Why is corporate prayer important?
There are many different ways the Bible teaches and shows us how we can pray. We can pray individually, at our house, in a church or our car. We can pray corporately with others and for others. We can stand up, sit down, kneel, pace, or lay prostrate before the Lord. The book of Acts in the Bible is a beautiful presentation of what corporate prayer can look like and the community corporate prayer is designed for. Acts 4:32 says “All the believers were united in heart and mind.” This is a description of those that joined the first church after Jesus’ resurrection and ascension to Heaven. Because of their love for God and belief in Jesus as The Messiah, they came together to pray and worship corporately, thus, allowing them to be united in heart and mind forming a close community of believers, encouragers, friends, and family.
Corporate prayer is important because it builds a community around us as we take the next step in our spiritual walk. When a community comes together for a common purpose, it creates a strong force, a strong voice, and invites the presence of the Holy Spirit to dwell among them and miraculously work in their lives individually and collectively. Jesus talked about this and the presence of the Holy Sprit to come in Matthew 18:20 before he was crucified saying “For where two or three gather together as my followers, I am there among them.”
While there is power in corporate prayer, there is just as much intimacy in individual prayer. Both are essential to our relationship with Jesus. During 21 Days of Prayer and Fasting, you will be able to experience both individual prayer and corporate prayer as we pursue our Heavenly Father. Come experience the power of the Holy Spirit in our community!
How do I fast?
Fasting is a very biblical principle exhibited in both the Old Testament and New Testament, however, it is often misunderstood as well. Some think it’s just about giving up food. Others do not fully understand the reason why we fast. So how do we fast well biblically and effectively?
1. Fasting is temporary.
• It can be 3 Days, 21 Days, 40 Days or another set time frame but it should not be a permanent endeavor. The bible has numerous examples of the temporary nature that fasting should be.
• Esther told her people to fast for 3 days and nights before she met with the king (Esther 4).
• Moses fasted for 40 days as he spent time with God and received the 10 Commandments (Exodus 34).
• Jesus was teaching on fasting and makes the comment “When you fast…” (Matthew 6). This is an indication that fasting should not be an ongoing lifestyle.
2. Fasting is surrender.
• Fasting is saying “No” to our flesh so that we can say “Yes” to letting the Holy Spirit move in our life. When Jesus was in the wilderness being tested by Satan, he had no food or water and became very hungry, however, he never gave in to the fleshly desire and was able to stay strong against Satan’s schemes (Matthew 4 and Luke 4).
• Fasting does not just have to be food. We can fast from anything that may hinder us from giving our full devotion to God and we should fast anything we put before God (1 Corinthians 7:5).
• We learn during times of fasting how to become dependent on our Heavenly Father for the bread of life and living water He provides (John 4 and 6).
3. Fasting is additional to prayer and intercession.
• Fasting without prayer is just starvation – both physically and spiritually (Matthew 6).
• When we fast and give our full attention and dependency to God during prayer and intercession, we increase intimacy in our relationship with Him and create an environment that welcomes miraculous encounters (Esther 5, Luke 2).
Our vision for the structure of The Throne Room each night is that there would be a common prayer focus and biblical theme for us to corporately unite together on.
We will start promptly at 7:30pm with a welcome and a short devotional. We will then worship together with a song. After the song, we will break out into our individual prayer time where you can spend time with our Heavenly Father interceding and opening your heart to the Lord’s voice. This is also when you can grab some prayer requests from our Prayers and Praises board and pray over those. We will end the evening with another corporate worship song and a time of corporate prayer.
We want to have an open prayer environment where those that attend the evening can have the opportunity to pray over our prayer focus as the Holy Spirit leads. Therefore, our corporate prayer structure will include a Quick-Fire prayer element. This is where anyone will be able to share 10-15 second prayer in agreement with the focus and theme of the night. This is not a requirement and there will be no pressure to participate in the Quick-Fire prayers. We just want it to be an option for those that are growing in their prayer life and feel the Holy Spirit’s urging.
Our hope is that your time in The Throne Room would be encouraging, engaging, and spiritually challenging in the best way!