Prayer Culture by Jerry van Dalen
We at The Rock Miami consider it a foundational principle to be a true House of Prayer as described in Isaiah 56:7. We want to establish a prayer “culture” as we try to imitate the example that we saw at The Brooklyn Tabernacle in New York.
The highlight of corporate prayer in our church is the Wednesday night service. We make a constant effort to include all 4 types of prayer: Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving and Supplication (A.C.T.S.) in every service. We pray by themes like our “prodigals,” for our children and students (i.e. at the start of the academic year), our families, our nation, we celebrate the Lord’s Supper, etc. We also make a special emphasis to constantly pray for the sick. We experience many favorable answers as a result of corporate prayer and fasting.
Also during a typical week, and in pursuit of the “culture,” we have:
- Over 20 prayer conference calls.
- A women’s prayer group meeting once a week to pray for all the prayer cards that are completed during services. The group commits to praying for 30 days for each prayer card.
- A group of “servers” dedicated to praying every Sunday in the “prayer room” in the lobby of the sanctuary; before, during, and after each service.
- We fast as a church for an extended period at the beginning of every year. We also encourage the saints to fast one day a week.
- Every Monday night we send teams to visit and pray for the guests that come to our Sunday services.
- We’ve posted a 24/7 emergency prayer line on our website. This website also has a prayer request feature that receives petitions on a daily basis.
We consider ourselves learners when it comes to prayer–we feel we have a long way to go. We are climbing the mountain on prayer toward the summit of a “prayer culture.”
