Thinking of Prayer......

I asked a brother if I could post his article here. I think there is some prayer for thought to be found herein. Thanks.

What about more of a freedom to have prayers openly and unashamedly?
Do we pray silently at a resturant? Why? If we can talk out loud then
why not be able to have a prayer outloud?

My wife and I were at another family's place and had an evening of
round the table spiritual discussion. We had talked with concern and
in depth about a sister who was leaving the church and was making some
very poor choices in life. Then the thought was lifted out by the
other wife... "Could we spend a little time in prayer for her?" And as
we looked at each other and it felt right... she volunteered to start
and so she prayed a simple prayer for the dear departing sister. She
never ended the prayer with Amen.... we all stayed bowed around the
table until another one prayed. He prayed for the sister of concern
but then branched off into praying for himself and others he could
think of. Again he left it open without saying AMEN. We all stayed
bowed in prayer until we had all impromptu had prayed, for ourselves,
for each other, for our children, for other friends we each knew of in
trouble. The last one ended it with Amen. It was a beautiful time
where the Spirit of God was close and our hearts and emotions were
touched. The setting was very conducive towards fervency and faith.
Sometimes its nice to gather the families together in the evening
after visitation, but this time the children just continued playing
and it was "adult time". The children came and went in the room, they
were observing though, and it felt so natural and open.

I wish we had more of that when there is need.

I have also been to some very warm prayer times (prayer meetings?)
where a group of brethren have gotten together after work in another
brothers shop, and the one who called the gathering confessed his
struggles and even failings in some area, and we all took turns
praying. Praying especially for the situation that called us together,
but also for ourselves as we also shared our burdens with each
other.

But to be honest here... These types of prayer meetings are happening
all over, yet there seems to be a bit of a sensitive thing here where
I have felt from some a certain air of cautiousness to support this
type of thing. What are your thoughts on why that would be?

We read of all night prayer meetings in the early church (Acts 12) and
also when our Anabaptists were persecuted in the middle ages, if our
times are more dangerous and decietful now, then maybe we need that
kind of prayer diligence today too? I know of foreign mission fields
where there have been hours long prayers for each other for
deliverances etc that have had a good work. Do we have less need, or
just less humilty?