2 Thessalonians 3:1 "Finally, brethren, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may have free course, and be glorified, even as it is with you:"
"The preached Word will be powerless for the conviction and conversion of souls, while a sleepy, lazy, and backslidden church are all that are left to sustain the efforts of the laborers. The efforts of Christ's ambassadors will be successful only when sustained by an earnest, praying, working people. Prayer-meetings are neglected, while concerts, singing schools, and various entertainments are faithfully patronized. "It's only a prayer-meeting," is often repeated by church-members; I can not call them Christians. Exciting popular lectures will interest the church-members and call them out, when the prayer-meeting has no attraction for them. This reveals the true spiritual condition of the church. God is not pleased with this state of things. Spiritual and eternal things are not appreciated, while temporal matters are exalted above things of eternal interest." {PH152 6.2}
Acts 12:5 "Peter therefore was kept in prison: but prayer was made without ceasing of the church unto God for him."
"A prayer-meeting will always tell the true interest of the church-members in spiritual and eternal things. The prayer-meeting is as the pulse to the body; it denotes the true spiritual condition of the church. A lifeless, backslidden church has no relish for the prayer-meetings. Young men and women of no depth of religious experience; who are vain and proud and frivolous, can feel no satisfaction in engaging in religious exercises. They prefer to pass the time in flirtations or reading novels, or in other ways of pleasing and gratifying the feelings of the natural heart." {PH152 7.1}
In the small meetings of our people there is danger of killing the interest of the meetings by imprudence. Let there be no long prayers; save your long prayers for the closet. Let not your prayers be all over the world. Pray right to the point, for the blessing of God upon yourself and those assembled then and there. When you pray alone in your closet, then lay out before God all the burden of your heart; but in the assembly met to worship God, such prayers are all out of place. They kill the interest of the meetings, and make them tedious. Look at the sample prayer given by Christ to His disciples. How brief, how comprehensive, that prayer! {3MR 3.3} When approaching God, pray briefly, in simplicity. Do not dishonor God by your oratorical prayers, or by preaching the Lord a sermon in your prayers; but come to God in your soul need, and just tell Him what you want, as a child comes to an earthly parent; and trust your heavenly Father as a child trusts its earthly parent. {3MR 4.1} When the meeting is carried on in the absence of the minister, let one take the lead, but not devote long time to sermonizing. Just speak the words in the spirit and in the love of Jesus, and thus set an example for others, that no one shall talk words for the sake of talking and killing the time. Let each work a part in diligently presenting the experience of the soul. Let them state their own individual experience, their soul struggles, the victories obtained. Above everything, let them offer to God a tribute of praise from a thankful heart that Jesus has died for them. Here is subject matter that each may dwell upon with profit. It is the duty of all to feel that they must contribute a part to the life and soul of the meeting. Do this and the blessing of God will come into your midst in large measure.-- Manuscript 39, 1887, pp. 1-4. (Special testimony to a church in North England Conference. July 23, 1887.)