Lafayette Prayer Room Podcast
Join us as we discuss growing in God through prayer, worship and the word in the context of a prayer room.
Lafayette Prayer Room Podcast
Prayer Leaders, Ep 8
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Prayer leaders dive into the in's and out's of leading prayer times in the prayer room.
Welcome to the Lafayette Prayer Room Podcast, where we discuss what it looks like to grow in God through prayer, worship, and light in the context of a prayer room. My name is Janie, and we've been discussing what our prayer room looks like. We're located in Lafayette, Louisiana, and we are open to any Bible-believing, Jesus-loving Christian. We would love to have you come and check us out. Today on our podcast, we have special guests. We have Katie Lasar and Renee Beard. And the three of us are the prayer leaders in the Lafayette prayer room. And so in previous sets, we've discussed what our intercession sets are, what our worship with the word and devo. So for us, when we're prayer leading, we're leading intercession and worship with the word. There's preparation before a set. What do you guys do to prepare for sets in the prayer room? For an intercession set, I don't have much preparation. If I do, it's maybe a scripture for each focus that we're doing, but majority of the time, not much for prayer. But worship with the word, I do have preparation. I normally sit with that section of scriptures. I personally don't do a whole entire Bible study, but I do like to sit with the Lord, go verse by verse, writing phrases that come to me, dissecting the verse and maybe pulling in some questions to ask to help the room digest the scripture themselves. Yeah, that's what I do.
SPEAKER_01I don't have much for intercession, but worship with word. So for me, for intercession, I basically like to wait until the time and we're in worship, and I will just start asking the Holy Spirit to show me. What were you thinking, Jesus? What is your prayer on this scripture or on this focus? What are you praying about the intercessors today? What's on your heart concerning them? And then I'll just let him drop things into my spirit and I'll just write that down and pray off of that. For worship with the word, I will sit with the focuses, go through the scriptures, look at commentary, look at the study notes, and just write down any phrases that come up and have that as like bullet points to go over of when we're sitting in the set.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, same. I don't really prepare for intercession. Depending on what day of the week it is, our focuses stay the same. But we've done it enough time that we know, and I can see you have your yellow paper, which we all pull from. You want to tell us what that is? We use this for intercession.
SPEAKER_01So I love this. If I don't get anything, then I'll follow this. We have an apostolic prayers and prophetic promises page that list different scriptures that we can create off. So I'll just read through them and whatever I find fits that focus, then I'll start it.
SPEAKER_02I use the apostolic prayers a whole lot for intercession as well for worship with the word. I do like you guys. I do a time with the Lord with it, and I like to write down what focus I'm on, and then I break it down into little, you know, key phrases and I highlight those so that my eyes can find them pretty easily while I'm on this age. Um, that way I can I don't get lost in my own notes. I used to take a lot of detailed notes and I would get lost in them. So now I'm kind of like a bullet point and I highlight specific words that way my eyes will fall on it and I know, oh yeah, I can pray that or go to this part. And that's really all I do as far as preparing for worship with the word. Um, as a team, because we we are a team, we're gonna have one of us, we the prayer leader, we always have a worship. So always those two people on the stage. Sometimes other singers, which we love when we have one or two other singers, will prepare as a group and we call that briefing. So, do you want to talk a little bit about what a briefing is?
