The 10 Anchors of Union Church are theological convictions and philosophies of ministry that we are tied to in order to remain faithful to our core values of Gospel, Community and Mission. These Anchors inform everything from our partnerships and budget to our church government and Sunday liturgy. We believe that a strong commitment to these Anchors will create a culture that will bring God glory and us joy.
Anchor # 8 - Prayer Meeting
We are committed to regular corporate praying. Every church at least theoretically is committed to prayer, but we want to be systematically organized to be praying – with the same amount of time, energy and resources put toward prayer as the Sunday worship gathering and the scattering of the house churches. A weekly, corporate prayer meeting will be the centerpiece – the engine – of Union Church. As Spurgeon once said, “The condition of the church may be very accurately gauged by its prayer meetings. So is the prayer meeting a grace-ometer, and from it we may judge of the amount of divine working among a people. If God be near a church, it must pray. And if He be not there, one of the first tokens of His absence will be a slothfulness in prayer!”
The effectiveness of Union Church will be proportional to our investment in prayer. The talent of the leaders, the commitment of the members, and the size of the budget are all insufficient to accomplish what lies before us; the racial reconciliation in the South, the death of religious consumerism, and spiritual revival on college campuses can only be accomplished through the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit. As Jesus, Himself taught us, some spiritual breakthroughs can only be accomplished through prayer (Mark 9:29). The New Testament describes God’s power as almost an involuntary reaction to faith (Luke 8:46), so as a church we need to regularly stop working in our areas of ministry and intentionally spend time placing our faith in Him. Our regular prayer meetings will serve as a corporate posture of dependence and faith in the One who can accomplish more that we could ever manufacture through human effort. This will be our collective effort to “abide” in Christ, “apart from whom, we can do nothing” (John 15:5). We are not only committed to the weekly prayer meeting as a built-in rhythm but we are also committed to making prayer a high priority within the Sunday gathering, individual house churches and leadership meetings.