James 24:7

For several weeks now I have had a phrase repeating itself in my mind: "The enormity of the call and the inadequacy of the called."   That thought entered my mind as I prepared a sermon on Acts 1:14.   That text speaks to the response of the 120 disciples in Jerusalem as they waited for the promise of the Holy Spirit to be fulfilled.  

Jesus had taught this group- some had denied him, some of them had fled at the moment of His arrest, some had hidden out- concerning the coming of the Kingdom.  He had called them to mission and ministry and told them that they would be His witnesses in familiar and unfamiliar places both near and far away.  He had told them to wait on the Spirit of God who would clothe them in power.

And there they gathered...an inadequate people facing an enormous calling.

They did not flee this time.  They did not scatter.  They did not deny what he had said.

They prayed, all of them, together with the women.

The phrase rolled through my mind again last night as I listened to the news about what had happened at Virginia Tech.  Having spent a number of years ministering and teaching on college campuses, I could just imagine the trauma that the students, staff and faculty must have endured (and will endure for some time...for some even a lifetime.)

I wondered yet again about the state of our world.  And I wondered about the state of the church.

I asked myself: "What ought we be doing differently as the church that could help stem the tide of violence in our society?"

The answer I heard in my own heart and mind was that we need to do a better job of equipping one another for ministry out in the day to day world.

I wondered how the world might change if all Christians were better equipped to listen to people who are lost and in pain.  I imagined an army of people wearing t-shirts or buttons that said: "If you need to talk, I will listen."

I thought about those Kleenex commercials with the guy who sits in a chair and listens to a person sitting on a couch in the middle of a downtown sidewalk.  I thought about how that might be one way of going about being the church...be willing and able to pull up a chair and just listen to someone lost and in pain.

Not long ago I was talking to a couple of guys who are on the staff of a large church.  I asked them about a particular ministry in their church and they replied: "All they do is listen to people; they never get around to ministry."

Hmmm.....

Yesterday I was reading a book on prayer. (I am reading several right now)  The author reminded me that prayer is a 2-way street.  God initiates prayer.  We pray.  God listens.  God speaks.  We listen.

Prayer is listening.

I'm rambling....

It just seems to me that the world might be a different place if all of Jesus' disciples made listening one of their central ministries.

And maybe...just maybe...the best place to start such a ministry is in prayer where we speak to God but also listen to God... especially as we contemplate the "enormity of the call and the inadequacy of the called."

For those of you interested in the missional church, you could not do better than to visit Allelon.  The good folks there are knocking it out of the park in terms of advancing the missional conversation.  I highly recommend the site.

I appreciate all of the responses I have received with regard to my question as to what a praying church might look like. 

One thing I wanted to clarify: when I asked what a church might be doing to become known as a praying church, I didn't mean that in a "branding" sense.  Anyone who knows me knows that I am pretty hesitant about adopting into the church marketing strategies appropriate to business.

If I recall correctly (and that may be a stretch), I was thinking along a couple of lines.  First, it seems to me that nowadays churches are known by their size (as in "mega" or "small"), their denominational affiliation, or by their level of perceived activity.  (as in "such and such a church is a dynamic church")   Perhaps there are other ways by which churches are "known" but those seem to me to be the most popular ways of characterizing churches.

That in and of itself ought to give us pause.   Does it suggest that churches have become so homogenized that they are not known for anything in particular? 

Second, I believe I was thinking in terms of how a church might distinguish itself from the non-church social/ cultural context in which it finds itself.  It seems to me that sometimes it is very difficult to distinguish Christian folks from other good, moral non-Christian folks.  (Of course, that assumes that Christian folks are good and moral.) 

In thinking about a "praying church", I don't mean to suggest that of all the marks of congregational character a church should pick and choose their "mark of choice" and only become that.  We haven't gained anything if we only retreat into our safe walls and pray prayers that are deaf to the cries of the suffering. 

There may be a bit of irony here.  It may turn out that a truly praying church is not so much known as a praying church.  Rather, such a church, while praying, may be known for how it takes the gospel into the larger community. 

In other words, such a church may be known more by its fruits than by its prayers.

Please keep thinking with me.  Drop me an email through my contact link or just comment below.  (Remember...you have to register to comment to my blog posts.  It's easy)

A while back I taught a class at Emmanuel School of Religion in Johnson City, TN on what the care of the hurting might look like in a missional church.  The more I studied the missional church literature the more it seemed to me that prayer must be central to the missional church.   (For a good idea of what the missional church is, check out this link.)

After I got back, I read the first four chapters of Acts (for the umpteenth time) and it struck me that within the first chapter that the earliest disciples were placed in a spot that I describe as the tension between "the enormity of the call and the inadequacy of the called."

Some of these folks had fled and denied during the trial and crucifixion crisis.  Even after they had been taught by the risen Lord, they still didn't quite get it.  ("Are you going to establish the kingdom now?") And here Jesus was telling them they would be His witnesses to the uttermost parts of the world. 

When confronted with the "enormity of the call and the inadequacy of the called" the church prayed...hard...constantly...together.

During the past couple of months you might say I've been convicted and convinced as to the importance of prayer.    

The call is the same and we are still as doofy as ever.   The world is in a mess and we have constructed the best churches that good management can build.

But where's the power? 

I just don't see how the well-managed, highly programmized church is in any way adequate to the calling.  (Not that God- thank God- doesn't use our meager efforts!)

It seems to me that if our calling is to follow the God who is on mission, that if we are to discern how God is moving in our midst and join God in God's mission, that if we are to be a resurrected community of the resurrected Lord,  and that if our call is to reach out to lost, suffering, broken, breaking, hurting people we had better pray.

