A Praying Life by Paul Miller

Week 12: Chapters 24–26 — A Praying Life in Community

Read Chapters 24–26 of A Praying Life (covering corporate prayer, praying with others, and what it means to build a praying community).

Miller turns outward in these chapters — prayer is not only a private conversation but a community practice. This week explores what it means to pray together in ways that are honest, not performative.

Discussion Questions

6 questions

1.Many people find corporate prayer — praying out loud with others — more uncomfortable than private prayer. Why do you think that is? What fears or self-consciousness arise when you are asked to pray in a group?

2.Miller describes the way corporate prayer can easily become performance — people speaking at God for the benefit of the people in the room. Have you experienced this? How do you guard against it?

3.He argues that one of the greatest gifts we can give another person is to pray for them by name, specifically, regularly — and to tell them we are doing it. Who in your life needs to know you are praying for them?

4.Miller talks about the power of praying together as a family — not formal devotions but natural, conversational prayer woven into the rhythms of the home. What are the barriers to this in your family or household? What would a small first step look like?

5.He observes that a community that prays together honestly — bringing real needs, real doubts, and real gratitude — creates a culture of dependence on God that reshapes everything else it does. How does the prayer culture (or lack of it) in your church community affect the overall spiritual atmosphere?

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Closing Prayer

Full guide

Lord Jesus, you prayed alone and you prayed with your disciples. You taught them how to pray. Teach us too — not just individually but together. Knit our community into a people who pray honestly, who carry each other's needs before you, and who are recognizably dependent on you rather than on our own wisdom and energy. Let our prayers together be a sign to one another and to the world that we know where our help comes from. Amen.

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