SPEAKER_01So we'll sit with the scriptures with the prayer leader and the worship leader and just go over what she pulled out of the scriptures when she was viewing it and where she wants to go with it. Sometimes we're along the same lines, sometimes I have to readjust my thoughts to whatever she's wanting to flow in. But it helps to prepare to know where we're going.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, also just communing with the worship leader, they might have picked a song to go with that certain focus and just getting the idea of and then that can help you as a leader. Okay, we're going here and we're in one of the yeah, and just because we say something in a briefing doesn't mean it happens. Like it's not like we have this rigid right set, we have a loose model, we like to call it a model, right? Um, to go off of because we know the Holy Spirit has taken us many places, or a singer will sing something and that will trigger something in me. Yeah, I'm gonna pray into that, and you know, and there's a just a team dynamic on the stage that we get to flow in. And I think that is the fun part about we we always talk about how these sets are fun, like we really enjoy it because it's building on one another and just seeing how the Holy Spirit can show you something, and then oh, I have a scripture for that, I can pull this in, and then that's what leads us. Are there practical things on the stage as far as how do you communicate with the worship leader? How do you know when it's time to move on from one focus to another? How do you manage all of that? Well, I we do have signs with the worship leader and the prayer leaders, and honestly, it is a little difficult. We are prayer leading, but we also have to watch the singers and our worship leader. If they have a chord they want to sing out, typically it's just body language, typically. Um, if they have something they want to pray out or sing out, they're close to the mic, or if they don't have anything, they're back. I know one sign that comes to mind is if the worship leader is done with that section of the focus, like there's no more songs for that, or they're just kind of feeling, hey, we're good, there'll be a little fist sign. Um, or it can be, hey, we're done with this set, close it out completely. This past weekend, it comes to mind because it recently happened. Sometimes we miss it. I got the fist signal from the worship leader, and I thought we were going to the next section, and that worship leader was like, No, we need it. In this this whole set, so yeah, that happened, and sometimes we miss it, and that's okay. Um, we can adapt and flow again.
SPEAKER_01So basically the same Trista really likes to flow and stay, sit on something because the longer we sit on it, then a lot of times the Holy Spirit we just wait will drop something else in her spirit. So pretty much just let her flow, and she'll actually read the next scripture or a piece of it to let me know she's ready to.
SPEAKER_02I think an important thing to know is that we're actually friends, like we have relationship with the people that are on the stage with us. It's not like we just get there and we're just only doing sets with them. I mean, one of the worship leaders is my husband.
SPEAKER_01So yeah, right.
SPEAKER_02And Tris is one of our best friends. We're all friends, so we know each other, we have long relationships with each other. So now we really can tell body language really helps. And it's kind of gotten to that point. Like if they look at me, I know I know what they're thinking, even a lot of times.
SPEAKER_01So it helps that we are actually friends, and then we also have time to say, okay, this didn't work, so we can make adjustments. That's how we came up with her just saying a piece inscription because I'm always afraid to move on if she's not ready.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you're bringing that up. So let's go into that. What are some things you've had to overcome? Could be on stage as a prayer leader, because I think it's funny, none of us are just natural wannabe in the spotlight type of people. Like, I know I'm definitely not. I'm totally kidding with just being one of the crowd, but that's not what God has called us to right now. So, what are some things you've overcome to be able to be on stage as prayers?
SPEAKER_01Fear of man, fear of sound like, fear, look like, um comparison, comparing ourselves to one another. Oh, Danny does such a good job. I can't beat that. Katie does such a good job, I can't beat that, and so it's just being obedient to the word that says take everybody captive into the obedience of Christ and saying, No, this is not a show. Um, we're here to focus on Jesus, it's all about him. It has nothing to do with just talking yourself out of the lies.