What should you pray over your church?

I was sitting with a large group of pastors, and the assignment was to pray for the church. A friend of ours had just gone through the high priestly prayer of Jesus that we find in John 17.

That particular prayer comes right before the arrest of Jesus, and it shows us the priorities on His heart as he anticipates the cross. He prays for himself, he prays for his disciples, and then He prays for US, the future generations of believers that are still to come. Jesus pours out his heart, and in that prayer meeting, we were invited to do exactly the same thing—to pray for the church.

However, the prayer meeting did not go as we planned. The first pastor who spoke out prayed in a quiet voice, "God, I'm so discouraged with Your church, I don't even know what to pray." What followed was silence for a long, long time.

But then another pastor stood up in the circle and began to pray out loud the words of Jesus from John 17:

“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one—I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.” (John 17:20-24, NIV)

As the second pastor prayed the words of Jesus, the whole mood changed, because we suddenly realized something: we could be the answer to the standing prayer request of Jesus. 

You can be an answer to his prayer as well.

Today, if you don't know what to pray for your church, pray John 17 over it, and over your pastor and community. I know that it's a prayer that Jesus wants to answer!

Never forget, my friend, you are a miracle.