How often should we gather together to pray?

It was a blessing to attend the National Day of Prayer gathering in Clifton Park on May 2nd. We were just one of nearly 60,000 such gatherings nationwide.

As fruitful and energizing as it is to attend a gathering like this, I could not help but think that once each year is not enough! These gatherings have been occurring nationwide for decades, yet the church locally and nationwide continues to cede ground to the enemy on so many fronts.

In our area we’ve begun to hold similar gatherings monthly (for example TONIGHT — May 10th — at Fruitful Vine Christian Church, 9 Burning Bush Blvd, Ballston Lake at 6:30pm). And others throughout the region have held similar gatherings, but is it enough?

Some folks at some churches are gathering weekly, not only to fellowship and hear the word preached, but to pray and intercede together. Are enough people in enough churches doing this? Are our houses of worship rightly called “houses of prayer” as Jesus commanded? Even then, is weekly sufficient to get the job done?

The Lord’s prayer infers clearly that we need to be praying individually EVERY DAY: “give us this day our daily bread”. But how often should we pray with the brethren? Paul instructs us in 1Timothy 2:1-8 that FIRST OF ALL (i.e. give this TOP PRIORITY)… I desire that the men in EVERY PLACE should pray. The only answer that I can come up with is that we should be gathering to pray together MORE OFTEN than we do currently!

I know of a couple local groups that have been assembling, not physically, but on a conference call together every day to pray together. We have seen since beginning this devotion to gathering in this way that, as the children’s song goes, “the blessings come down as the prayers go up!”

I would encourage all of us to pray more with other believers — at every opportunity. Can you think of people you could pray with regularly and times and ways that you could do it?