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I have had to really focus on being confident in a prayer leader leading their room. One thing that I've had to overcome and work on is being confident in my leadership on stage. I have a fear of missing the Holy Spirit or missing a moment when I went too fast and move on to the scripture to the next one, or vice versa. Um sitting on something in the room where the leaders are like, I have nothing, let's move on. Um, so I've definitely had to grow in that, being confident in I can hear the Holy Spirit. I'm a leader for a reason, and trust that I hear the Holy Spirit, and I can feel that. And you can walk in the room. And I mean, all of us we can feel if the room is really being hit with the spirit or not. But that's one thing. And then another thing, kind of on the same lines, but more working on humility of not evaluating the set if it was good or bad, because we had a holy spirit fire moment or not. That's not the way Jesus evaluates it. So many times he's corrected me of like, you don't know the moment I had with the other person or even a worship leader. So I've had to work on not being so hard on myself and just on the set itself, like, oh, that was a flop. No, we went there to eat the scroll, to meditate on his word, get it in our soul, in our spirit, and worship him. Like you said, we're there for him. This is last show. I mean, definitely comparison. I didn't do that the way Katie would have done it. I really like the way Renee opens this way, or whatever. I can hear us take stuff from one another, like you know, we use each other's material, so to speak, which is great, because it's not a comparison, I can only be me, and that's exactly what we're supposed to do. And also, like you were saying, the move of the Holy Spirit is not contingent upon me, right? If God decides when things are gonna move, we are just here to say yes, bring our very small part, open our mouth, and and do the best we can, and then it's all on the Holy Spirit, it's all on God. I can't be like, oh, if I would have done better, it's really prideful to sit up there and think it would have been better if I would have said this or that. So it's just not letting my mind go to those places at all. And I know JD, you say this a lot, which I so appreciate and love that you picture Jesus in the crowd. If you're nervous and you don't have something, you're like, Jesus, help me. You know, it's like that framework. I'm here for him, I'm praying to him. We are doing this for him. That even helps with our bride, and that takes the pressure off. Yeah, another thing that I've had to deal with is some of the people in the room have been walking with Jesus for longer than I've been alive, just years of history with the Lord, and I'll think there's nothing I can even bring to the table. But they have they have walked with Jesus for so long. I just look up these women are pillars in the Lord, God, and I'm the one on stage, but it's not about that. I'm the youngest one here. I have that all the time. Yeah, so there is, you know, practical and just human side of being on the stage and us just saying, Yeah, I'm willing for you to use me, even if I'm gonna go.
SPEAKER_01And and he does. And for me, I look at all of y'all who have studied the Bible for so long. I can't say that I've ever like in-depth studies. My time with the Lord has been more just worship and being in his presence. So I struggle with that a lot. Like, do I even understand this scripture and the way Jamie comes out and explains things? I don't have that depth, so that also is something that I have to overcome that I struggle with.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, the enemy likes to accuse and he's he's good at it, but we know the truth, and we just have to keep on telling her that's the practical thing to tell myself. Doesn't matter, it's not about me, my performance means nothing before the Lord. He just yet, and that's so beautiful to him. I think that has happened often in a prayer set where we are praying and just thanking God for who he is, like our that we get to be before him. It's so like nothing could be better. So I've come to really love leading, and I love leading with you guys. So, on just going on with that, we have different types of set. We have intercession and we have worship with the word. Do you want to talk about either one? What does it look like practically on the stage, and how do we float through that? So, intercession. There is a prayer leader on stage with the singers and worshipers, and then we assign a floor leader for that set. And typically, the prayer leader will begin the whole set with a prayer, and then we'll go into a focus, the worship team will sing a song, we'll worship a little bit, and then the prayer leader will kind of kick off the focus to pray in the room, and then our team will flow off of whatever the prayer leader just prayed on for that focus. As they're slowing, the prayer leader on stage will give a sign to the floor leader hey, you can start preparing to get up to the front of the stage with the mic. And once that flow is done, the floor leader will begin and say, now we're focusing, we're praying for focus to the next generation. If you have a 30-second prayer, come learn it. And typically that leader right there will start that focus and they'll pray. We try to do one to two minutes, very hard, but that is our goal. The leader who's leading that focus will pray one to two minutes and then they'll hand off the mic to the people in line, try to do 30 seconds, we're in a time frame. And then once everyone has prayed, what's beautiful, I love it, is now the seers and the worship leader stings choruses off of what we pray. And that I feel like is when we really feel the spirit. I just love that about the prayer room. Um, we're not just praying, we're not just saying scriptures, but we get to really feel what the Holy Spirit is doing and feeling through singing what was just prayed. So that's what intercession looks like.
