Guide 1: Prophetic Prayer

A Prayer Shaped Life, 2025

Review the practice so far (10 min)

Since there is no practice so far to review, let’s discuss this series’ aim. By ordering our days around the practice of Prayer, we want to become a Community in which the Spirit cultivates the slow-growing, sweet-tasting fruit of intimacy with God. Through the Guides in this series, we will experience and engage rhythmic expressions of Prayer together: Silent Prayer, Incarnational Prayer, and the Daily Prayer Rhythm. So, before we begin with tonight’s Guide, let’s debrief the Prophetic Prayer Training and then take a moment to discuss our personal experiences with the practice of Prayer, whether good or bad, brief or long, past or current.

• What did you take away from the Prophetic Prayer Training?

• How would you describe your current comfort level with the practice of Prayer?

Guide overview (2 min)

Prayer, like any relationship, has many forms of communication—talking about concerns, asking for things, receiving affirmations and challenges, and sitting in silence. Prayer is an opportunity to slow down enough to be with God and to sometimes even hear him say something back. In this series, we will be diving deeper into the kinds of prayer that shape and form our lives in God’s love.

One of those kinds of prayer is prophecy—hearing and speaking God’s voice on behalf of an individual or group. Last week, we attended the Prophetic Prayer Training and got to try it together. Prophetic Prayer is all over the pages of Scripture, and it’s something that Scripture’s authors take for granted. God does not need a stage and music to speak: anytime God’s people gather, he is speaking. Smaller groups of friends and family—like our Bridgetown Community—is one of the best places to listen for God’s voice. So, as we lean into the practice of Prayer, our exercise for tonight is Prophetic Prayer.

Exercise for tonight (30 min)

Tonight we’re going to take some time to practice Prophetic Prayer together. As we do this, we’ll use the four-step model for Prophetic Prayer that we learned at the training: ask, listen, search, and risk. Just like at the training, someone will volunteer to be prayed for and we’ll all ask God what he may want to say to them through us. Then, after a minute or so of listening, we’ll share what we sense and pray for that person. Finally,we’ll end by having the person share what resonated with them. Remember: there’s no pressure to get it right—we’re just practicing, and this is a safe group in which to risk! 

Before we start, let’s remember together that prophecy is a form of prayer in which the Spirit works in cooperation—not competition—with our imagination, in order to encourage another person or group. Oftentimes, we can miss the voice of God because it sounds or feels too familiar, so it’s important to remember that it almost never feels intense or dramatic, but like a thought entering our imagination from the outside (as opposed to from the inside). Usually, we’ll see some sort of picture, symbol, or memory, or hear a word, phrase, or Scripture. Three helpful questions to process through with God are: What am I hearing/seeing? What might it mean? And what do I do with it?

Select someone: We’ll hopefully get to pray for a few people, but who wants to go first?

Ask, listen, and search: Okay, now that we know who we’re praying for, let’s all take some time to ask God what he may want them to know. Remember, the kind of Prophetic Prayer we’re practicing is not correcting or confronting, but encouraging. So, if you sense something, ask yourself if it is encouraging, if it lines up with or contradicts Scripture, and if it sounds like something Jesus would say. Search yourself to ensure that what you sense is from God and not just something you think this person should know or do. I’ll set a timer for 90 seconds of listening, and then we’ll come back and share.

Risk: Okay! Let’s take some time to risk together by sharing what we sensed. Would a few people share what they heard or saw, and what they think God might be saying through it? After you share it, take a moment to pray it over the person receiving it. (Leader note: Leaders, consider going first to help set the pace for the group. And, for subsequent rounds, encourage people who have already shared to let others share, so everyone can try it.)

Reflect: Thank you all for sharing. As we hear from the person who received all the words now, let’s remember that if and where something connected with them, it’s something we can be praying for and checking in with them about in the future. Okay: What resonated with you and felt like God was speaking to you through another person? And was there any word that you may need to weigh more, whether for clarity or application?

(Leader note: As you have time, move onto another person, continuing to give people more opportunity to receive and practice hearing and sharing.)

Exercise for the week ahead (3 min)

Tonight we experienced an exercise that involved community, but there are also ways for us to grow in the practice of Prayer on our own throughout the week. We all have busy lives, so the ask is not to turn your life upside down to practice Prayer 24/7, but rather to take a step forward in the practice of prayer. In doing so, we partner with God in our own formation for the benefit of our Community.While the practices are personal, they are not private—they are ways of letting God shape us so that when we come together, our Community will be richer, deeper, and more like Jesus.

That said, while we practiced Prophetic Prayer together tonight, until our next Community Guide, the exercise for the week ahead involves the exercise of Silent Prayer:

• Silent Prayer: This week we are going to practice Silent Prayer–the prayer of remembering and remaining in the love of God. I will send out a one-page Guide (linked at the button below) to help you develop and build this rhythm.