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Listening Prayer - Prayer Class

This is the hardest and the most beneficial aspect of the class - praying for each other. As the title suggests, we use a method of listening. We don't ask the person what he or she wants.
    1) We listen,
    2) We pray and
    3) We ask for confirmation. (i.e. Did that make sense to you? Does it apply to your situation? Etc.)

This is incredibly hard because of the risk factor involved. It's quite possible that you will be absolutely wrong. It's normal--it's normal to be wrong and it's normal to be afraid of being wrong. Being wrong is also a necessary part of the learning process. To alleviate some of this fear, we employing listening prayer several different ways: two involving writing out our prayers and one of praying over a person.

    [Note: This page will not give a theological argument for hearing God's voice nor a teaching on how we hear the Holy Spirit.
Those can be found in the teachings section for each month.]

Written Prayers

Written Prayers
1) Anonymous Method

By and large this is the method I use every time I introduce a group to the concept of listening prayer. Each person gets a notecard or a 1/4 slip of paper. The opening conversation usually goes something like this: "Your going to pray for someone but you don't know who it is yet. I'm not going to tell you until after you've prayed and written down your prayer." The response is generally one of incredulity: "What do you mean? How can we do that?" Almost always it works out brilliantly--I have had a couple of times where we failed miserably but those are easily the exceptions to years of using the method.

If it's a onetime deal, I won't pick the person we prayed for until after everyone has prayed. This is usually done by some random method (otherwise it defeats the purpose). If I plan to get through an entire class or group of people, I'm a little more systematic in my progression through the class. Still, the students never know who they are praying for.

a) Hand out the papers and open with prayer. I suggest including a prayer of covering and a declaration of truth regarding our ability to hear and God's ability to speak to us. I often find it helpful to walk students (and adults) through the process of quieting our hearts to listen. Most of the time we use our imaginations to help us become aware of the Lord's love for us. Since you can't exaggerate God's love, you never have to worry about theological pitfalls. For example, if it's raining have people imagine the rain as God's love washing over them. Lead them through a process of imagining what it feels like. Let them imagine God washing them clean of theirs sins and whispering how much he loves them. Some people enjoy a song to help them quiet down, that's completely appropriate. If you ask, students will go for music over no music almost every time.

b) Next spend some time listening (3 to 5 minutes). I suggest listening with a question in mind: "Lord, what would you like me to pray for this person?". When you get distracted, this becomes your anchor to come back to.

Before beginning the listening process, have students take emotional and physical inventory. If your emotions change drastically during the listening time, be sure to write down what you're feeling. I've had plenty of students go from feeling happy-go-lucky to depressed within 90 seconds. Teaching students to treat emotions as data alleviates some of the "I must be going crazy" aspects of prayer. Have students write down whatever mental images they have, or thoughts that come into their heads. (We'll worry about discernment later.) At the end of this time, have students attempt to turn their images into prayers. If students don't feel like they "heard" anything from the Holy Spirit, have them write a prayer for the person (still unknown to them). Encourage them to be as specific as they can possibly be.

c) Collect the sheets of paper without names and announce the person who for whom you just prayed. Now read the prayers. As you are reading instruct students to look for themes and commonalities between the prayers. After you've read them all, ask the person whom you prayed for if these make sense to him/her.* It's okay to push the person to be specific. Would you mind sharing why this particular one struck you as being applicable? What image didn't make sense to you? Remember, this is the part of the process where people get feedback on whether they heard correctly. It's okay to be wrong. That's part of the learning process. Just try again next time. If you were right, than try to hone in on what the Holy Spirit sounded like to you.

* I wait until the end because the Holy Spirit often goes for the jugular. Sometimes you have 6 prayers that agree with each other about pain the person is going through but that person insists everything is just fine. At that point I'd shrug my shoulders and talk to the person individually. I'd trust the overwhelming evidence of 6 people "randomly" praying for the same exact thing over a person's testimony any day of the week.

2) Student read method
This is the exact same process as above except students read their own papers instead of the instructor. This intermediary step allows people to have time to listen and compose their thoughts without interruption. It also adds to the risk element of being wrong because now you have to publicly own your mistakes.

Praying Over a Person

Praying over a Person
After students get comfortable with hearing using a paper and pencil push them towards this method. Synergy is an amazing thing. There are plenty of times I don't hear anything but once someone else starts praying the Holy Spirit gives me more revelation based on what the other person is praying. He often forces us to depend on one another--even in praying for people. It also allows for immediate feedback from the person for whom you are praying. This also takes some of the risk out of praying because the whole group prays for one individual. Is a person doesn't feel like they have anything to say then they can simply not say anything. There are more benefits worth mentioning but I could probably write a couple of pages about it so I'll have to let it stop there.

a) Ask for a volunteer. They may go to the middle and everyone can lay hands on them or they can stay where they are sitting. It all depends on the comfort level of the group.

b) Lead the students through a prayer of covering and a declaration of truth. Spend some time quieting your hearts and then listen [see part a) in section 1) above]. Again, I suggest listening with a question in mind: "Lord, how would you like us to pray for this person?".

c) As people get impressions have them vocalize them to the group. (i.e. I have this picture of a rainbow over you but there's this crazy thunderstorm all around you). It's perfectly normal to have a couple minutes of silence in multiple places. Don't try to fill the space. As the impressions come, encourage the group to try and turn those impressions into actual prayers. Take the time to teach during prayer. Give 2 or 3 sentence encouragements or instructions as you go. If someone is wrong let them know it's okay and we're just going to try it again. Model both the prayers and the behavior you want your students to pick up from you.



If you have any more questions or comments, I would love to hear from you. Feel free to email me.