I’m about half way through a book called Revitalize: Biblical Keys to Helping Your Church Come Alive Again. The chapter on prayer is excellent and convicting. Here are a few quotes. Ones with only page numbers after are attributed to the author, Andrew Davis.

There has never been a spiritual awakening in any country or locality that did not begin in united prayer. (A.T. Pierson)

When God intends great mercy for his people, he first sets them praying. (Matthew Henry)

God tests the sincerity of our zeal for our church reform by making us wait for answers (page 98).

Prayer is the furnace, the coal bed by which our hearts are heated up from their black coldness toward the things of God to desire what we didn’t care about before: his pleasure, his presence, his face, his glory, the salvation of lost people, relief for the poor, improvement in marriages, establishment of fruitful ministries.

Scripture-based, Spirit-led, passionate, prevailing prayer by an ever-increasing number of church members is God’s ordained means for the revitalization of a church (page 100).

Extraordinary prayer meetings are inherently attractive to the godly and repulsive to the nominal members, like a magnet attracting only metal off the floor and passing over all the dust and paper. If you want to begin drawing together a committed core of followers who are zealous for God’s glory, there is nothing like a concert of prayer (page 101).