Jim Cymbala reminds us: “God is attracted to weakness. He can’t resist those who humbly and honestly admit how desperately they need him. Our weakness, in fact, makes room for his power.”2
The Early Church Prayed Corporately (Acts 1:12-14; 2:42)
A man once told me that he didn’t believe in prayer meetings because Jesus told His disciples to pray in their closets (Matt 6:6). That man was reading the Sermon on the Mount but was ignoring the Book of Acts. In Acts 1, the disciples didn’t go their own way and pray for the Holy Spirit to come down — “they all joined together in prayer.” Acts 2 tells us that they met daily in their homes and were devoted to prayer. They gathered at the Temple (3:1) and later in the synagogues at the regular times of prayer, not just as a testimony to their Jewish neighbors but because they needed those times together for their own survival.
We have a number of Korean students in our seminary, and I’ve learned that Korean churches place a far higher premium on corporate prayer than we do. Churches in South Korea are filled with Christians praying together on weekday mornings or all night before Sunday worship. In America, the concept of corporate prayer clashes with our independence and individualism. We’re all a little like the guy who had to dress up a mannequin with a baseball cap so that he could drive in the HOV lane during rush hour. We prefer to do things alone and by ourselves.
In his famous sermon, “When the Roll is Called Down Here,” Fred Craddock recalls doing a baptism down at the river and being reminded by one of his parishioners beside the campfire that “folks don’t ever get any closer than this.”3 We feel the same way about the people we have prayed with through the struggles of life.
In my first pastorate, a man in the church shared that he would never forget watching his father and the other men in the church going out into the wheat fields together and praying for God to bring revival to their congregation. We don’t have time for those kinds of experiences today and we’re missing something when our busyness and isolation keeps from experiencing real community and fellowship in prayer.
The Early Church Prayed Powerfully (4:23-31; 16:25-26)