Fork In The Road Music » Prayer

An Interactive Prayer Time

Russell Martin — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 07:48:30 +0000

For the past several years we have been doing a time of prayer in our worship service where congregation members would call out those who were in need of prayer. It had always seemed to work well. We would usually have 5-10 names lifted up by members, and after each one we would respond with “Lord hear our Prayer” then the leader closed by leading us in the Lord’s Prayer.

I recently had a meeting with one of our ushers. During the course of the conversation we began talking about the service. He said, “You know I’ve been here for 4 years now, and I have yet to hear one of the prayer concerns.” Wow! I had never thought of it. It made me wonder how many others had the same experience. Were people really hearing, and praying for the concerns lifted up?

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to pray for them, it was just that with everyone facing forward, and with the size of the congregation, a concern lifted up was only being heard by those surrounding that person.

In a completely different conversation I was talking with one of our speakers about ways to do things differently in the service. One thing we were discussing was that sometimes people are reluctant to call out a prayer concern because they do not like speaking in front of others, or think their prayer concern is not important enough to mention.

After listening to both of these we brainstormed on ways we could make our prayer time more effective and meaningful. We came up with a simple solution.

As people walked in we handed them an index card. We set out markers in the chairs. During the greeting time we told our members we were going to do something a little different. We wanted them to write down their prayer concerns that they wanted us to lift up. We also asked them to notate if they wanted their concern added to the church prayer list. We invited them to place them in a basket, located in the middle of the room, at anytime during our worship set.

While we played the next two songs, many people brought their cards to the basket, then quietly returned to their seats. After our worship set is the Children’s message. During that time our prayer leaders collected the concerns and read through them. They were able to bunch alike prayers together, they also could edit them for privacy concerns etc…

When it came time for the prayer they started out by opening in prayer, and then two people read off the concerns. Sometimes they would group 2-3 names together and then the congregation would respond with “Lord hear our prayer.”

Where before we would have 5-10 concerns lifted up, we had over 35 concerns mentioned and prayed for.

Though we may not do it this way every week, we definitely will be using this again in the future. Here’s why:

1. All prayer concerns were read into a microphone and heard by all of the congregation.

2. People felt more free to share their concerns anonymously.

3. We have a written list of things people are in need of prayer for.

4. It added an interactive element to the prayer time.

How do you do prayer time in your service?

photo from http://www.flickr.com/photos/bagoogoo/

Words of Encouragement

Russell Martin — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 21:21:00 +0000

When I was in college I was part of a ministry leadership team for a student ministry group. Each week we had a memory verse that we had to memorize and recite at our weekly meeting. These scriptures, ingrained in my head, have been helpful in different situations to offer comfort and encouragement.

Here is one I recited often over the past two weeks through our move to a new house.

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus”

~ Philippians 4:6-7

My Mistake and Our Big News

Russell Martin — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 05:41:13 +0000

Yesterday I posted something on facebook that at the time was a huge mistake. I didn’t realize it of course, but as the day wore on, and comments started coming in I saw the error of my ways. What was it?

Big news for the Martin household. More details later.

I saw nothing wrong. We had big news happening with us. It made sense to me. What I failed to keep in mind is that out of my facebook friends and followers there are many women who were all of the sudden drawing their own conclusions and speculations as to what our big news was. You can guess what they were thinking. Sorry to disappointed but the letter “B” has nothing to do with this announcement.

The news is that we have found and begun the process to purchase a house. It’s a nice starting home here in Texarkana. I’ll post pictures once everything is final. This is a big step for us and a huge commitment. We would definitely appreciate and covet your prayers as we go forward.

I apologize again for being so open ended and allowing for so much speculation my status update. I will try not to do that again.

Instrumental Reflection #8- Lazy

Russell Martin — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 21:47:56 +0000

The 8th installment of Instrumental Reflections brings a piece that is perfect to play behind a prayer time, prayer walk or even to help you relax and go to sleep. I called it “Lazy” and it sound just like that. The song is about 3 minutes long but I looped it once. You should be able to loop it and have it play continuously in your MP3 player, or on the computer.

I hope you enjoy

Click to listen. Right click and choose “Save as” or “save target as” to save to your computer.

Download “Lazy”