Prayerlessness is a sin. We are commanded to pray
always. Prayer is not simply about getting something from God, but about
developing intimacy and growing with our knowledge of God.
Prayer is not something we can leave by the
wayside, as though ignoring speaking with God were an option.
1. A prayerless Fellowship demonstrates
that the leaders are prayerless.
Youth fellowship reflect the priorities and
lifestyle of the leaders
If seeking God's face is the top priority of the leaders
of a fellowship, then corporate and private congregational prayer will be the
top priority in the fellowship at large.
When you have a prayer-less leader (I consider
praying a few minutes a day prayer-less), then the fellowship will be
structured to operate with strategies that lack the aid and unction of the Holy
Spirit.
When faced with a choice between having a
personal focus on meeting human needs or prayer, the apostle Peter chose prayer
(Acts 6:4-6).
Like Moses, he knew that his first call was "upward"
and not "horizontal" (Ex. 18:19, 33:13, 18).
2. They don't hear what the Spirit is
saying.
When a leader is prayerless, they miss the day of
their visitation as Jesus said in Luke 19:44.
Leaders who do not regularly wait upon the Lord
miss what God has to say to them.
If it wasn't for a corporate prayer meeting
involving the leaders of the church of Antioch, they would have never heard the
Spirit of God commission Paul and Barnabus to their apostolic mission (Acts
13:1-2).
3. There is a lack of true oneness.
The power of the early church was the fact that
they experienced oneness among their core disciples (Acts 2:44, 4:32-33).
How did this oneness occur? Acts 1 shows how the
120 disciples prayed and waited on God together for 10 days in the upper room.
Consequently, the power of Pentecost could not take place without this
protracted period of prayer that resulted in oneness (Luke 24:49).
Jesus stated emphatically that the world would
not believe He was sent without the church walking in oneness (John 17:20-23).
4. There is a lack of divine intervention
from intercession.
The Word of God is replete with stories of God's
intervention as a result of intercession. The prophet Ezekiel said that God had
to destroy the land because there was no one standing in the gap (Ezek.
22:30-31).
Aaron stood between the living and the dead with
incense (a symbol and or type of prayer, Ps. 141:2) and the plague destroying
the Jews was stopped. There are many other instances of divine intervention in
the Old Testament too numerous to mention here.
5. There is a lack of the presence and
power of God that sustains ministry (Leadership).
The Word of God teaches us to be strong in the
Lord and in His might (Eph. 6:10-13). Isaiah 40:31 says that 'they
who wait upon the Lord will renew their strength'. Without fervent
private and corporate prayer, members of the congregation will burn out quickly
and not be able to sustain the work of the kingdom.
6. The knowledge of God is superficial.
Hosea teaches us to press on to know the Lord
(Hos. 6:3) and that His people are destroyed because of a lack of knowledge
(Hos. 4:6).
Without regularly meditating upon the Scriptures
and communing with God, knowledge of His ways will be superficial and will
result in many unnecessary problems in the church.
Moses knew God's ways but the backsliding
children of Israel only knew His acts (Ps. 103:7).
7. The members are not made into
disciples.
I have never seen a person capable of sustaining
true spiritual zeal for the Lord without a robust prayer life. Consequently, it
is impossible to produce real disciples in the church without effective,
consistent corporate prayer.
Also, I have never seen a person fall away from
the Lord while maintaining a life devoted to prayer. When new believers come
into the church, they cannot learn how to pray merely with Bible studies on
prayer; they have to participate in prayer gatherings since "the spirit of
prayer is caught rather then taught."
8. The leaders are building in vain.
Jesus said that He would build His church (Matt.
16). When a church is prayerless, they do not give Jesus the opportunity to
lead them, which leaves them depending upon their own ingenuity to build the
church. However, unless the Lord builds the house, we labor in vain (Ps. 127).