Last week we celebrated the launch of Lead with Prayer, a book three years in the making. At the conclusion of a book project, I often have a favorite interview or insight, and this book was rife with possibility. It took shape from the wisdom shared in over 100 hours of interviews with world-changing leaders about how their prayer rhythms impacted their life and leadership. So many of the words these incredible leaders shared linger in my mind, and their revelations have changed the way I pray.  But this time, rather than singling out a particular interview or insight, my most lasting impression comes from a favorite experience.

Over the course of the three years that we collaborated on this book, I frequently met with my coauthors Ryan Skoog, Cameron Doolittle, and Jill Heisey over Zoom or, occasionally, in person. We’d work through an agenda that included progress updates and ideation, but as part of every meeting, we prayed together. Separately and together we experimented with new-to-us prayer practices, implementing the rhythms and in some cases even adopting the verbiage of praying leaders we interviewed or studied in Scripture. As I learned with and from Ryan, Cameron, and Jill, I saw firsthand what the global Church seems to have already discovered: the power of communal prayer. I loved these opportunities to pray together and to hear what each of us were learning.

In the United States, we often think of prayer as a personal pursuit. A Barna Group research study conducted in 2017 reflected that 94 percent of American adults who had prayed in the previous three months most often did so alone. Coincidentally, 94 percent of Google image search results for “prayer” are images of a single person praying. When we in the West think of prayer, most of us probably picture ourselves alone, but this trend toward independent prayer is a departure from what Jesus modeled, what the early church practiced, and how global leaders continue to pray.

Jesus modeled group prayer, directed group prayer, and promised to show up at group prayer. We know that “where two or three gather” in prayer, Jesus is there (Matthew 18:20), and “if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven” (Matthew 18:19). I felt it in these shared times of prayer: Jesus was there with us and working among us.

In Luke 11:1, Jesus was famously asked, “Lord, teach us to pray.” What I had long overlooked in this passage is that it wasn’t a group of disciples who asked Jesus to teach them to pray. It was a single disciple, who could just as easily have asked, “Lord, teach me to pray.” Jesus responded to this disciple’s request with the Lord’s Prayer, a model for us to emulate—words meant to be prayed together.

The Sermon on the Mount, too, points to Jesus’ vision for group prayer. Author and former pastor John Onwuchekwa observes that all the pronouns in this oft-quoted sermon are singular in form (“You are the salt of the earth,” “If you love those who love you,” “When you give to the needy”) except when Jesus is talking about prayer. Then He uses plural forms. In the southern United States, Jesus’ words on prayer would be translated “When y’all pray” and “This then is how y’all should pray” (Matthew 6:5, 9).

Certainly we can, should, and often will pray alone, but meaningful prayer is not an exclusively solo activity. Jesus often withdrew to pray, but even many of these “personal” prayer times included others, like one instance described in Luke 9:18 “when Jesus was praying in private and his disciples were with him.” Jesus was praying in private, with His disciples.

Lead with Prayer was written in community and prayed over in community. If you’re thinking of reading it, we hope you’ll consider doing that in community as well. Who do you know who could help create meaningful changes in your prayer life? Invite them into this process and consider reading the book together. And as you read, know that there are people gathered in 24/7 prayer rooms around the world praying for you.

We’ve created a host of free resources to help you practice prayer. You’ll find everything from a personal and organizational prayer assessment to reflection questions, one-sentence prayers, and a prayer calendar at www.leadwithprayer.com .

John Onwuchekwa, Prayer: How Praying Together Shapes the Church (Wheaton,

IL: Crossway, 2018), 41.