If you have a burden to see the value of prayer raised high in your church, consider taking these steps.  Keep in mind that the ultimate goal is not to develop a prayer ministry—it is to become a praying church.  The prayer ministry will not do all the praying, but rather mobilize the entire church to pray.

Step 1 – Pray

• For a spirit of prayer to fall upon your church
• For God to raise up more people with a burden for your church to be a house of prayer
• To anoint people in your church with the gift of intercession
• For wisdom, vision, discernment, to clearly hear the Lord's voice, and for His perfect timing
• For God to stir passion in people to pray for your community and city

Step 2 – Lay the foundation

• Get the senior pastor on board--this is essential.  If you are the senior pastor, select a prayer ministry leader
• Decide the big picture of what your prayer ministry would look like
• Develop an initial timeline on when the following steps should occur
• Determine primary focus of the prayer ministry
• Set broad goals for the first year

Step 3 – Decide on clear vision

• Shows the church that prayer is vital
• Encourages more members to become involved in prayer
• Holds someone accountable for recruiting, training, and supporting pray-ers
• Assists in identifying those with the gift of intercession
• Can organize and provide an emphasis on prayer church-wide (individually and in each ministry)

Step 4 – Release the vision

• Envision church leaders
• Cast vision to the congregation

Step 5 – Form prayer ministry leadership team

• Prayerfully form a diverse, strategic leadership team.  Make sure your senior pastor (or ministry overseer) endorses each member of your team.

• This team will oversee the tasks involved with the prayer ministry, and be lead by the prayer ministry leader.

• Consider inviting people representative of major demographic groupings in your church (all with a heart for prayer, but also with a heart for missions, families, internationals, children, young adults, etc.)

• Be sure you have some people with administrative giftings on your team!

Step 6 – Establish your initial ministry plan

• Fast and pray!
• Brainstorm with your leadership team and senior pastor (and other senior leaders)
• Build prayer strategies that support your church's vision, mission, core values, goals, objectives, etc.
• Read what others have done in their prayer ministries to spark ideas (here are some book suggestions)
• Evaluate what is already going on and seek ways to strengthen existing prayer initiatives
• Expand
  • Begin with simple strategies, then move into harder, more complex ways of involving people in prayer
  • Start work among church leaders
  • If possible, upgrade prayer initiatives or systems that are already in place
  • Begin changes where they are most natural and where you would expect the greatest receptivity
  • Develop one idea at a time
  • Work with other church teams to help infuse more prayer into their areas of responsibility
• Strengthen the church by focusing prayer on the weak and potentially vulnerable places in the church (ask, "where does the enemy come in repeatedly?")
• Develop starting budget

Step 7 –Launch the prayer ministry

• Start slowly -- wait on the Lord's timing each step of the way
• Identify resources (books, tapes / CDs / videos, people, training opportunities)
• Recruit participants on a regular basis
• Educate people of all ages in how to pray
• Mobilize people to pray for the areas they are passionate about.
• Involve the entire church
• Offer a variety of times and places to pray
• Be sure to include regular praise reports of ways in which God has answered prayer--this keeps the focus on the Lord and greatly encourages those who are praying
• Continue to expand the ministry in God's timing, in the context of other ministries
• Persevere!  It will likely take several years to establish a prayer ministry, and there will be spiritual resistance, so gather prayer warriors around you and your team to lift you up in prayer regularly

Step 8 – Assess

Regularly assess the prayer ministry, using criteria such as:

• Faithfulness
• Authenticity
• Spiritual growth
• Obedience
• Intimacy with God
• Lasting fruit

Step 9 – Celebrate

• Celebrate God and his faithfulness!
• Make testimonies of answered prayer known (live, in print, video, emails, website, etc.)
• Show regular appreciation to those who serve in the prayer ministry

Step 10 – Connect with the wider body of Christ

• That's what VineyardPrayer is for!  Connect as much as you can--let's spur one another on!
• Locally, participate in united prayer efforts in your region, such as the Global Day of Prayer.