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Leadership in Prayer Meetings: The Briefing

Filed under: Intercession

When gathering together for a prayer meeting whether its 5 or 50 it is going to be different than your Matthew 6 prayer closet alone time with God. The purpose of a corporate prayer meeting (Joel 2; Acts 1; 2:46; 4:24-31, etc.) is much different than the purpose you have for your personal devotional time. So getting on the same page before you enter into a corporate time of prayer will be super helpful for making your prayer meetings enjoyable and effective.

Here at IHOP-KC, before every 2 hour prayer meeting, we have a 20 minute briefing. In the military the mission briefing is used under operational conditions to provide information, to give specific instructions, or to instill an appreciation of a mission. Our briefings operate much of the same way providing information on specific prayer focuses, giving specific instructions related to worship songs or related to communicating between the prayer leader and worship leader as well as instilling vision for intercession or sharing the burden we might have for a specific prayer focus. Your briefing doesn’t have to be 20 minutes, it could be 5 or 10. However, the unity it brings in a corporate prayer meeting makes the next 2 hours much more enjoyable and much less stressful.

Here are some practical tips in having a briefing before you begin your prayer meeting:

• Who should be at the briefing?
  Anyone involved in leading or helping to lead the prayer meeting. This includes, but not limited to, the prayer leader for that meeting, the worship leader, worship team members, sound tech and other intercessors wanting to help lead.
• Who should lead the briefing?
  The prayer leader and/or worship leader
• What should we cover at the briefing?
  At minimum you will want the prayer leader to share the prayer focus. However if you have a worship team you will want to allow time for the worship leader to distribute chord charts to the musicians and go over any specific musical instruction. The briefing is also a great time to give vision (the why) to your core team for persistent, consistent corporate prayer meetings as well as going over different parts of how (the model) to best communicate when you are going into prayer, choruses, small group or ministry time, or going back into worship during the prayer meeting.
• When should we start having briefings since it’s only the 5 of us?
  I would start having briefings as soon as I start having prayer meetings. Even if its just 2 of you that can make it, having 2 people who are on the same page is better than having 5 of you who are all on different pages in regards to the next hour or two you will be praying together. Also, if you introduce it from the beginning it won’t be a new thing you have to introduce after your prayer meeting starts growing.

Tags: Briefing, Intercession, Prayer Meetings