Where two or three are gathered in my name .... pray in secret and my Father who ....
In the past few years I have listened to a lot of complaining in the church, and to be honest, I have complained about a few things myself. All of you who thought I was perfect, sorry to burst the bubble!
We complain about our routines being upset, the music is too loud, the chairs have been moved, someone sat in "my row" ... the list is long. In recent years I've listened to all of the, "we are headed down the slippery slope". Why are we headed that way, they say?
1. we took baptist out of a title.
2. we took Bible out of a title
3. we are using something other then the King James version.
4. we don't use hymnals anymore.
5. we've added a "contemporary" service.
6. we have a worship band.
7. we are trying new ways to love people outside of the church and that makes others uncomfortable.
8. we no longer have a Sunday night service.
I'm sure there are more, but you get my point. I was reading recently a conversation on FB. Someone was upset because their church is canceling Wednesday night prayer meeting because of lack of attendance.
Rabbit trail: do you remember the old days when our Baptist churches would split us up to prayer and men and women were separated and had to pray with the appropriate gender!? : )
Ok, back to my point of this post. We are so stuck in our ways of tradition that we can't see out of the box. Instead of being upset because the church canceled prayer meeting, how about finding a group of friends that want to pray together once a week and do that? Why does it have to be in a church, or on a Wednesday night? Because that is the way it has always been. If we complain, but don't fill that void another way, then we don't really care about prayer meeting. We just care that our churches changed something.
I've learned a lot about prayer in the past 10 years. My thoughts on prayer have changed as my view of God has changed. I never really liked to pray, especially in public or with others. I never sounded very spiritual, in my mind, whatever that meant! and God already knows, so why bother telling him.
As my view and heart began to change, so did my desire to pray with others (small groups or one!)
Here's the thing ... God WANTS to hear from us. Praying with others, in our circles of trust, is an amazing experience. We get to talk to the God of the universe together. It seems to me that when we do this, our prayers also become deeper and are less about "aunt bessy's hip" (not to downplay those things) and more about our deep need for Jesus. Doing that together also bonds us together.
So, instead of complaining because Wednesday night prayer meeting has been canceled, get together with a friend or your circle of trust, and prayer together weekly. I pray weekly with a friend, over the phone, and I wouldn't trade it. I look forward to it. Crazy, I know .... over the phone .... horrors! Ok, enough sarcasm : )
Think and pray out of the box.
Watch the War Room.
