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The Power of Group Prayer: How Intercession Transforms Us and the World
Revival starts when people pray together.
Christians often dream about the possibility of revival. But revival doesn't come because we wish or plan for it. Revival occurs when groups of people pray together. However, praying together effectively doesn't come easily, and we're often left wondering how to best engage in the work of intercession.
Carolyn Carney offers a practical guide for those who want something more than "just another prayer meeting." Drawing from decades of ministry experience, The Power of Group Prayer includes stories and practices for corporate prayer, reflection questions, and supplemental resources to help build powerful intercession groups. Pastors, small group leaders, and campus ministry leaders―or anyone who wants a deeper prayer life―will be equipped to lead others in the kind of prayer that is necessary for effective, resilient ministry.
Praying together has the power to transform you and the world around you. Come to a place of deep intimacy with God as you learn ways to pray in community.
Christians often dream about the possibility of revival. But revival doesn't come because we wish or plan for it. Revival occurs when groups of people pray together. However, praying together effectively doesn't come easily, and we're often left wondering how to best engage in the work of intercession.
Carolyn Carney offers a practical guide for those who want something more than "just another prayer meeting." Drawing from decades of ministry experience, The Power of Group Prayer includes stories and practices for corporate prayer, reflection questions, and supplemental resources to help build powerful intercession groups. Pastors, small group leaders, and campus ministry leaders―or anyone who wants a deeper prayer life―will be equipped to lead others in the kind of prayer that is necessary for effective, resilient ministry.
Praying together has the power to transform you and the world around you. Come to a place of deep intimacy with God as you learn ways to pray in community.
- GenresPrayer
224 pages, Paperback
Published November 22, 2022
13 people are currently reading
1598 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
April 20, 2023
Summary: A practical guide for intercessory prayer groups, casting vision for how these may transform both the intercessors and their world.
I am so glad Carolyn Carney wrote this book! I have seen both the power of God unleashed when Christians pray together and I’ve seen painfully dull gatherings that never get beyond the participants aches and pains, usually with more talk than prayer. Carney, who has led gatherings of students and church leaders in prayer believes in intercessory prayer that is an act of rebellion against a worldly status quo and the building of highways in which we join God in the coming of his kingdom, fueling our sense of mission.
She begins with our preparation to pray, helping us identify the way we may be blocking intimacy with God and how we may nurture that attachment. She makes the biblical case for corporate intercession from scripture and identifies four marks of effective intercessory groups:
1. Good leadership
2. Targeted focus
3. Listening
4. Hunger for God’s kingdom to come more fully
Good groups have a clear focus, a sense of what they are aiming at that may be expressed through a guiding image. In praying for a community, they survey the land and identify both fertile and fallow ground. Carney offers a number of questions to help groups in this process. Well-led groups help break the habits of jargon-y, long-winded, unfocused prayer and vague requests. She talks about praying in agreement, in which groups listen to and add to what each person briefly prays about the prayer topic of the meeting.
Prayer is also listening to God, and Carney offers a number of way groups may do this as God prompts us in prayer, brings to mind scripture, a picture or vision, or physical sensation. Listening together, people can discern whether what individuals share rings true and if so, confirm what God is saying, leading to discerning how to pray and act. Scripture and worship play an important role in enlarging our vision of God and informing our prayers concerning what God wants.
Carney describes ways intercessory groups can “take it to the streets.” She gives tips on prayer walking, prayer mapping, and praying for events from worship services to major Christian conferences. She shares a vivid example around the latter of being part of an intercessory team at a major conference, where there had been a great moving of God. Organizers wanted to start “tear down” early, asking the team to vacate their room. All of a sudden, it seem everything went awry and the enemy attacked the good God was doing. The team resumed praying!
