Denise George
Correspondent, The Alabama Baptist
According to the 2018 Annual Church Profile, more than 900,000 of Alabama’s 4.8 million people belong to churches affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention.
A Pew Research study suggests most adults in Alabama who claim to pray daily are Christian (95%) and more than half of them are evangelical Protestant (56%).
Baby Boomers and those in Generation X pray daily more often than those of other generations. And women, those who are married and those who have no children under age 18 living at home tend more toward daily prayer than those in other groups.
Why is daily prayer important?
When believers pray regularly, they obey God’s commands to “devote yourselves to prayer” (Col. 4:2) and to “pray continually” (1 Thess. 5:17).
Jesus taught believers to pray and He set before them numerous prayer examples, often personally withdrawing Himself to pray (Luke 5:16). Jesus also commanded His disciples to “always pray and not give up” (Luke 18:1).
When prayer is regular, the believer maintains a healthier relationship with Christ.
Prayer is the believer’s lifeline to God and is as important to the believer as breathing is to the physical body. Daily prayer provides believers opportunities to confess their sins, receive forgiveness and guidance, plead on behalf of others, overcome temptation, accomplish God’s work and determine God’s will for their lives.
In our society today, however, even believers who know that daily connection with the Lord through prayer is essential to their spiritual health have become so busy they often forget to meet God regularly in prayerful quiet and solitude.
People can become so consumed by hectic schedules, unanticipated crises, management of home and work that sometimes the time and energy to pray seem nonexistent.
SBC churches can encourage Alabamians
to pray
Alabama pastors and church leaders can appeal to those groups who claim to pray less regularly, including Alabama’s younger and older Millennials, men, those making $30,000 or more in annual income and those with higher levels of education. They can reach out to those who claim to pray least regularly, including the divorced/separated, the widowed, the never married, those cohabiting and parents with children under 18 years of age.
Pastors and church leaders can teach and encourage believers to pray in several ways by:
- Preaching about the importance of prayer from the pulpit using Scripture about prayer as well as Jesus’ own personal prayer examples
- Emphasizing special times of prayer during worship services
- Focusing a series of Bible study classes on prayer, appealing to all ages and groups in the church
- Teaching young church children to pray so prayer becomes an essential and natural part of their lives
- Organizing church-sponsored conversations about prayer with individual groups of people: men, young people, widows/widowers, single adults, parents, etc.
- Enlisting special guests to speak about prayer in church-sponsored events and encouraging the church body and the unchurched community to attend
- Inviting members to regularly pray for their pastors, church leaders, members and communities, asking God to grant them spiritual encouragement, wisdom, scriptural faithfulness, strong marriages, good family relationships, physical safety, rest and good mental/emotional/spiritual health
- Praying together regularly as a church staff and letting members know their church leadership takes prayer seriously
- Opening and closing all church meetings with prayer
- Encouraging pastors to pray, giving them needed quiet, solitude and retreat time to set aside especially for prayer and spiritual health
- Inviting members at the end of each worship service to meet with prayer counselors to pray about special personal needs in private rooms without interruption
- Putting legs to prayers. After praying about specific church and community needs, assigning groups of volunteers to minister practically to these people
- Mobilizing church members to pray for family, friends and fellow church members every day and telling those people they are being prayed for
- Suggesting and providing good books on prayer to the congregation, establishing book reading groups to gather and discuss what they learned about prayer
- Setting up a prayer room in the church where believers can pray individually and/or together, and including a basket/box where they can place specific written prayer concerns/requests.
Alabama’s pastors, church leaders, and congregations can help believers develop and maintain a close relationship with God and with each other when they purposely emphasize and strongly encourage daily personal and communal prayer, keeping Alabama’s believers in good spiritual health and in a growing relationship with Christ.
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