A Praying Church

Reading Paul Miller’s A Praying Church fresh filled my heart with the power of Oswald Chambers’s insight: ‘Prayer does not equip us for greater works—prayer is the greater work.’ I was challenged and inspired to reconsider the centrality of prayer for my personal prayer life and for the corporate ministry of my church so that the Spirit of Jesus would pervade and empower all.

For the past several years, our church has pursued becoming a ‘praying church,’ and Paul Miller’s A Praying Life has been our staple text. The focus of that book, however, was on our personal prayer lives, so I’m excited to see Miller take those insights and show us how to integrate them into the corporate body. Jesus commanded his church to be a house of prayer. Miller’s book helps us to fulfill that! This is at the top of our church’s agenda for the next decade, and I pray it will be at the top of yours as well!

This book presents a strong challenge to the contemporary church to rethink her attitudes toward and practices of community prayer. I thought I knew a thing or two about praying together. But I found myself being challenged and learning more about the practice of prayer in my own life and ministry team.

Churches that are true change agents in their communities are congregations for whom prayer is a way of life. My good friend Paul Miller has written a thoughtful and challenging appeal in A Praying Church. Read this wonderful book, and you’ll discover how to partner with the Spirit of Jesus in transforming your community for the kingdom of Christ!

Paul Miller is on a quest to return prayer to its rightful central place in everyday life and ministry. Read this book to be challenged to pray. Study it for tips on how to make prayer second nature. Ponder it for a refresher on the Bible’s testimony to prayer, on prayer in countless settings today, and on myriad impediments to prayer. Most of all, rediscover how Christ and the Spirit equip the saints for the work of the ministry—through prayer. This is an enormously informative and encouraging book.

Paul Miller’s J-Curve is the best resource I know on spiritual formation. Now I’ll be recommending A Praying Church as the best resource I know on praying in Christian community. It is biblical, practical, and honest. Because it is rooted in the gospel, it invites us to real change without making us feel discouraged that the change is needed. Invite others to read this book with you and respond together to the Spirit’s leading; I believe the church will experience deep renewal as a result.

Paul Miller’s book reached me. I was changed. Having been a pastor for thirty-six years, I say without overstatement: it is the most important book on Christian ministry I have ever read.

A Praying Church is a ‘page turner’—richly biblical, wonderfully practical, and chock-full of engaging testimonies and helpful illustrations. It is convicting but filled with pastoral love and concern. Paul Miller writes brother to brother, leader to leader. Without boasting, Miller clearly practices what he preaches. Several chapters are worth the price of the book. My favorite is the chapter on fasting and prayer.