Pray for the Church

I recently received a comment on my free printable prayer guide Your Pastor Needs Prayer asking if I’d create a similar guide for praying for the church.

Well, I thought that was an excellent idea. So here’s what I’ve come up with. (Scroll down for a free printable copy of this guide.)

You can pray this for individual members in your local congregation, or for the universal Christian church that unites all believers. Either way, we need to keep in mind that the church is not the building in which we worship, but the people who meet inside it.

And the prayer forms an acrostic , C-H-U-R-C-H, to make the points easier to remember. And because that’s just the way my brain works. 😊

Christ’s Church Needs Prayer

C is for Courage

Pray God would make the church strong and courageous. Ask Him to empower us to boldly proclaim the true gospel without timidity, fear, shame, or compromise. Deuteronomy 31:6; Philippians 1:14; 2 Timothy 1:7; Romans 1:16)

H is for Holiness

Ask the LORD to set the church apart, to sanctify us through
His Truth, and to wash us with water and the Word so that we might be a glorious church, pure and blameless, without stain, wrinkle, or blemish. Pray that God would make us holy as He Himself is holy, (John 17:17; Ephesians 5:25-27; 1 Peter 1:15-16)

U is for Unity

Pray that God would unify His church completely in love for Him and for one another. Ask Him to grant us a singleness of spirit and purpose so that we will do nothing from selfish ambition or vain conceit. May the LORD cultivate in us the mind of Christ and conform us to His image. (John 17:23; John 13:35; Philippians 2:1-8)

R is for Resolve

Pray that God would help us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, knowing that He who began a good work in us will be faithful to complete it. May we be resolved to know Christ and Him crucified, confident He will guard everything we have entrusted to Him. (Hebrews 10:23; Philippians 1:6; 1 Corinthians 2:2; 2 Timothy 1:12)

C is for Compassion

Ask God to develop in His church a heart of compassion and make us gentle, kind, and patient. Pray He’ll teach us to consider the needs of others as more important than our own, to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to address both the physical and spiritual needs of the poor. (Colossians 3:12; Philippians 2:3-4; James 1:27; James 2:15-17)

H is for Humility

Remembering that “God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble,” ask the LORD to cultivate in His church a spirit of humility and meekness. May we draw near to God, so that He will draw near to us. (James 4:6; Proverbs 29:23; Isaiah 57:15; James 4:8)