Is prayer worth the effort?

We had a good parish  Annual meeting on Sunday ....I raised a couple of issues ...what do we do about declining numbers?  What do we do about the fact we are getting older?...what do we do about this...about that.
Someone actually suggested we might pray 
I could hear the cynics laugh (mainly we said yes! yes! prayer is good...but not quite believing....and not being so rude as to say it!).
I do actually believe that prayer...even crude prayer...money, success, (more importantly) ... healing, forgiveness....opens for us a new way

Simple commitment to a (perhaps) need to call for prayer.
I said to people....There is nothing to stop you 
Prayer is not so much designed to manipulate  God as to orient us to what God might want for us.
I steadfastly say ...God wants more for us than we want for ourselves...I partly get this.
Maybe we should open ourselves to this....heaven knows what prevents us