Beginning to Pray Together

Beginning to Pray Together (Part 1 of 2)
By David and Jan Stoop

My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations.
Isaiah 56:7
 

Here are eight suggestions for beginning to pray together that were given to us by the couples who responded to our questionnaire. They come from their own experiences and were developed through their own struggles to begin to pray together.

  • Take the time needed to talk with each other about your thoughts and feelings about prayer and praying together. Do this without pressuring one another or trying to make the other feel guilty. See if you can agree that this is something you both want in your marriage. Talk about your fears in as open a way as possible. Talk also about your expectations up front, so they don’t undermine you later on.
  • Pick a specific time and make a commitment to each other to begin praying together at that time. You’ll never get started praying together on a regular basis if you don’t make this definite commitment to a specific, agreed-upon time.
  • Don’t be upset if you miss a day. It’s important, if you miss a day, to just start again the next day. Consistency will come over time. Let yourself off the hook here.
  • Decide who will do what. For example, who decides where you will pray together? Who reminds the other that it is time to pray together? Couples reported that they couldn’t just make a commitment to a time and then assume both of them would remember. It helped for one person to take on the responsibility to say, “Hey, it’s time for us to pray together.” It was interesting to note that for the couples who were successful, it was more often the husband who did the reminding.