SPEAKER_01And what about worship with the word? So worship with the word, we have a set focuses with said scriptures within each focus. Uh we will start off with praying, inviting the room in, asking the Holy Spirit to come in, and then we start with worship, Tristol worship or Joshua lead worship, and then from there our prayer leader will begin to start speaking out some of those scriptures, pray on them, and then the prayer leaders will uh pick up a chorus, the Holy Spirit drops something in their spirit, start singing it, and then a lot of times even the prayer leader will have something dropped in their spirit and will speak it out, and it will just keep flowing back and forth, which is so amazing. And I love that we sit on stuff, it's like the Holy Spirit really shows up and brings things out that you didn't even think of. So we'll just continue in that focus and move on to the next thing.
SPEAKER_02So, as the prayer leader on the stage, how how do you know when it's time to move on? Or is it your job to know when it's time to move on? How do we direct prayer in either intercession or worship with the word? I know for for me, if I'm sitting up there, if it's worship with the word, I feel like it's on me. I'm the one that's gonna decide when it's going to the next. Um, and I I keep my eyes on the worship leaders. If I'm praying and I'm in a prayer, I'm gonna close my eyes. That's how I get with the Lord. Other than that, when I'm not praying and a chorus is not being sung over and over, I'm gonna start looking at either Josh or Trista to see what their body language is doing to know. Trista's pretty good about wanting to sing the next line, so you know she's ready to go on. Josh backs away from the microphone. So I just watch them and I'm like, okay, I'm ready to move on. We're gonna move on. And sometimes I'm wrong, and they'll seeing from from what was already said, and that's fine. It's not like we can ruin it, it's the word, and that's how I know. What what do you guys do? Yeah, I'd say the same thing. Watch the body language. Um, I know Josh specifically, if he is on the mic, I know he has something already. The second somebody quiet sound, he's going for it. Um, but if all of our singers are backed off, I typically, okay, let's move on. For both, I feel like for prayer and worship.
SPEAKER_01So for Trista and I, we've come up with a way that she will say the scripture that she wants to move on to. That gives me the cue to move on because I struggle with knowing when she's ready to move on and I don't want to go ahead. And then sometimes I'll just go ahead and move on.
SPEAKER_02And I know also when we're first starting a focus, when I'm reading the scripture, I'm gonna pray longer that like I'm gonna sit on it for a while so that the singers and the worship leader can get their music set up and you know ready to go, and then later it'll be just more of a back and forth type of thing. There's even times when they're singing and I'm ready, I want to sing something like there's like a little three, but I want them to keep singing and I want to like interject in the middle, and sometimes they'll stop singing if I start talking, so I'll like try to motion them. Hopefully, they're looking. We try to look at one another um to keep going, and then because I love that when they're singing, they're praying, like, oh, and it's just flowing back and forth.
SPEAKER_01That it is the best.