This underscores that intercessory prayer is a form of war and will encounter resistance. One of the appendices of the book includes a prayer for praying on oneself the whole armor of God (Ephesians 6:10-20). She offers counsel on facing opposition, including the role of worship in countering it, and the care intercessors should take when coming off a season of intercession. She concludes with encouraging a vision of intercession over the long haul and five practices that sustain it:
1. Lament, sometimes with groans over how little of God’s kingdom we see.
2. Fasting for breakthrough
3. Expanding our view of God through worship
4. Getting physical, whether through things like hand-held crosses, “walls” that we tear down in prayer, etc.
5. Leaning on others.
The appendices of the book offer more practical help in specific areas from dealing with distorted views of God to specifics of planning a prayer meeting to specific counsel for prayer before worship and at large events, and finally “Lion’s Roar Prayer for Breakthrough.”
Even those of us who have been part of great movements of prayer and who have seen God work can lose our vision for the power of people seeking God together. Carolyn Carney’s vision, stories, and practical instruction may be just the thing to encourage you to gather with others to seek the work of God where he has placed you or help take to new places that prayer group that feels like it has gotten into a rut.
The pandemic years, with all their turmoil underscore our need for revival, pretty much anywhere in the world. I cannot find accounts of revival where intercessory prayer was not a central feature. It’s my prayer that every copy of this book will be like fertile seed, giving birth to prayer movements, through which God in his good pleasure may move to prepare the ground, to build the highway, through which he visits his people with revival. May it be so!
_______________
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher.
I am so glad Carolyn Carney wrote this book! I have seen both the power of God unleashed when Christians pray together and I’ve seen painfully dull gatherings that never get beyond the participants aches and pains, usually with more talk than prayer. Carney, who has led gatherings of students and church leaders in prayer believes in intercessory prayer that is an act of rebellion against a worldly status quo and the building of highways in which we join God in the coming of his kingdom, fueling our sense of mission.
She begins with our preparation to pray, helping us identify the way we may be blocking intimacy with God and how we may nurture that attachment. She makes the biblical case for corporate intercession from scripture and identifies four marks of effective intercessory groups:
1. Good leadership
2. Targeted focus
3. Listening
4. Hunger for God’s kingdom to come more fully
Good groups have a clear focus, a sense of what they are aiming at that may be expressed through a guiding image. In praying for a community, they survey the land and identify both fertile and fallow ground. Carney offers a number of questions to help groups in this process. Well-led groups help break the habits of jargon-y, long-winded, unfocused prayer and vague requests. She talks about praying in agreement, in which groups listen to and add to what each person briefly prays about the prayer topic of the meeting.
Prayer is also listening to God, and Carney offers a number of way groups may do this as God prompts us in prayer, brings to mind scripture, a picture or vision, or physical sensation. Listening together, people can discern whether what individuals share rings true and if so, confirm what God is saying, leading to discerning how to pray and act. Scripture and worship play an important role in enlarging our vision of God and informing our prayers concerning what God wants.
Carney describes ways intercessory groups can “take it to the streets.” She gives tips on prayer walking, prayer mapping, and praying for events from worship services to major Christian conferences. She shares a vivid example around the latter of being part of an intercessory team at a major conference, where there had been a great moving of God. Organizers wanted to start “tear down” early, asking the team to vacate their room. All of a sudden, it seem everything went awry and the enemy attacked the good God was doing. The team resumed praying!
This underscores that intercessory prayer is a form of war and will encounter resistance. One of the appendices of the book includes a prayer for praying on oneself the whole armor of God (Ephesians 6:10-20). She offers counsel on facing opposition, including the role of worship in countering it, and the care intercessors should take when coming off a season of intercession. She concludes with encouraging a vision of intercession over the long haul and five practices that sustain it:
1. Lament, sometimes with groans over how little of God’s kingdom we see.
2. Fasting for breakthrough
3. Expanding our view of God through worship
4. Getting physical, whether through things like hand-held crosses, “walls” that we tear down in prayer, etc.
5. Leaning on others.
The appendices of the book offer more practical help in specific areas from dealing with distorted views of God to specifics of planning a prayer meeting to specific counsel for prayer before worship and at large events, and finally “Lion’s Roar Prayer for Breakthrough.”
