James 5
15And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. 16Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.

We believe everyone should have a prayer partner. We encourage you to seek out someone you trust and meet with that person regularly so you can pray together, lifting each other up and praying for others. Contact Greg Pomponi, 334-3651 if you would like some ideas on finding a prayer partner.

PRAYER PARTNERSHIPS
Some Dos and Don'ts

SOME DOs:

1. Pick a regular time and place to get together This may be by phone or in person. It goes better if most of your sessions are in person. For this to be beneficial get together no more than once a week and no less than once every two weeks.

2. Decide how much time you want to spend each time you are together. Then stick faithfully to opening and closing times. If one of you tends to be late to appointments, it will be a very large challenge to be on time, but you must respect your partner enough to do this. Usually an hour is plenty of time for your regular appointments. Some spend a half hour.

3. In your first one or two sessions take unhurried time to each share your life story, focusing especially on your relational and spiritual journeys.

4. Be a good listerner. Unfortunately, in most relationships there is a significant imbalance in talking and listening., with one doing most of the talking and the other getting little chance to share. Monitor this with yourself, especially if you tend to be a "talker." Once in a while take the risk to talk about this together, asking if you could improve on the balance between talking and listenings.

5. Make sure you reserve enough time in each session to have unhurried prayer together. The tendency is to talk through the hour and have to rush prayer time. One way of protecting prayer time is to have it in the middle of your time together rather than at the close.

6. In your personal prayer time, pray daily for your partner. Ask you partner what he/she wishes you to pray for so you can be specific.

7. Focus more on praying for character change than praying for God to 'Fix" others or make mechanical changes in areas of your life.

8. Trust the Holy Spirit in the relationship. Remember the definition of faith in Hebrews 11:1. Trust that God is working in your partnership for both of you even though you don't quickly or often see results.

9. Set times when you will evaluate and decide whether or not to continue the partnership. These evaluations should come every eight to twelve weeks. At these times either of you should feel free to pull out if that is how you feel led. DO NOT TAKE PERSONALLY THE CHOICE OF YOUR PARTNER TO PULL OUT! Trust God in all this. Your well being and security is not based on this partnership. It is based on the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ!

10. Keep in sacred confidentiality what you share with each other. This means you tell no one-- not even your spouse.

SOME DON'Ts

1. Don't try to 'fix each other.' You are not there to change the other. You are not responsible for your partner's journey and/or choices. You are not responsible for your partner's salvation, marriage, job, etc.

2. Don't hasten to give advice. Again, remember your job is not to fix each other. Work on listening much more than giving advice. When you do feel impressed to make suggestions, do so tentatively and with much prayer before during and after.

3. Don't keep 'pullup up the plant' to see if it is growing. In other words, live this partnership by faith rather than sight or feelings.

4. Don't cheat prayer time. Remember this is a prayerpartnership .