Prayer Meeting Philosophy

The specifics of the prayer meeting itself are down to the leader of that group. However, in order to maintain conformity to our distinctives, the prayer meeting has three goals.

Goal One

Seek the Lord's help for the Prayer Discipleship Academy as a whole. Praying for new disciples to be prepared and added, leaders to be raised up from within our midst, conformity of all groups to our distinctives and goals, unity and protection from the evil one, and that they might be powerfully used for God's glory.

Goal Two

Seek the Lord's help for each member of the group to grow in holiness and their love for one another. Each person may be fully equipped for their calling and ministry and grow in power and zeal in prayer.

Goal Three

To be led by the Spirit of God to pray for those things in our churches, families, and nation that are within the will of God to change.

Prayer Lists

In order to try and maintain a good and healthy balance between all three goals, we have produced three prayer lists.

ARPT

Firstly, the American Revival Prayer Trip (ARPT), which is the founding prayer list for this work (see history), consists of 8 subjects, each containing between 7 and 12 individual prayers. It's probably not expeditious to pray through a whole section in each meeting, as it will leave less time for other matters. It is an important document, however, and should be used in the meeting at least once a year. One suggestion would be to pray through the ARPT, one section per week, each time a new member is added to the group. It is also a useful document when praying for the work in private devotions.

Scripture

The second list is made up of selected prayers from scripture taken from the Desiring God website. It is similar to the ARPT and, therefore, could be used in a similar manner.

Essentials

Finally, the PDA Essential Prayer List consists of 7 sections, each containing only 4 individual prayers. It is a condensed version of the ARPT and contains all that is necessary to cover our first two goals. It is not comprehensive by any means, but if prayed through regularly, it will keep the group on the right track.

All prayer lists can be viewed on the website or downloaded in PDF format from the documents section.

Scripture

In order to lay the right foundation for the prayer meeting, it is right to start prayer with scripture. We have therefore suggested some scriptures to use from three categories. The categories are our sinful state without Christ, Christ's work in reconciliation, and the benefits we now enjoy in prayer. These can be found under the scripture section in the prayer menu on the website.

It is suggested that the leader pick one text from each category and read it out before praying starts. The use of scripture is important, but it is up to each leader to decide how he does it.