Maintenance prayer meetings are short, mechanical and totally focused on physical needs inside the church or on personal needs of the people present. But frontline prayer has three basic traits:

• a request for grace to confess sins and humble ourselves
• a compassion and zeal for the flourishing of the church, and
• a yearning to know God, to see His face, to see His glory.

Tim Keller, “Kingdom-centered Prayer,” Redeemer Report, January 2006.

(Note: Original share via email May 2012)