Schools of Prayer--Has Their Time Come?

“And it came to pass, that, as He was praying in a certain place, when He ceased, one of His disciples said unto Him, Lord teach us [how] to pray” (Luke 11:1).  Andrew Murray in his classic work (still available over the internet), With Christ In the School of Prayer, says the Disciples voiced this cry after witnessing the effectiveness of Jesus’ prayer life.  What I would propose is to take Rev. Murray’s approach and turn it a few degrees, suggesting that what we need are “Schools of Prayer”.

What would happen to your praying if once or twice a week you would meet with 3 or 4 individuals for the express purpose of developing a more effective prayer life?  Immediately you could launch into “prayers of agreement” (“Again I say to you that if two of you agree on earth concerning anything that they ask, it will be done for them by My Father in heaven” (Matthew 18:19).  This means “agreement” in spirit, where there is no deep down reservation about what’s being asked.  And since this is a “school”, prayers of agreement would be pursued until a certain level of mastery is achieved.

Then you could turn your “agreement” prayer skills to the “A-S-K” school.  This phase of schooling teaches you to “A”—“Ask” and keep on asking; “S”—“Seek” and keep on seeking; and “K”—“Knocking” and keep on knocking (Matthew 7:7, 8).

Before going any further your group needs to focus on “listening” skills, learning how to hear God.  Radical or not, this has to be at the heart of learning how to pray effectively.  People learn to do this by “listening”—tuning in to your spirit, learning to discern the voice of God.  The problem is that His voice tends to sound exactly like ours.  The group can help with this process by “testing” words members of the group bring forth as the potential “word of the Lord”.  Here it needs to be said that people are much more adept at “asking” than they are “listening”.

Now, you’re just getting started.  That’s the encouraging thing, you have begun.  Begin and before long, maybe even quickly, you will find yourself advancing in the “School of Prayer”.

Matters like “binding” and “loosing”; praying the Scriptures; pleading the “promises”; making declarations; and ever so much more await advanced classes.  If you will do the first part, that will set you ahead of 78% of all Christendom.

As the English say, “Shall we give it go”?