“What Hill teaches is sound, biblical, and challenging throughout. Of course the book’s unique value is largely in its second half, for this is where she turns her attention from praying to praying together.”
It was a case of serendipitous timing, at least from my perspective. I began to read Praying Together just as our church began its annual week of prayer, a week of nightly prayer meetings. And really, the timing couldn’t have worked out better. We gathered night by night to confess our sins, to express our gratitude, to ask God to save his people, to seek his favor on our church, to ask him to expand his work across our city and our world, and even to plead for an increase of our delight in him. And while we did all of this, I was challenged by Megan Hill on the beauty, the necessity, and the sheer goodness of praying together.
I try to read at least one good book on prayer every year. Of course, I already know a fair bit about prayer. I make time to pray every day, I believe what the Bible says, I have a well-formed theology of prayer—but I still find it difficult to pray. I am still a student, perhaps even an elementary-level student, in the school of prayer. And while I’ve read many books on the subject, this is the first I’ve read on praying together. “This book is a call to each one of us to consider the praying together we have done and are doing and hope to do: the childhood dinner-time prayers, the youth-group prayer vigils, the spontaneous prayer in dorm rooms and parking lots and at the back of the church, the planned prayer during Bible studies and prayer meetings and in the Lord’s Day worship service. … This book is a call to pray together and to keep praying together with renewed energy.”
It is divided into three parts. In the first, Hill lays the foundations of praying together, telling why we ought to pray not only as individuals but as couples, families, friends, and congregations. In the second part, The Fruits of Praying Together, she offers “a vision for what God says he does when we pray together and what he has done in the past when his people gathered before his throne. Both are glorious motivations for the work.” Then, at last, in The Practice of Praying Together, she explores the nuts and bolts of group prayer. She shows what this can look like for college students gathering in their dorms, families gathering around the dinner table, and churches gathering on Wednesday evenings. “It is my own prayer,” she says, “that the people of Christ’s church would again be like those saints of old who ‘devoted themselves to … the prayers’ (Acts 2:42).”
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