29 Study Guides
Prayer & Spiritual Warfare
Strengthen your prayer life and learn to stand firm. These guides help groups go deeper in prayer — from daily rhythms to intercession to understanding the spiritual battles we face.
Fervent
by Priscilla Shirer
Fervent by Priscilla Shirer is a bold, strategic call to prayer — not the polite, routine kind, but the fierce, intentional, targeted kind that treats prayer as the primary weapon in a real spiritual war. Drawing on Ephesians 6 and the image of the full armor of God, Priscilla argues that the enemy of our souls has a specific, customized strategy against each of us — targeting our mind, our marriage, our identity, our past, our purpose, and our relationships — and that the only adequate response is an equally specific, customized prayer strategy. The book is organized around ten "strategies" the enemy uses against us, and for each one Priscilla offers a corresponding prayer strategy we can deploy. The thesis is simple but urgent: you are not just invited to pray — you are called to pray fervently, because the stakes are that high.
View Discussion GuideDiscerning the Voice of God
by Priscilla Shirer
In Discerning the Voice of God, Priscilla Shirer addresses one of the most urgent questions in the Christian life: How do I know when God is speaking to me? Drawing on rich biblical examples — from the prophet Samuel hearing his name called in the night to the disciples recognizing Jesus on the road to Emmaus — Shirer argues that hearing God is not a mystical gift reserved for a spiritual elite, but a normal, cultivated relationship available to every believer. Her central thesis is straightforward and liberating: God is always speaking, and the Bible is the primary lens through which we tune our spiritual ears to recognize His voice. A deep, consistent engagement with Scripture is not merely one tool among many — it is the foundation that makes genuine discernment possible.
View Discussion GuideToo Busy Not to Pray
by Bill Hybels
Bill Hybels wrote Too Busy Not to Pray out of his own struggle — not as a prayer expert looking down, but as a driven, schedule-packed pastor who discovered that the more demanding life became, the more desperately he needed to slow down and talk to God. The book's central thesis is disarmingly simple: busyness is not an excuse to pray less; it is the very reason we must pray more. Hybels walks readers through the basics of building a genuine prayer life — from finding a consistent time and place, to using practical frameworks for organizing prayer, to the often-overlooked discipline of learning to listen for God's voice. Along the way he draws on personal stories, honest confessions of failure, and the lived experience of his congregation at Willow Creek Community Church to show that prayer is not a religious obligation for the spiritually elite but a life-giving conversation available to every follower of Christ.
View Discussion GuideThe Power of a Praying Woman
by Stormie Omartian
Stormie Omartian's The Power of a Praying Woman is a deeply personal and practical guide to prayer for women at every stage of life. Drawing from her own journey through pain, insecurity, and spiritual growth, Omartian argues that a woman's greatest power is not found in circumstances, relationships, or achievements, but in consistent, heartfelt communication with God. The book covers thirty chapters, each addressing a specific area of a woman's life — from her identity in Christ and her emotions to her relationships, purpose, and future — pairing personal illustrations with carefully selected Scripture and model prayers that invite the reader to pray with both honesty and faith.
View Discussion GuideThe Power of a Praying Wife
by Stormie Omartian
The Power of a Praying Wife by Stormie Omartian has sold more than ten million copies because it speaks to a longing that lives in nearly every married woman's heart: the desire to see her husband become the man God created him to be. Stormie's central thesis is both simple and radical — a wife's most powerful act of love is not nagging, manipulating, or striving, but getting on her knees before God. Drawing from her own difficult early marriage, Stormie shows that prayer is not a last resort when everything else has failed; it is the first and most loving thing a wife can do. Each chapter focuses on a specific area of a husband's life — his spirit, his emotions, his role as a leader, his work, his protection, his faith — and invites the wife to pray with biblical specificity and personal vulnerability.
View Discussion GuidePrayer in the Night
by Tish Harrison Warren
Prayer in the Night by Tish Harrison Warren is a book born in darkness — both the literal darkness of night and the interior darkness of doubt, grief, and uncertainty. Using the ancient Christian night prayer known as Compline as her guide, Warren moves phrase by phrase through this liturgy, exploring what it means to trust God when life feels fragile, out of control, and shadowed by loss. Drawing on her own experiences of miscarriage, a terrifying medical diagnosis, a season of vocational upheaval, and the ordinary vulnerabilities of being human, Warren argues that Christian faith is not primarily about certainty or spiritual achievement — it is about learning to rest in God's care even when we cannot see or feel that care. The book is simultaneously a work of theology, memoir, and spiritual formation, and it offers a rare honesty about the hard places where faith actually lives.
