Prayer lies at the heart of the success of any Alpha course and at every stage we want to turn to God in prayer.
There are five situations when praying for Alpha is particularly appropriate:

• Leaders and helpers praying for individuals in their small groups – as well as committing to the ten weeks of the Alpha course and the weekend away, they are also responsible for praying regularly for the guests in their group, ideally daily during their personal prayer time. The leaders and helpers are in the best position to pray as they are aware of the needs of each individual as the Alpha course progresses.

• Leaders and helpers pray together for their small group – in addition, the leaders and helpers of each small group can meet together to pray for the course.

• Leaders and helpers pray together immediately prior to the course – it is helpful for the whole Alpha team to meet each week before the guests arrive for a team briefing and prayer meeting. This is particularly important for the session ‘Does God heal today?’, as the team can wait on the Lord for words of knowledge, pictures and so on. These can then be read out after the talk and people who respond to them can be offered prayer.

• Prayer in Week 4 ‘Why and How Do I Pray?’ – during this session, guests are given a theology, model and practice for prayer. This relates primarily to personal prayer, which is a good starting point. As prayer establishes itself in people’s lives it should be possible to start praying together in the small group. You may find that the group is not ready to pray together until after the sessions on the Holy Spirit.

Tips for praying together in the small groups.
Don’t rush this! Be sensitive to where people are at spiritually – remember that praying out loud for the first time can be quite an intimidating experience. Pray a short, simple prayer.
If you are going to open the session in prayer, say something like ‘I have asked John to open in prayer’ so that the other guests will not be afraid that the leader might ask them to pray without giving notice at some time in the future.

• Praying for Alpha as a church – we have found that an open corporate prayer meeting held weekly on a different day to the Alpha course works well. The agenda covers all areas of the church life, but one of the regular items is prayer for evangelism and Alpha.

Please see Alpha Prayer Meetings for more information on organising a corporate Alpha prayer meeting, looking at the vision, joining with other churches, models of prayer and the practicalities of organising the event.