The Power of a Prayer Community

My journey with prayer began as a small child. The first prayer I ever prayed is actually recorded in my baby book: ”Dear Lord, we do not say, ‘shut up’.” Despite being a bit short and rules focused, it was the beginning of my story with God to learn about prayer.

Today I am a mom of two school-aged kiddos. Over the years I have asked God for wisdom, patience, peace, healing, forgiveness–and even sanity–as I have learned to care for them. I noticed my prayers changing as they started school and left the protection of my home each day. About three years ago, I began to feel the Holy Spirit stir in me a desire to reach out to other moms with these same concerns and join with them in prayer.

I remembered that my mom was part of Moms in Touch back when I was in school. After a quick internet search (thank you, Google) I found out Moms in Touch is now called Moms in Prayer International™. Although our school district did not have an active group at the time, the Lord led me to some wonderful Christian moms and we started a Moms in Prayer group for our school district. The heart of Moms in Prayer International is to see every child and every school prayed for. My faith has been strengthened as I gather weekly with other moms to cover our schools and community with prayer. It has shown me the power of prayer.

A little over a year ago, I started working for Students Standing Strong (S3) and noticed a clear connection between the ministries. S3’s mission is to connect students on their school campus to learn, live and lead Biblical truth. As Moms in Prayer connects women to join together in prayer, S3 connects students on their school campus to help them stand strong in their faith. I believe as Christians we need a Christian community to strengthen our relationship with Jesus and keep us connected to Him.

Recently, I spoke to a high school student who felt God nudging him to start an S3 club. He shared with his youth group friends his desire to start a club, but was discouraged because he didn’t know any other Christians at his school. So, he decided to pray. He prayed and asked God to show him other Christians on his campus. The very next day in his homeroom class he saw a student sit down next to him and get out a Bible to read. God answered his prayer for a Christian community!

Proverbs 27:17 says, “As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.” We serve a personal God who longs for us to abide with Him in prayer. He also desires for us to be in community with other believers “sharpening” each other as we live out our faith and giving us brothers and sisters in Christ to pray with.