View Discussion GuideDark Clouds, Deep Mercy
by Mark Vroegop
Mark Vroegop's Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy opens with a simple but countercultural claim: lament is not a failure of faith — it is an expression of it. Drawing from the psalms of lament and the book of Lamentations, Vroegop argues that the church has largely lost the art of honest, God-directed grief, and that this loss costs us dearly. When suffering arrives — a miscarriage, a broken relationship, a diagnosis, a season of spiritual darkness — we tend either to suppress our pain with forced positivity or to vent it in ways that lead away from God. Lament offers a third way: a structured, biblical practice of bringing raw sorrow before the Lord, wrestling honestly, and being carried — not to easy answers — but to deeper worship and renewed trust in his mercy.
View Discussion GuideDraw the Circle
by Mark Batterson
Draw the Circle: A 40-Day Prayer Challenge by Mark Batterson is a devotional companion to his bestselling book The Circle Maker, built around a simple but radical conviction: that God honors bold, persistent, faith-filled prayer. Batterson draws on the ancient legend of Honi the Circle Maker — a first-century sage who drew a circle in the sand, stood inside it, and refused to leave until God sent rain — to invite readers into a new posture of prayer. The book combines true stories of answered prayer submitted by readers of The Circle Maker, brief daily devotionals, key scriptures, and prayer prompts across forty days, organized around the idea that the size of your prayer circle reveals the size of your God. Its thesis is straightforward and challenging: most of us pray too small, too safe, and too seldom — and God is calling us to something bolder.
View Discussion GuideBefore Amen
by Max Lucado
Before Amen by Max Lucado is a short, accessible, and deeply encouraging book built around one central conviction: prayer doesn't have to be complicated. Lucado argues that many Christians feel intimidated by prayer — unsure of the right words, the right posture, or whether God is even listening — and that this intimidation has quietly robbed them of their most powerful resource. His answer is a simple "pocket prayer" drawn from Scripture: Father, you are good. I need help. They need help. Thank you. In Jesus' name, amen. This five-part prayer becomes the spine of the entire book, and each section unpacks one phrase, showing readers that honest, childlike conversation with God is exactly what He desires.
View Discussion GuideThe Bondage Breaker
by Neil T. Anderson
Neil T. Anderson's The Bondage Breaker is built on one foundational conviction: the most significant battle you will ever fight is not with a bad habit, a destructive relationship, or even a besetting sin — it is a battle for your mind. Anderson argues that Christians remain in spiritual bondage not because God's power is insufficient, but because they do not know or believe who they truly are in Christ. Using Scripture, pastoral counseling experience, and a clear theology of spiritual warfare, Anderson exposes the lies Satan uses to keep believers trapped and lays out the liberating truth that sets them free. The book is organized around two movements: first, understanding the nature of the conflict (Satan's strategies and our vulnerability); and second, taking hold of our freedom by submitting to God, resisting the enemy, and walking in the Spirit.
View Discussion GuideThe Bait of Satan
by John Bevere
John Bevere's The Bait of Satan exposes one of the enemy's most effective and most overlooked traps: offense. Bevere argues that Satan baits believers with wounds, slights, and betrayals — often inflicted by people close to them, sometimes even by leaders in the church — and waits for them to pick up that offense and carry it. Once held, offense hardens into resentment, bitterness, and unforgiveness, slowly cutting the offended person off from God's grace, fruitfulness, and destiny. Drawing on Jesus's warnings in Luke 17 and the parable of the unforgiving servant in Matthew 18, Bevere makes the sobering case that the greatest danger is not the initial wound but our response to it — and that refusing to forgive ultimately imprisons us, not our offender.
View Discussion GuideBattlefield of the Mind
by Joyce Meyer
Joyce Meyer's Battlefield of the Mind begins with a simple but staggering claim: the mind is the battlefield where the enemy wages his most relentless war against believers. Satan knows that if he can control your thoughts, he can control your life. Drawing on her own painful journey through abuse, fear, and mental torment, Meyer writes not as a distant theologian but as someone who has fought — and, through God's Word, won — the battle for her own mind. The book's central thesis is that renewing the mind (Romans 12:2) is not a one-time event but a daily, sometimes moment-by-moment discipline of bringing every thought captive to Christ (2 Corinthians 10:5). Negative, doubtful, worried, bitter, and self-defeating thought patterns are not just bad habits — they are footholds the enemy uses to derail God's purposes for our lives.
