Too Timid to Attend Prayer Meetings
Prayer calls or prayer meetings can be intimidating for those who are shy.
I am a very timid person. In fact, one of my classmates was so surprised when she came to know that I got married to an American. She said: “Nellie, the most shy girl in the class, got married?!” And also, my best friend’s mom was extremely surprised that I got married—for being such a very shy girl!
Attending a prayer meeting makes me really nervous because I feel so uncomfortable to pray openly. I am a woman of few words. It gives me anxiety to attend a prayer meeting with prayer attendees that pray long. It makes me feel like I need to pray long too.
When my husband Brad was alive, he told me that when Mrs. White was young, she never liked to attend prayer meetings too. It was intimidating for her.
Thanks be to God that there are now so-called sentence prayers or popcorn prayers!
United Prayer Call Ministry – Sentence Prayers
The General Conference (GC) of SDA runs a United Prayer Call ministry. The prayer participants are urged to pray for 1-2 sentences. The phone or computer is used to join the call.
In their Prayer Call training the presenters had emphasized this acronym:
KISSES stands for: Keep it Short, Simple and Stick to one topic.
In this Prayer Call platform, there is a country or a group of countries praying every hour in their designated time. I believe there are about 30 countries now that are involved in this 24/7 United Prayer Call run by the GC.
It’s the General Conference’s goal that there will be prayer meetings or prayer groups either in-person or through technology in every country and in every church.
The GC has also this “HOPE” initiative:
HOPE stands for: House(s) of Prayer Everywhere.
The GC is also hoping that homes will adapt these sentence prayers in their family worship. This is a wonderful way of introducing prayer culture to the little ones.
The GC wants this prayer ministry to be inviting, and easy to implement. So that the churches won’t feel that this prayer ministry needs a lot of time to prepare or need to have plenty of Bible knowledge—otherwise, the churches just won’t do it.
When the GC started this prayer call ministry, there were people who attended the prayer call and were there with the purpose to affirm the prayers of others just by saying “AMEN.” These are the TIMID ones.
While these TIMID prayer attendees were hearing the 1-2 sentence prayers of others, they had sensed that they had the ability to say a short prayer. They said to themselves: “This is very easy, I can do this.” Then very soon they were able to say their prayers, too.
Since the GC made this prayer ministry easy, these timid individuals are Prayer Call Leaders now!
The General Conference has prepared a script to make it easy for the church to start and run the prayer call.
SPECIAL MESSAGE: Pentecost 2025 Prayer Emphasis
Pentecost 2025 is a prayer and evangelism movement inviting Seventh-day Adventists in North America to collectively pray for and hold 3,000 or more “Proclamation Events” throughout 2025.
The North American Division has issued an intentional and urgent call to pray for the Holy Spirit to come with Pentecostal power during this year of united evangelism.
If you are moved by the Holy Spirit to start a prayer call in your church and you want the GC’s script, I urge you to contact me → click here. You can also reach me at Facebook → click here. I will also share with you of what I learned from the GC Prayer Call training. Let me know of your church address (US only) and I will send you the script, training info and tips through the mail.
If you need help in setting up your account in using the FCC free service for your prayer call ministry, I will gladly do it for you. The FCC will give you a phone number to call and a pass code for your prayer group to access the prayer line.
Mrs. Ellen White’s Counsels for Keeping Prayers Short
The GC Prayer Calls adhere to Mrs. White’s counsels on the importance of keeping prayers short.
Mrs. Ellen G. White says:
“The prayers offered in public should be short and to the point. God does not require us to make the season of worship tedious by lengthy petitions.”
—Evangelism, 146.“All should feel it a Christian duty to pray short. Tell the Lord just what you want, without going all over the world.”
—Prayer, p. 203“Long, prosy talks and prayers are out of place anywhere, and especially in the social meeting. They weary the angels as well as the people who listen to them. Our prayers should be short, and right to the point.”
—The Review and Herald, October 10, 1882.
—Prayer, p. 201.3“These long, cold prayers are untimely and wearisome; they are too much like preaching the Lord a sermon.”
—RH, April 22, 1884 par. 1But many offer prayer in a dry, sermonizing manner. These pray to other persons, not to God. If they were praying to God, and really understood what they were doing, they would be alarmed at their audacity; for they deliver a discourse to the Lord in the mode of prayer, as though the Creator of the universe needed special information…
All such prayers are as sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal. They are made no account of in heaven. Angels of God are wearied with them, as well as mortals who are compelled to listen to them.
— Counsels for the Church, p. 293
Prayer Format – Orderliness
The GC’s suggested United Prayer Call outline or guideline is just one way to pray unitedly with others. It is not the only method for group prayer, neither should it be followed strictly as a form. Be open for the Holy Spirit to lead.
At the GC Prayer Call there is a prayer format to follow. The Prayer Call leader leads us through 4 sections (and 4 subsections) on what to pray about. You can listen to our recording demo (below this article) and discover on how the prayer format is done.
You might be asking “why prayer format?” Our God is a God of order, so the GC organized this Prayer Call ministry in an orderly manner. The following statement of Mrs. White was shared to the prayer call trainees:
Angels work harmoniously. Perfect order characterizes all their movements. The more closely we imitate the harmony and order of the angelic host, the more successful will be the efforts of these heavenly agents in our behalf. If we see no necessity for harmonious action, and are disorderly, undisciplined, and disorganized in our course of action, angels, who are thoroughly organized and move in perfect order, cannot work for us successfully. They turn away in grief, for they are not authorized to bless confusion, distraction, and disorganization.
—Testimonies for the Church, vol. 1, pp. 649, 650
Do you know angels bring our prayers to heaven? This is what Mrs. White says. . .
Angels Carry Our Prayers to the Heavenly Sanctuary—Angels hear the offering of praise and the prayer of faith, and they bear the petitions to Him who ministers in the sanctuary for His people. . .
—The Review and Herald, February 1, 1912.
Prayer Call Recording – Demo
In this recording, I am leading out both the devotional time and the prayer time. In the GC prayer call, one person leads the devotional (reading Mrs. White’s writings / devotional), and another person leads the prayer.
Click the video below ↓ to listen the Prayer Call recording and be INSPIRED!
