The Prayer Ministry
at Community of Hope Church
The Bible urges us as believers to pray for one another (James 5:16). Jesus promises that when 2 or 3 of us pray together in His name, He is present in a special way, and our prayers have added effectiveness. This is certainly a mystery to us in many ways, but in faith we believe that praying for each other is one of the most powerful things we can do as God's people.
In light of this, Community of Hope offers 3 prayer ministry opportunities:
1. All prayer requests that are written on Connect Cards, sent in to our website, or called in to our church office are emailed out to a team of people who have agreed to pray for these requests as they receive them.
2. Each Sunday morning from 9:15am to 9:45am in room 4-128 at RPB High School, our Prayer Group prays for needs in our church and for the service that day. Anyone who would like to help support our church in prayer is welcome to drop in and join this team any time. Also, if you have a need that you desire prayer for, you may come on any Sunday. If you want us to invite others to support you in prayer for a special need, please contact the church office ahead of time, so we can send out an email invitation to our email prayer team.
3. We always have our altar open for prayer during our Sunday services, and we recently strengthened this value in our fellowship by offering the opportunity to pray with a trained Altar Prayer Team member at the close of any service. We have organized a rotation, so that several men and women will be available to pray with any one of us on any given Sunday.
Purpose of the Altar Prayer Team:
* When you feel God speaking to you during a worship service, sharing that with a Prayer Team member while it is fresh and letting them pray with you about it can help you solidify that experience and take next steps to act on it.
* If you have a burden or concern of any kind, bringing this to the Lord together with another brother or sister in Christ opens the door for God to work in a special way and brings an extra measure of His peace and hope into your heart.
* If someone in our service senses God's Spirit leading them to commit their life to Christ or to rededicate their life to Him, members of this team will always be available to guide people through this process and pray with them.
How you can help this ministry be effective:
* Please keep the front of the auditorium quiet after the service, and do not disturb those who are praying, whether alone or with a Prayer Team member. If you could move your conversations toward the back of the auditorium, and if tear-down could take place as quietly as possible, this will allow an atmosphere of prayer and response to continue.
* As people come for prayer, it would be great if you would also support them in prayer from where you are seated, simply asking God to bless them and minister to whatever need they have.
* Finally, please make use of this ministry. All of us need prayer at some time or another. Scripture tells us that this is something we should do for others and let others do for us
In our culture today, many think of church as a place to sit passively and then go home and live life as usual. But we believe that God intends our services to draw a response from each of us and to change us. It is my prayer that this strengthened prayer ministry will open new doors for God to work in our fellowship and for us to experience His presence and power.
