“Listening prayer” may sound new to you, or eerie, or scary. It is none of those. It is simply putting our beliefs into practice! We believe that when we accept Jesus as our Savior, we receive the Holy Spirit to indwell us and we enter into a personal relationship with our Father. In any personal relationship, the parties converse with one another—and that is what we believe prayer is all about. We pray to Him, and He can respond to us. A listening prayer session just helps us listen to whatever He wants to say to us.
How does it work? You will be assigned a time and room number (or a Zoom link for online participants). When your time arrives, you will be invited into the room by your assigned prayer team that typically consists of two to four people. These people are volunteers with a heart for Jesus, desire to minister to the body of Christ through prayer, mature character, and proven gift for hearing our Father’s voice.
The team will welcome you and help you get comfortable. They may ask you a few introductory type questions. Then, they will pray for the Father’s guidance and there may be periods of silence while the prayer team members are waiting on the Lord. As they receive impressions, mental pictures or images, phrases or words, and/or scriptural references which they believe come from the Father, they will share those with you. They may then pray into those impressions. Finally, they will pray for you in response to any specific prayer requests you may have.
Now that isn’t eerie or scary is it? We fully believe you will find it encouraging, reinforcing, and spiritually refreshing. The Lord does not use these sessions for correction or incrimination. So relax and let the Lord welcome you into His presence and speak words of wisdom and comfort to you.
PREPARING FOR YOUR LISTENING PRAYER
- Come with an open heart: Your Father has new and fresh things He wants to speak to you about. Ask Him to till up the soil of your heart and make it a fertile place to receive His words of life. He is a good God and loves to speak to His children.
- Come in a posture of rest: Relax, rest in Him. We welcome you to record your session on your personal device so you can listen without trying to remember everything or be distracted by taking notes.
- Come without an agenda: The Lord knows the needs and desires of your heart. Don’t be in a rush to tell the team your prayer needs. Don’t come with a list of prayer requests. Time is limited and the team is asking and trusting the Lord to place things on their hearts to pray about for you. So, trust the Father to first speak to you through them. If at the end of the session, you still have something that you want prayed for, let the team leader know and they will pray for you about that.
- Come with an expectation: Although we want you to come without your personal agenda or prayer list, we do want you to come with an expectation. The Lord loves you and desires to speak encouraging, comforting and edifying words to you. So come with the expectation that He will speak these to you.
- Come with a patient heart: Please be seated in the chair outside the assigned room and wait for a prayer team member to come for you. We will do our best to stay on time—but sometimes the Lord has other ideas! We ask for your patience and flexibility.
RESPONDING TO YOUR LISTENING PRAYER
- Record your prayer session. We encourage you to record your session using your smartphone. If you don’t have this capability, we can record it for you and send it to you later. Listen to the recording and meditate on the words and prayers of your session. You may consider transcribing it so you can carefully reflect on the words spoken to you. Sometimes the significance of what the Father said in the session will take on a clearer meaning as you reflect back on it in the future.
- Turn in the evaluation form: At the end of the session you will be given an Evaluation Form to complete (in hard copy or online). This allows you to give specific feedback both to the leadership and to the prayer team about the session and the degree to which it was helpful. Please do this. Your feedback is important to the health of this process.
- Weigh and test the prayers and words spoken: In the Scriptures the word “prophecy” describes the process of a person listening to the Lord and then speaking what He is communicating. In many ways, that is what happens during these prayer sessions. So, as you are instructed in 1 Cor. 14:29 and 1 Thes. 5:19-21, discern, weigh, evaluate and test everything you have heard to see if it is from the Lord. This means to assume a posture like that of the Bereans in Acts17:11. Some questions you may ask are: Were the prayers/words expressed consistent with the Scriptures? Did they resonate in agreement with my spirit? Were they consistent with what He has already said to me? Did they encourage, affirm, comfort, exhort, and edify me? Did I sense the love and peace of God in the process? Another wise means of discernment is to submit it to the Lord together with a pastoral leader, trusted mentor, spouse, or another who is mature in Christ and knows you well. If you are still unsure, ask the Lord for confirmation. He knows your heart, and He will respond to one whose heart is set to obey Him.
- Once You Have Discerned the Truthfulness Of The Prayers And Words, Ask The Father To Give You The Right Attitudes To Receive And Respond To Them: The attitudes of humility, faith, patience and obedience are important.Scripture contains many examples of prophetic words that took months or years to fulfill. If upon prayerful reflection, there are some things that were spoken or prayed that you believe are not from God, those things should be rejected and released. Entrust those words or prayers, and the team, to the Lord’s forgiving & sanctifying work. Share it with your leadership and the prayer team’s leadership.
Return to previous window
