Five Steps to Pray Creatively in a Group
Group prayer can be energizing. It can be interactive, creative, and not boring.
Daniel fasted, wore sackcloth, and sprinkled ashes on his head to pray. The Prophet Ezekiel laid on his side cooking his food with cow dung for 430 days while he prayed. But King David…well, he threw his robe to the crowds and danced his way down main street with an entourage of musicians.
One evening, a group of us painted prayers in pictures on a canvas stretched across the entire wall. It was for a refugee people group on the other side of the world. Later, we delivered it to a school there!
Sometimes getting together in a group to pray, especially for the nations, can feel a little like it’s 430 days of eternal boredom, fasting from energy, while we listen to someone drone on and on and on and on and on.
We’ve all been there.
But with a little intentionality by someone who raises their hand to say, hey, I’ll facilitate this one! and yes, structure, let’s loosen the Spirit of God in our group prayer times, get everyone participating, and make it more spontaneous (even if you’re born and raised conservative, like me).
You’ll find that if everyone in a group participates and enjoys the experience of praying, something happens with effectiveness too. People feel closer to God. They feel closer to what they’re praying about. They feel closer to each other. And they sense the power and effectiveness of their group prayer time. They start hearing from God.
Want to try it?
Step One: Plan ahead
First, take inventory of how you currently pray in a group. Is it at your family dinner table? Tacked on the end of a small group time? In a prayer “meeting”? Take what you already do, and ask people if you can lead it next time, make it longer, and make it all about prayer. Of course, tell them you’re going to do something different, get everyone participating, and it’s going to be energizing.
For example, in our family, during the pandemic we were already tuning into church online together on the weekends. So, I told the teens ahead of time, After the online service, we’re going to do a family prayer time this next week, okay? (Teens need a heads up for stuff like this). It went really well (see the next steps). We did it most weeks during that online-church-at-home time. The teens expected that we’d go an extra half hour or so to pray together as a family.
If you’re in a small group at church, ask if you can skip the book study for one week, and do a whole hour on prayer. What will we do for a whole hour?, they’ll silently wonder, as they secretly decide they’re busy that week. But you’re going to tell them that it’s not going to be what they think. You’re going to try something new. It will be interactive, creative and let’s just give it a try. If you can get the whole hour (or more) to try the next few steps, that’s the best.
Once you plan ahead for a specific time slot, it’s time to plan the hour, using the next four steps. I keep a green notebook that I write notes in for when I facilitate group prayer times.
As I think through the next four steps in planning, I first always spend time in silence. I ask God for how he would like us to focus prayer, for any ideas he wants to put into my mind. I let him fill my thoughts with a plan. Then, I simply scribble it down, for myself to remember. It might look something like this:
0-10 minutes Welcome, hellos, check in
10-20 minutes Worship, prayer using lyrics from songs (cue up these three songs on YouTube on my laptop)
20-25 Watch video about xyz, listen while watching (cue up video, bring cord to connect my laptop)
25-35 Listen, draw, individual prayer time (bring crayons, paper, markers)
35-50 Using pictures, share them with the group aloud, use globe in middle for people to touch when they pray (bring globe).
Okay? So, while I’m always late, and the plan doesn’t stay the same, it’s important to make a plan.
For the Enneagram One’s out there, you don’t need to type it up, send it out, get it approved, and follow it minute by minute. This plan is just so that you can remember to bring some things, and be more intentional with how you pray, and what you pray for.
If you’re located in different cities and you’re doing group prayer via video chat, you can do all of this online. Just let people know ahead of time to bring crayons, paper, and a map or globe to their online video meeting, as an example.
Now, go to step two!
Step Two: Choose a place, a people, or a story to focus prayer
Many of us want to pray as a group for the nations. But we often make the world too big, too vague, and it doesn’t touch our soul.
A few years ago, another family and ours wanted to focus prayer on India, since both of us had lived there before. We set aside a few hours on a future Sunday night, invited others with a similar interest in India, and gave it a try. It was so interesting, and effective, we started scheduling it about once a month.
But even India is too big of a topic.
We need a picture of an individual. A story to follow. A cause to feel.
So, I recommend narrowing the prayer focus down, each time you pray.
Choose a country, a people group bloc (like Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists), a people group, a cause, or a cross-cultural worker. Here’s a few questions to ask yourself in order to uncover things God is already doing, so you can partner alongside God in prayer.
What current news events are happening in this country, or in this people group, or people bloc? (Afghanistan? Ukraine and Russia, anyone?)
What social issues are important, unjust, or against God’s Kingdom?
Is there a family or person you know that is working there?
What can I find online on www.joshuaproject.net?
What can I learn from following sending agencies on social media and blogs, such as Frontiers, Wycliffe, Pioneers, Ethnos360, or the IMB?
Once you find a specific face, a story, a cause, or perhaps a profile of a people group, then go to the next step!
Step Three: Use all the senses
God gave us eyes to see, ears to hear, noses to smell, and hands to touch—in addition to our mouths to speak. We often think of prayer as only us speaking words to God. We leave out some of the most experiential ways that God appreciates in communication: the senses of touch, smell, sight, and hearing.
So, when you find the specific area, story or person you’re praying for in Step Two, find a way to bring in the senses.
Kinesthetic, touch experiences, are especially powerful ways to connect, to remember, and bring ideas for fresh prayer.
For example, I found a heavy, brass key about a foot-long at a garage sale. I bring it to a prayer time and say, Let’s pass this key around and when you hold it, pray a one-sentence prayer to unlock a lie people might be believing in this area, place, or people. Sometimes, I’ll also bring two bowls, a cup and a hand towel and say, Come, pour a cup of water over your hands, and pray for God to wash away the shame for this person, this people, this nation by his own Living Water.
One time I hung a canvas on the entire wall, covered the floor with plastic sheets, bought several cans of paint, and we spent the evening painting prayers for a refugee people group living on the other side of the world. (We delivered it to a school in that country later on a Short-Term Vision Trip!)
Of course, in this time of a pandemic, we need to be wise about touching things, so we could put sanitizing wipes by each object. If you’re on video chat for a prayer time, show the object and ask them to go on a scavenger hunt for something similar. They can keep it at their computer all week and continue to pray when they see it.
Here’s a few other ideas to use all the senses: Print photos and pass them around to take home. Show a video. Show photos. Use maps on the wall for people to write post-it notes and put on a country. Light candles or use essential oils, like Frankincense, which were often used in Bible times too.
I developed an entire week of experiential prayer for groups using the senses with the Prayer PathWays Global Challenge. Check it out!
Step Four: Get everyone praying by using ‘structures’.
Most boring group prayer times are because of a boring facilitator who isn’t sure how to get everyone involved.
A person leading a prayer time who gives step-by-step instructions on who gets to pray and when and how, makes all the difference.
Yes, it seems counter-intuitive. In order to free up the Spirit, we need to create a structure which then allows people even more freedom because of this boundary. This is because most facilitated prayer structures encourage short, focused prayers. They allow everyone to say something, and keeps one person from praying for a longggggg time in a wandering monologue.
For example, tape a map on the wall, hand out post-it notes and say, write your prayer on the post-it note, and when you’re ready to pray, come forward, put your post-it and your hand on the map, and pray. Everyone will pray because they all wrote something down. The prayers will be shorter because people know others are waiting, and they are focused on praying one thing. It also gets people out of their seats and moving around—which is a really healthy group dynamic.
Also, almost every prayer structure I use includes time for individual or group listening first. We tend to start right away spouting off our requests to God, when maybe we should see what he says first?
For example, set a timer on your phone for two minutes and say, we’re going to just be quiet and ask God, what do you want me to know about xyz? Ask God for a verse, a picture, or a reflection. Whatever comes into your mind, we’ll use that to pray into later as a group.
One time, a group of us were praying about a short-term trip we were about to take. God brought the same verse in Isaiah to several of our minds as we kept quiet before God during a time of listening prayer. Several others felt impressed by God to dream about a theme or picture that directly related to that passage of scripture. We were so excited! We dove into deep prayer around this for several hours and it became our theme for the trip—and later when a team of people moved to live in that people group.
My colleague Tricia wrote an e-book Creative Prayer and Intercession: Direction and Fresh Ideas to Lead Groups in Dynamic and Effective Intercession Experiences. It’s super practical with lots of step-by-step ideas to use specifically for facilitating group prayer. Check it out!
Step Five: Follow the plan, but don’t follow the plan.
When we plan ahead, focus our prayer, encourage use of all the senses, and create structures for everyone to participate, often this creates an environment where the Spirit may lead the group in a prayer time you never anticipated.
Yes, you can drop the plan as you sense the Spirit leading you or others in a direction he wants to take the group.
This is the most energizing of all. You’ll know it when it happens, so don’t worry about planning it. Just know that it’s okay to ditch the timing, the maps, and the plan, if something spiritual happens during prayer.
When this happens, if someone is praying for ten minutes straight, nobody minds. We’re usually crying with the person (not yawning), or kneeling (not sleeping), or verbally agreeing, or even singing. Sometimes, someone will draw a picture, or remember a verse or a song, and they want to share it. Go for it!
The experience of praying in a group can be powerful, and we partner with God on behalf of the nations he loves when we pray together.
What creative group prayer experiences can you relate to, or share with us? I did a Facebook LIVE on video just after this blog released. You can watch the Replay by clicking below.
Watch the REPLAY of the FB LIVE that goes with this blog, where I dive deeper into fleshing out these FIVE STEPS to pray creatively in a group.