View Discussion GuidePraying Like Monks, Living Like Fools
by Tyler Staton
Tyler Staton's Praying Like Monks, Living Like Fools begins with an honest confession: prayer is the thing Jesus talked about most confidently and most of us practice most awkwardly. As national director of the 24/7 Prayer movement and lead pastor of Bridgetown Church in Portland, Oregon, Staton writes from both the heights of contemplative tradition and the mess of ordinary life. His thesis is deceptively simple — prayer is not a spiritual discipline to be mastered but a relationship to be inhabited, and the postures of historic Christian prayer (silence, lament, confession, persistence, wonder, and more) are not techniques for the advanced but gifts for the desperate. The title captures the tension at the heart of the book: monks pray with radical intentionality, fools live with radical trust, and Jesus calls his followers to both.
View Discussion GuidePrayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God
by Timothy Keller
Timothy Keller's Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God (2014) is built on a simple but searching conviction: most Christians know they should pray, but few actually find it transforming. Drawing on the devotional wisdom of Augustine, Martin Luther, John Calvin, and John Owen—as well as his own pastoral experience—Keller argues that prayer is not merely a religious duty or a technique for getting things from God. It is the primary means by which the gospel moves from our heads into our hearts, dismantling the idols that control us and reshaping us into people of genuine love, courage, and peace. The book moves in three broad movements: first, a theology of what prayer is and why it is hard; second, a deep exploration of how to pray—including meditation on Scripture, confession, adoration, and petition; and third, a remarkably practical set of daily, weekly, and monthly spiritual exercises designed to make prayer a sustainable, life-giving rhythm rather than a guilt-laden chore.
View Discussion GuideThis Present Darkness
by Frank E. Peretti
Frank Peretti's This Present Darkness is a landmark work of Christian fiction that pulls back the veil on the unseen spiritual realm operating all around us. Set in the small college town of Ashton, the novel weaves together two parallel storylines: one follows reporter Bernice Kreuger and newspaper editor Marshall Hogan as they investigate a mysterious conspiracy reaching into the highest levels of the town's institutions, and the other follows beleaguered pastor Hank Busch as he fights to keep his small congregation alive. Beneath both storylines, Peretti dramatizes the apostle Paul's declaration in Ephesians 6:12 — that our true struggle is not against people and politics, but against "the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness." The novel's central thesis is that prayer is not a passive spiritual exercise but an act of cosmic warfare: every intercession strengthens the angels, every compromise weakens them, and the fate of an entire community hangs in the balance.
View Discussion GuideThe Armor of God
by Priscilla Shirer
The Armor of God by Priscilla Shirer is a six-week Bible study built around Ephesians 6:10–18 — the apostle Paul's famous call to "put on the full armor of God." Shirer's central thesis is that the invisible spiritual war raging around every believer is real, active, and personal. The enemy's battle plan depends on keeping you unaware and unarmed, so the antidote is not vague spiritual optimism but a deliberate, specific, strategic response: putting on each piece of armor through intentional prayer. More than a survey of biblical imagery, this study is an action plan — one that transforms Paul's ancient military metaphor into a personalized prayer strategy for your everyday life.
View Discussion GuideLive No Lies
by John Mark Comer
In Live No Lies, John Mark Comer argues that the greatest threat to our spiritual and emotional health is not external persecution or doctrinal error, but the lies we absorb — and then live. Drawing on the ancient Christian framework of "the three enemies of the soul" (the devil, the flesh, and the world), Comer offers a rigorous and surprisingly practical diagnosis of why so many people who follow Jesus still feel anxious, restless, and spiritually stuck. His thesis is disarmingly simple: deceptive ideas about who God is, who we are, and what the good life looks like get lodged in our bodies and our habits, and they quietly sabotage our peace. The answer is not willpower but truth — practiced, embodied, and pursued in community.