SPEAKER_02Yes, I love whenever that happens.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, the same. That's my favorite time is when you do that. And oh, I think that we've learned each other for a while. It was a little struggle, especially when Felicia came on. I I think her and I were struggling the most because she wasn't used to me speaking out, and then she would stop, and then I'd be like, Oh, I just messed her up, you know. But I think she's gotten used to me just speaking while she's singing.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, because it's not like we say, prayer leader, worship leader, singer, singer, me. It doesn't, it's not exactly in that that order, it's just uh volleying back and forth, whoever has something in the moment. And most of the time, if I have something like you're saying and I want to say it, but they're in a chorus. If they're in a chorus, they're repeating that, so I can jump in in the middle of those little phrases. That's my favorite part to do it. And when I'm feeling most confident, like they're continually in this cycle, so I'm gonna just jump in a lot. The best. I love it. It is, it is fun. Yes, we say this all the time. Worship with the words are so fun because of the back and forth, and you get to just go so deep in the word. We stay on one set of scripture instead of going wide, which there are times in your Bible study, you're going wide, you're trying to get through a lot, but instead of that, we're we're trying to go how deep can we go? And like it's an unending ocean. There's always more to explore, even if we've done that scripture, there's always, always more. So I I love worship with the word. Who picks what scriptures are gonna be done for worship with the word? Well, I feel like it's a mix, however, I feel like majority of the time, like on Saturdays, our worship with the word typically looks like whatever scriptures we're doing as a community in our in-time study. Or we also have classes on Mondays, so whatever scriptures we were focusing our for on a series, we'll focus on those scriptures. And it could be a prayer leader one time, it can be a worship here. I feel like it's kind of a mix. I agree with that. I love whenever it does tie in with the class because you get something so different. You can Bible study it, but when you're doing it, worship with the word and they're singing. Revelation comes in that way that I never get through just a Bible study time. So I love that we have a mixture of we're gonna study it, we're gonna Bible study it, and then we're gonna do worship with the word and see how deep we can go. And we say this also a practical thing at the beginning of this set. We're like the prayer leader will say, Hey, we're going to worship with the word. Remember, we read it, write it, sing it, pray it. And it's not just going through scriptures, we are reading it, we're writing it, we're praying it, we're singing it, and we're going slow, like you're saying. So it really Gets in you, really does root in you. And then you're going so slow that it's like, okay, Jesus, what does it really mean? The Lord is my shepherd. Okay, what does that really look like? And that's how we dissect it. And in those moments, that's when it really had a moment with him. And then like I'm confident if he really is a shepherd. I know exactly what that means because I've experienced him, you know, or or he showed me a different aspect of it. It's because of the slowed down pace of worship with the word. We have this many scriptures. I mean, sometimes we have more, but the slowed down pace, like we're not just trying to get through a chapter, which there's value in that, but the slow down pace allows it. And because now two hours, we're looking at these scriptures. So you have to keep asking. And he's so thankful to answer. I just yeah, worship with the word, uh it's probably not the easiest to lead. Intercession is easy as far as uh what's required of the prayer leader, but worship with the word.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and it you chewing on it, he tells us to chew on his word. So when we sit there, meditate on it, they sing it, pray it, he raises it. Revelation we didn't have.
SPEAKER_02And I feel like since our community, our prayer room as a whole, had done it and done set, I feel like we even have our own history altogether, like doing it. Because not every time, but a lot of time we do debrief. And so we get to hear what the Lord showed James on that scripture, or how did you see Jesus in that, or if you had an encounter, see and I just feel like that even solidifies our community, we know how the Lord is speaking to you, or you know, I just love that for all this in those moments. Absolutely, yeah. What what you're talking about is that debriefing where people in the chairs, like I'm not always on the stage. Sometimes I'm just sitting in the chair and I'm like, hey, when you said this, God is actually showing me the exact same thing or a different angle of it, or maybe something totally different. We get to hear from people that are never on the stage, they get to voice out what the Lord was showing, and it does. It first it makes you know that you heard the Holy Spirit. Like if you were doubting it, you know, because they heard it, you know, and just to know each other's heart, it does, it makes us a family. I think it's something that's very, I would say unique to our prayer room. I don't know of others. I mean, I know debriefing as a stage as the leaders, but not hey, in the whole world. And it's a beautiful part of our prayer room, I think. We also started doing communion more often from the stage. So who leads communion?
SPEAKER_01What does that look like? Usually the prayer leader leads communion. I think most times you do it, and it just I don't know. I started taking communion at one time on my own at home before we even started doing that, and things just shifted. Honestly, I don't know. There's something to that to do in communion, remembering he tells us to remember what he walked through. So remembering it, it brings a closeness, a newness to your walk with him, an awareness of everything that he really went through that we don't often look at.
