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Additional Quotes about the Local Church by Watchman Nee and Witness Lee
D. Being Short
Our prayers must be genuine, and they must be short. Almost all the prayers in the Bible are short. The prayer taught by the Lord in Matthew 6 is quite short. Although the prayer offered by the Lord in John 17 before He departed from the world is quite long, it is much shorter than the prayers of some of God’s children today. The prayer in Acts 4 was the prayer of the whole church; it also was quite short. The prayer in Ephesians 1 is very important, yet it is short. One does not need five minutes to finish that prayer.
Many prayers in the prayer meeting are vain and unreal because they are too long. Perhaps two or three sentences out of the whole prayer are genuine, but the rest are redundant. Those two or three sentences are for God, but the rest are for the brothers and sisters. These prayers drag the meeting on. New believers should forget about the long prayers of the old-timers. They should offer short prayers instead. Not all the brothers and sisters can pray long prayers. If we continue to pray long prayers, the church will suffer great loss.
D. L. Moody once reacted in a very wise way to a sister who was offering a very long prayer in the meeting. As her prayer consumed the patience of the whole congregation, Moody stood up and said, “While our sister is still praying, let us sing hymn number so-and-so.” A long prayer saps the strength of the prayer meeting. Suppose you pray five minutes longer than you should and another does the same thing. When more and more people pray long prayers, the meeting drags on and is weighted down. Charles Spurgeon once said that the most improper thing for anyone to do is to ask God for forgiveness of shortcomings in the midst of a long prayer. Mackintosh also put it well when he said, “Do not try to torture God’s children with your prayer.” There are many people who whip others, not with a whip, but with long prayers. The more they pray, the more uncomfortable others become. We should learn to offer short and genuine prayers whenever we meet together.
E. Not Offering Prayers That Exceed Our Individual Prayers
Another principle in the prayer meeting is to not offer prayers that go beyond our personal prayer. This is a good principle. The way you pray in the meeting should be governed by the way you pray at home by yourself. Of course, prayer in the meeting is a little different; it should not be exactly the same as your personal prayer. But in principle do not allow your public prayers to exceed your private prayers. The way you pray in the meeting should be almost the same as the way you pray in your private prayer. Do not pray one way in your private prayer and another way in the meeting. Actually, it is difficult to have artificial private prayers, but many prayers in the meeting are artificial. If you go to a prayer meeting and constantly use words that you do not use in your private prayers, your prayers are bound to be artificial.
As far as accomplishing anything is concerned, the prayer in the meeting is always more effective than private prayers. God answers the prayer of the church more readily than He answers individual prayers. But today we receive more answers to private prayers than assembly prayers because there are too many false and vain prayers in the meeting. Actually, there should be more answers to corporate prayers than answers to individual prayers; there should be not only more but very much more. If God’s children come together, and everyone prays in a simple, specific, genuine, and harmonious way, there will be more answers to our prayers.
(Watchman Nee, Collected Works, Set 3, Vol. 48, 207-208)
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