View Discussion GuideFresh Wind, Fresh Fire
by Jim Cymbala
Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire by Jim Cymbala is the story of how a struggling, nearly dead congregation in downtown Brooklyn was transformed by a desperate return to prayer and the power of the Holy Spirit. Cymbala, who had no formal pastoral training when he took over the Brooklyn Tabernacle in the early 1970s, tells the unvarnished story of what happens when a church stops relying on programs, personalities, and polished production — and starts crying out to God in genuine, sustained prayer. The book's central thesis is simple and searching: God is attracted to weakness, honesty, and desperation. When we stop pretending and start seeking, the Holy Spirit moves in ways that exceed anything human effort could manufacture. The Tuesday night prayer meeting at Brooklyn Tabernacle became the heartbeat of the church and a model for what the New Testament describes as authentic, Spirit-led community.
View Discussion GuideWinning the War in Your Mind
by Craig Groeschel
In Winning the War in Your Mind, Pastor Craig Groeschel confronts one of the most universal struggles of the Christian life: the battle that takes place between our ears. Drawing on both Scripture and current brain science, Groeschel argues that our lives move in the direction of our strongest thoughts — and that the enemy knows this, which is why he works so hard to plant lies, half-truths, and destructive patterns in our minds. The good news is that the brain is not fixed. Through the renewing of the mind that Paul describes in Romans 12:2, we can literally rewire our neural pathways and begin to think — and live — differently. This book is a field manual for that battle.
View Discussion GuideThe Battle Plan for Prayer
by Stephen Kendrick & Alex Kendrick
The Battle Plan for Prayer by Stephen and Alex Kendrick is a comprehensive, Scripture-saturated guide to developing a powerful, intentional prayer life. Inspired by their film War Room, the Kendricks argue that prayer is not a last resort when all else fails — it is the first and most essential weapon in the Christian's arsenal. The book moves from the foundational purpose of prayer, through its biblical mechanics, to practical strategies for praying over every area of life. The central conviction driving every chapter is this: prayer can accomplish what a willing God can accomplish, and a believer who learns to pray with faith, persistence, and strategy will see the spiritual landscape of their life transformed.
View Discussion GuideDon't Give the Enemy a Seat at Your Table
by Louie Giglio
In Don't Give the Enemy a Seat at Your Table, pastor Louie Giglio takes readers on a fresh journey through Psalm 23 — one of the most beloved passages in all of Scripture — and unlocks a dimension of it that is easy to overlook: verse 5, where God prepares a table for us in the presence of our enemies. Giglio's central thesis is both simple and life-changing: the table belongs to you and your Shepherd, and the Enemy has no rightful place at it. Yet Satan — a liar and a thief by nature — will relentlessly try to pull up a chair and whisper his way into our thoughts, hijacking the narrative of our lives with fear, rage, lust, insecurity, anxiety, despair, and defeat. The good news Giglio proclaims is that we are not helpless. Because Jesus is our Shepherd and the battle for the mind is winnable, we can learn to recognize the Enemy's voice, refuse him a seat, and live in the peace and freedom God intends for us.
View Discussion GuidePraying God's Word
by Beth Moore
In Praying God's Word, Beth Moore offers a deeply practical and spiritually urgent guide to overcoming strongholds — those stubborn patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving that keep believers from the freedom Christ has purchased for them. Drawing on 2 Corinthians 10:3–5, Moore's central thesis is simple but transformative: the most powerful weapon for tearing down mental and emotional strongholds is not willpower, therapy, or positive thinking, but the living Word of God prayed back to God with faith and persistence. Each chapter targets a specific stronghold and equips the reader with Scripture-based prayers to fight it directly. The result is less a book to be read passively and more a weapon to be picked up and used daily.
View Discussion GuidePrayer: Finding the Heart's True Home
by Richard Foster
Richard Foster's Prayer: Finding the Heart's True Home (1992, reissued 2012) is one of the most beloved and comprehensive guides to the life of prayer ever written. Foster's central thesis is deceptively simple: prayer is not a technique to be mastered but a relationship to be entered — specifically, the relationship of a beloved child speaking to a loving Father. Drawing on the great classics of Christian spirituality (from Teresa of Ávila and John of the Cross to the Desert Fathers and Julian of Norwich) as well as his own honest personal experience, Foster maps twenty-one distinct forms of prayer, organizing them into three broad movements: Moving Inward (prayers that deepen our inner life), Moving Upward (prayers that adore and commune with God), and Moving Outward (prayers that intercede for and serve the world). The result is not a how-to manual but an invitation into the full, rich terrain of Christian prayer.
