The following are individual answers to the question, “If you answered ‘yes’ to the previous question, please briefly explain your distinction.” There were 30 respondents who submitted answers to this question.
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Solitary prayer is more of an inward meditation while corporate prayer is a unifying process.
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I don’t think one is more important or effective than the other but I think that it’s powerful to have many people praying to God for the same thing.
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Corporate prayers express a common sentiment, but solitary prayers focus more on what is a private spiritual matter, or what is undefinable.
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Solitary prayer is more meaningful to me. Feels less forced.
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I believe solitary prayer is more personal and I can choose what to pray about without feeling pressured.
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I think one is more open and honest when praying alone.
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I believe that corporate prayer is a way to listen to and voice others’ concerns in the group, whereas solitary prayer only voices your personal concerns for yourself and others. Corporate prayer allows others to pray for your concerns as well as their own.
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Solitary: concerns your individual relationship with God.
Group: concerns the relationship between God and his body in general.
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Personal prayers are more meaningful.
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Private≠Public
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Our relationship with God differs when we are alone with God and when we are with others. Sometimes we need to be alone with God.
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[Corporate prayer] allows others to know your thoughts/desires/needs about God’s role in your life.
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You may alter your innermost thoughts and needs to fit what you think the group wants or doesn’t want to hear.
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Neither is better, but each one is better in certain situations.
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Solitary prayers have a quietness about them, a privacy that corporate prayers don’t.
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Prayer in groups allows us to grow as community and to hear what Jesus longs for our community. It also allows us to care for one another.
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Solitary prayer allows us to have a deeper connection.
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[In group prayer] Each individual can collectively contribute to a hive mind that is an overall collective in focusing a particular prayer.
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Though Christians should be willing to admit their flaws and questions in corporate prayer, many churches still contain corporate prayer that doesn’t. It’s sanitized.
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Corporate prayer has a “leader” who directs the “train of thought.”
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In a group, people typically pray for what the group wants as a whole (or needs). When alone, people are more comfortable and pray for more individual goals. Also, my prayers tend to last longer and I tend to pray for all on my mind.
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I dunno, it just feels different, and there are definitely times that I prefer one over the other.
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I respond more spiritually to solitary prayer.
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Not a huge difference, but solitary prayer allows me to almost always be more personal with God.
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It’s like the difference between a personal conversation and a group therapy session.
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To me, corporate prayer is more about talking to God, and solitary prayer is more about listening to God.
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I do think prayer is more powerful in groups than in solitary. While I am not entirely sure why this is true, I do think that this is due to the fact that you have many people praying and hoping for the same thing. That sort of unity in God seems more powerful than just one person praying.
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I feel group prayer is often less intimate because you are forced to define your conversation to verbal expression.
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Solitary prayer almost always focuses back on the one person praying, or at least my solitary prayers always focus back on me. Prayer in groups opens us up to each other and our different concerns in a more concrete way than solitary prayer.
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When I pray alone, there is more flexibility about immediate reactions to the pursuit of wisdom and understanding, but in a group, God has more flexibility in revealing truths through others.
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