Even those of us who have been part of great movements of prayer and who have seen God work can lose our vision for the power of people seeking God together. Carolyn Carney’s vision, stories, and practical instruction may be just the thing to encourage you to gather with others to seek the work of God where he has placed you or help take to new places that prayer group that feels like it has gotten into a rut.
The pandemic years, with all their turmoil underscore our need for revival, pretty much anywhere in the world. I cannot find accounts of revival where intercessory prayer was not a central feature. It’s my prayer that every copy of this book will be like fertile seed, giving birth to prayer movements, through which God in his good pleasure may move to prepare the ground, to build the highway, through which he visits his people with revival. May it be so!
_______________
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher.
December 13, 2022
Every person in ministry should read this book! It will unlock what you've been missing in your ministry and create space for God to do great things.
Overall, Carolyn's writing is so easy to read, as she's trying to reach your heart and not your head. Her personal stories are both accessible/relatable, and yet challenging/convicting. She weaves in important scripture reflections, as well as thoughts and ideas from both contemporary and historical theologians and saints. I love how she has not just reflection questions but activities at the end of each chapter to really help you activate the content in your context. The resources at the end of the book might be worth the price of admission by themselves! And the way she structures the book makes it easy for the beginners, veterans, and everyone in-between, to get something out of this book.
This book was an answer to prayer, and even if you haven't prayed it, it's an answer to yours as well!
Overall, Carolyn's writing is so easy to read, as she's trying to reach your heart and not your head. Her personal stories are both accessible/relatable, and yet challenging/convicting. She weaves in important scripture reflections, as well as thoughts and ideas from both contemporary and historical theologians and saints. I love how she has not just reflection questions but activities at the end of each chapter to really help you activate the content in your context. The resources at the end of the book might be worth the price of admission by themselves! And the way she structures the book makes it easy for the beginners, veterans, and everyone in-between, to get something out of this book.
This book was an answer to prayer, and even if you haven't prayed it, it's an answer to yours as well!
May 30, 2023
*The Power of Group Prayer* by Carolyn Carney (https://ivpress.com/the-power-of-grou...) is a book every church, fellowship, small group or prayer meeting needs to grow their prayer life together. This book is full of applicable scriptures, great stories and appropriate ideas for helping a prayer meeting go deeper into the presence of God. There is also a wonderful resource section. Carolyn makes suggestions that help people honor and listen to each other and God in intercession. In a chapter on revival she points out that spiritual awakening often begins in the church and fellowships as people pray together. Carolyn has lived a life of prayer while training many young people and others to continue to grow this vital part of our relationship with God and each other.
November 29, 2022
I had the honor of learning from Carolyn Carney when she was a leader at NY/NJ. I just finished her book, The Power of Group Prayer, and if you're someone who feels like prayer with others is boring, dry, awkward or generally absent, I highly recommend you check this out! Filled with stories and resources, this book has been what I was looking for and I didn't even know it! I hope for those of you who do read it that God leads you to more of himself as he did for me.
February 28, 2023
4.5 ⭐️ A practical, accessible resource on group intercession that will without a doubt spur you on to pray with others more! This was the right book at the right time for me. The half star off is only for some hesitation at how the book will translate to students and non-InterVarsity audiences, and several parts where I wanted a bit more on a statement or idea—but I’ll be recommending this widely for sure.
December 10, 2022
Practical, encouraging! I appreciated how the author normalizes the difficulty many have with prayer. Instead of feeling embarrassed or ashamed, she invites us to acknowledge the challenges and to keep practicing.
April 27, 2023
Interesting read in the power of prayer and how to lead prayers.
January 26, 2024
Some good notes, but far too political for my taste
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews