Why do we leave prayer till the end of our small group evenings?
How often have you gone to a small group meeting – as either a leader or a member – loaded with the cares and stresses of your day and left, two hours later, still carrying your burdens?
So often, we arrive, do the polite hello stuff over coffee and then plough into the evening’s plan – be that a bible study or themed activity. Once this plan has been covered, we do prayer at the end of the evening, when the issues that our group members brought with them may resurface, or may not.
If not, these issue will certainly be remembered by your group the moment they leave. They may even feel heavier with the sense that they haven’t been shared with the very people who could have prayed into their situation.
As a small group leader, you have the opportunity to change this.
Why not actually build your plan so that the first 15-20 minutes of your next meeting take the form of a catch up and pray together? Instead of pushing life’s troubles aside, lay them at Jesus’ feet before you launch into your evening’s agenda.
I can’t offer any guarantee that it will work for your group because, of course, every group is different and there is no ‘formula’. But what if it opened up conversations and prayer opportunities? What if it showed just one person in your group that God cares about their life, and that you do, too, enough to make time to respond to their precise need?
It’s got to be worth the risk to investigate.
And, of course, this doesn’t mean you won’t pray again at the end of the evening about whatever you’ve covered during the rest of your time together.
We can so easily fall into the trap of thinking that there is a fixed or set structure for a ‘successful’ small group evening: arrive, hello, coffee, study, prayer, goodbye. But, of course, this structure is only one of millions of possibilities. We are free to use prayer as often and in as creative a way as we feel: the only limits are our imaginations and our willingness to take a risk.
I don’t want prayer to be tagged on to the end of any part of my faith walk. For me, it is the most exciting part of my spiritual experience. It’s the moment when my relationship with God unites head and heart and I invite positive change into negative situations.
Prayer is our most powerful, incredible opportunity and tool. It is the thread that connects us to Heaven. It is the means by which we invite God in, or shut him out of our lives.
Perhaps a little shake up every now and then is worth the risk.
Photo credits:
Two girls praying by Ben White on Unsplash
Open hands praying by Jeremy Yap on Unsplash
Laying on hands by Jon Tyson on Unsplash