A church that is what a church ought to be is a church where the members pray for one another.

People want to be prayed for.  Religion can be a divisive issue.  We can argue about everything from the existence of God to the infallibility of the Bible.  However, most people will agree when you ask if you can pray for them.  People want to be prayed for.

Prayer changes things.  Prayer is powerful and effective.  It is reasonable to question how the prayer of a mortal could change the mind of the sovereign, immortal God.  Here is the answer:  Prayer does not change God.  Prayer changes things.  God is sovereign over both ends and means.  God will do what God will do how God chooses to do it.  Sometimes God chooses to do what he does as an answer to prayer.  Prayer changes things.

We want to be a praying church.  We want to be able to call upon the leaders of the church to pray for us.  We want to pray for one another.  Sometimes the prayers will be answered in the way we would like, sometimes not.  Either way, we will not run out of things to pray about until God brings in the new heaven and new earth and all our problems are gone.  So we pray.