SPEAKER_02I agree, and it puts our minds often. I know when I leave communion, um, and I stole this from another prayer leader, but I lead from Revelation 5, like the sling land at the center of it all. In Revelation 4 and 5, or I would say core scriptures for us in the prayer room for me personally, I think for all of us, and that is the beauty of the Lord. That's what sustains night and day worship, it's what sustains your place in prayer, and so we put our eyes on that, and then you go into scripture. I mean, yeah, in Saint Jim. Yes, yes. What are some practical things you do? Because we have to watch the time, like there's a very spiritual side of what we're doing, but there's a time management and a stage management side of it too. How do you navigate those two different parts of what we're doing? I know I don't do this anymore because now I have the time pretty much solidified in my mind. But before I would actually write down next to my focuses five to five fifteen, five fifteen to five thirty, remember that 530 to 545, 545 to 6, just so that could not that we always stayed on it, but it helped me not to stress about the time. So it took like one worry off my plate. Now I'm done it all enough on the times, but that was one practical thing that I did. I mean, because we've done it for so long, I do know how long it typically takes for each. However, we have a ginormous digital clock in the back wall that we are staring at. So I that helps me. And even in a worship with the word, when we are in it and we are flowing, I can just look up and be like, oh, we spent a lot of time. We need to move on to the next one. Um my clock sometimes causes me anxiety though. Because I know we have two hours and I'm like, I feel like I'm done with focus one, and it's in 12 minutes. And I'm like, no, we're not done. So keep going, you know, you know, push me to try to find something more.
SPEAKER_01I feel like I'm relying on Trista for that.
SPEAKER_02Trista does. Yeah. I don't think Josh ever even thinks about time. Maybe he does. You lead with Trista typically. I lead with Josh. And so um, I mean, sometimes it flip-flops, but usually I'm with Josh and you're with Trista. So Trista does watch the time for our sets. I'm the one watching this. Because sometimes I'll look at Josh and like you can't do worship for that long because he's, you know, he'll close his eyes and and it's not as hard anymore because we've done it. Um, and some of the nervousness is not there, so I'm not thinking, what am I gonna say? And the time, and all the things that would make me a little nervous. What other things? Okay, I know for me, I like to have tissue nearby because inevitably at some point I'm going to cry. It just gonna happen. So that is one thing I just like to have here. Yeah, I have a pen and a paper, specifically. I mean, I have my notes for sure, but I sometimes if I'm wanting to praise something and they're in a chorus or something, or if they sing something, I'm like, oh, that was good, and I want to like go back to it, I'll write it down. Water, I cannot go up there without water. And I also have my sewing or like my iPad, just so I can Google real quick if a scripture pops up in my head and I cannot find it or know exactly where it is. Yes, I Google a lot because I'll get like a part of a scripture and I don't want to misfold it, but you know, just to look it up real quick, I use I do use my phone a lot.
SPEAKER_01I Google a lot too, because something will drop in my spirit and I have to make sure that I'm in line with the word. I want to make sure it's in context. But you were talking about how you uh bullet points and I'll highlight like each focus, and then I'll start kind of working off what I've already said because I can get lost in my uh notes. I have my notes as well, pen and paper. Make sure you check the battery life on your mic, have batteries on the side in case it's low. For if you see it's low, you put batteries on the side, and then for me, I don't know why, but I always meet chapstick. So you go to the bath and break it up there because you're sitting up there for two hours.
SPEAKER_02Right. Also, we have we sit at a table, like a kind of a higher table, so we have a more comfortable stall than we used to, at least. We have a stall, and then I have another table that has like my water, and we each kind of set up our space differently when we get up there. I mean, I have a stand where I open my Bible, although uh to be honest, I'm having harder and harder times thinking little words in my Bible on the stage. Um, so Bible cheaters, like all the things that you need to get through the set. We just have it all right there, yeah. It's so there are practical, just a normal side of being a all right. I think that kind of wraps up this episode. We want to hear your questions and comments down below. You can find us on Facebook at Lafayette Prairie or Instagram, prayer room lafayette. We have a website, lafayettepraeroom.org. We just want to say thank you for choosing to spend your time with us, and we'll see you next time. Bye.