View Discussion GuideWar Room
by Chris Fabry
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View Discussion GuideThe Screwtape Letters
by C.S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis's The Screwtape Letters is one of the most original and penetrating works of Christian apologetics ever written. Cast as a series of letters from the senior demon Screwtape to his bumbling nephew Wormwood, the book turns the usual perspective on temptation inside out: we see humanity not through the eyes of a saint or a pastor, but through the eyes of hell. The result is both darkly comic and deeply convicting. Lewis's central argument is that the Enemy (God, from hell's perspective) is relentlessly pursuing the love and free will of every human soul, while the demons work not through dramatic supernatural horror but through the quiet, corrosive power of distraction, self-deception, and spiritual complacency. Written against the backdrop of World War II, the letters expose how ordinary life — marriage, friendship, politics, pleasure, and even church attendance — becomes the battlefield for the soul.
View Discussion GuideThe Circle Maker
by Mark Batterson
The Circle Maker by Mark Batterson is built around a simple but audacious premise: most of us pray too small. Drawing on the ancient legend of Honi the circle maker — a first-century Jewish sage who, during a catastrophic drought, drew a circle in the dirt, stood inside it, and refused to move until God sent rain — Batterson argues that God honors bold, persistent, specific prayer. The book's central thesis is that "God is not honored by timid prayers." Instead, Batterson calls readers to draw "prayer circles" around their biggest dreams, their deepest needs, and their God-given impossibilities, trusting that the God who answered Honi's prayer is the same God who hears ours today.
View Discussion GuideCrash the Chatterbox
by Steven Furtick
We all have a chatterbox — that relentless inner voice that whispers (and sometimes screams) that we are not enough, that our situation is hopeless, that God is distant, and that our failures define us. In Crash the Chatterbox, Pastor Steven Furtick of Elevation Church argues that the greatest battle of your life is not fought on a visible battlefield but in the six inches between your ears. Drawing on Scripture, personal stories, and sharp pastoral insight, Furtick identifies four core lies the enemy uses to silence us — "God won't," "You can't," "You don't deserve it," and "It won't last" — and shows how the living Word of God is the only weapon powerful enough to silence those voices for good.
View Discussion GuideCelebration of Discipline
by Richard Foster
Richard J. Foster's Celebration of Discipline is widely regarded as one of the most important books on Christian spirituality written in the twentieth century. Its central thesis is both simple and revolutionary: the spiritual life is not a matter of trying harder but of training wisely. Foster argues that the classical spiritual disciplines — practices like prayer, fasting, meditation, confession, and worship — are not burdensome rules for the religious elite but are, in his memorable phrase, the "path to spiritual growth." They are, he insists, a means of grace: ways of placing ourselves before God so that He can transform us from the inside out. Organized into three movements — the Inward Disciplines, the Outward Disciplines, and the Corporate Disciplines — the book invites readers into a whole-life spirituality that touches solitude and service, simplicity and celebration alike.
View Discussion GuideA Praying Life
by Paul Miller
A Praying Life by Paul E. Miller begins with a disarmingly honest confession: prayer is hard, and most of us don't do it very well. Rather than offering another set of techniques or disciplines to master, Miller diagnoses the deeper problem — we have stopped being needy. We have learned to live as "functional atheists," managing our lives with skill and self-sufficiency while leaving God largely out of the picture. The book's central argument is that the solution is not more willpower but a recovery of childlike dependence — learning to bring our real selves, with all our mess and confusion and longing, into honest conversation with a Father who loves us.
View Discussion GuidePrayer & Spiritual Warfare Studies — Questions Leaders Ask
- How many Prayer & Spiritual Warfare study guides are there?
- 29 guides right now, listed above, out of 223 in the library. Each one is written for a specific published book: a reading, discussion questions, and a closing prayer for every week of it. Browse the whole library →
- How long does a study take?
- Prayer & Spiritual Warfare guides run 7 to 32 weeks, one meeting a week, and each week has its own reading, discussion questions, and closing prayer. Groups that meet every other week or take a break for the holidays simply spread the same weeks further apart. Put your meetings on real dates →
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- Yes. Week 1 of every guide is free — no card and no account. Three of its discussion questions sit right on the guide's page for anyone to read, and the rest of Week 1 opens as soon as you tell us where to send it. Browse the guides →
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