else to gather around them and spend 2-5 minutes praying for healing.
· General prayer ministry: invite anyone who would like prayer to stand up. Then invite others to gather around them and spend 2-5 minutes praying for them. (This could be an open general invite or focused on a specific area)
· Prayer for a church or ministry: invite the leaders or all members of a specific church or ministry to come to the front and invite everyone else to gather around them to pray and prophesy over them for 3-10 minutes.
· Rapid-fire prayer: invite 10-20 people to come to the front and form a queue next to the prayer leader. Encourage them to pray short 10-20 sec prayers in quick succession. If a large number of people are involved then be ready to pause between prayers to allow space for the worship team to interject choruses. (larger meetings)
· Corporate prayers: invite everyone to stand and spend 2-4 minutes praying out loud and simultaneously for a particular topic. (larger meetings)
· Praying in tongues: invite people to pray/sing in tongues if they speak in tongues (they can pray in their own language if not).
· Waiting prayer: invite everyone to wait on God in the quiet (or by singing in tongues) for as long as it seems good to the Holy Spirit.
· Prophetic sharing: invite people to listen to God and come to the front to share prophetic words/pictures/songs
· Geographical prayer: invite everyone to pick an area of their choice (a local region/neighbourhood/country) and spend 3-5 minutes praying for it.
· Prayer Stations: invite people to move around the room where several different prayer stations have been set up which invite people to pray for particular topics.
· Prayer Corners: allocate different corners of the room to different prayer topics. Invite people to move to the corner of the room that relates to the topic they would like to pray for.
· Worship declarations: invite people to corporately sing the words of a particular song/chorus over a particular area/people group or topic.
· Generational prayers: invite different generations to pray for each other. (e.g. invite all those aged over 60 to stand and come to the front and invite all those under 25 to gather around them and pray for them) (larger meetings)
· Corporate prayers of repentance: invite people to come and offer prayers of repentance on behalf of the church/nation.
· Individual prayers: invite people to stand/kneel where they are and spend time in repentance/surrender/commitment in a specific area while quiet worship continues.
· Prayer ministry: invite people to come to the front for prayer ministry in a specific area. Invite anyone else (who is involved in prayer ministry at their church) to come and pray for individuals (men with men/women with women) (larger meetings)
