Approaches to Prayer - Prayer for Individuals

INTERCESSION

Ideas to Try:

Listening to God for each other

Thy Kingdom come...

Interceding in God's presence

Prayer for individuals

Specific agenda

Healing… is that what you really want?

Local intercession

Intercession and the daily routine

When prayer is difficult

On a
bad day

Global
issues

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Prayer for Individuals

crowds You will need pencil and note-pad, any prayer list that they might use and/or a diary/engagement book and/or address book. The exercise can be done equally well with a newspaper or parish magazine.

Praying for individuals on your 'prayer list'

You might begin by asking God to help you to be sensitive to God's will.

Examine you prayer list (if you don’t use one move straight on to your address book and draw one up).

Consider each of the names in turn. Do not hurry and make sure that you have come to some kind of a decision before you move on to the next. Consider what you can do for that person. Have you talked to them lately? Have you written to them lately? Do you know how they are? Do you even know where they are? In extreme cases do you even know who they are? (20 minutes)

Consider

what you can do for them.
how you can find out what you can do for them - make a note to ask them if you feel this is appropriate.
if what you think you should do for them is likely to coincide with what they think you should do for them (and refrain from assuming that God would agree with you rather than with them!) - then decide to do it.

Enter it in your diary what is to be done on a given day at a given time. (If ‘all’ you can do is pray for them set aside some real time for that) (15 minutes).

At the end of the session look at your prayer list again.

Think about formulating a series of rules which will result in you:

never giving up praying for someone while there is something practical you can do for them
considering anyone who remains on your list seriously every time you think of them
never having someone ‘just on your prayer list’
never letting anyone slip off your list inadvertently
committing those people for whom you can think of no appropriate action to God's care (as if they weren't there already) and putting them on a reserve list which you look at seriously in this same way once a quarter - or once a year - or whatever (10 minutes).

(Based on a method which can be found in John Robinson's book 'Honest to God' (SCM Press)).

CONTENTS

Prayer for Individuals