All of that has set me to thinking about what a praying church might look like.  

I've put the question to some of our prayer warriors at North River.  I've asked them to respond to questions like this:

What would a church be doing to become known as a praying church?

If being a praying church was a crime, what evidence would exist that we are guilty? 

I'd love to hear from anyone who reads this blog...

How would you answer those questions?

What would you be observing in a church that is becoming known as a praying church?  

Help me think about this, please.   You can comment below (you have to join first) or you can just drop me an email.

I'm not kidding...help me out.  Thanks.

I have been emphasizing the importance of congregational prayer in my sermons lately.  My concern about that narrow topic grew out of the reading and thinking I have been doing with regard to the missional church.  My thinking about that topic has taken me back to the first 4 chapters of the Book of Acts. 

As I  learn more about the missional church and contemplate the earliest days of the church, one phrase rings in my mind: "the enormity of the calling and inadequacy of the called."

Think about it: Jesus meets with his disciples one last time before he ascends to God and tells them that they will be his witnesses starting right where they are, into the surrounding region, over into an area they avoided to a people they despised, and even to the uttermost parts of the world.

That's an enormous calling.

He called people who, in themselves, were not up to it.  He called the very people who had abandoned him and denied him.

That's the "inadequate called."

What did they do?  They didn't seize control and try to manage their way forward and they didn't flee (again). 

They prayed constantly together.

Yesterday we thought about that body of believers as they prayed following the arrest of Peter and John.  Luke records the actual prayer they prayed.  (you can read the whole account here)

In the sermon, I noted 4 parts of the prayer:

1.  They acknowledged who God is (Sovereign, Creator).

2.  They acknowledged what God said through David the Psalmist.  (That the nations and their rulers would be against them)

3.  They acknowledged what God did. (He had a plan that even those who crucified Christ followed.)

4.  They acknowledged what God can do. (He can give them even more boldness to continue proclaiming the gospel and can do signs and wonders to demonstrate his power)

The take away is that in the face of a crisis, they did not shrink back in fear but  recalled the nature of God, the truth of God's word,  God's involvement in the past, and they prayed for greater boldness, for more courage to go on.

When we acknowledge that everything is God's and that God is engaged with us just as God has been in the past, we can pray our way forward undeterred by any obstacle.  We can go on trusting that as the gospel song puts it: "If He did it before, He can do it again!"

In his book, The Secret Message of Jesus, Brian McLaren tells a story about an incident in the life of Tony Campolo. 

Dr. Campolo could not sleep one night.  He got up after midnight and decided to visit a nearby doughnut shop.  While there he overheard a prostitute named Agnes tell another prostitute that it was her birthday.  The prostitute who heard the news responded sarcastically to the birthday girl.  "What do you want me to do?  Throw you a party?"

After the prostitutes left the shop, Dr. Campolo asked the shop owner if Agnes came in regularly.  When he found out that she did, he invited the shop owner and his wife to join him in planning a birthday party for Agnes the next night.

The next night, when Agnes came in, she was greeted with a surprise party, complete with cake. 

Agnes wept.

She was so proud of her cake that she wouldn't even cut it.  She took it home to admire for a while.

After she left, the shop owner asked Dr. Campolo what he did for a living and Dr. Campolo replied that he was a pastor.

She shop owner inquired as to the kind of church Dr. Campolo pastored.  Dr. Campolo replied: "I belong to the kind of church that throws birthday parties for prostitutes at 3:30 in the morning!"

According to Brian McLaren, "The shop owner couldn't believe him.  'No you don't.  There ain't no church like that.  If there was, I'd join it!'" (p. 146)

I like that story because it displays so much of what the missional church is about. 

Such a church sees itself as outwardly directed, actively and creatively seeking to serve those who are invisible and undesireable in the name of the One who came for "the least of these." 

Such a church displays before a watching world an alternative way of being and living in the world.  That way of being and living "re-presents" the already-here-yet-coming-in-its-fullness reign of God in all that it does and says.

By living and speaking in Sprit-inspired and compelling ways, such a church seeks to turn the invisible, the outsider, even the hated toward friendship with God and with itself.

Such a church see the image of God in every person and seeks to find ways to assist those "others" toward a full embrace of God in the fellowship of those who have been and are being embraced by God.

Such a church witnesses to the power of the Spirit through the Word to transform every life; it invites the "other" into a community of friendship, the Body of Christ, as the primary means whereby all may be transformed together into the very image of Jesus Christ. 

Such a church is surprising to those who think they already know "all about churches."  Such people find themselves drawn to people who so clearly demonstrate the compassion that is God's turning to the world in love.

We are not unlike those first Christians who stood with their mouths open as Jesus ascended to the Father.  Having heard that their first calling was to the ministry of waiting, their minds raced at the prospects of being clothed with "power from on high" and becoming witnesses to the uttermost parts of the world of the crucified and resurrected Jesus.

None of them had been very far from home and now they were being called to the mission field white unto harvest.

I know I am filling in the silences of scripture, but I imagine they felt what we all feel when we think deeply about the enormity of the calling and the inadequacy of the called.

"Lord, you want us to do that?"

I put myself in their sandals, as best I can, and ask myself: "What would you do?" 

I hear myself wondering how fast I can run with a bad heart and loose shoes. 

Then, I see myself appointing a committee or two, drawing up a vision statement, developing a strategic plan and executing the strategy.

I look back to the text and see them "...constantly devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women..." (Acts 1:14)

What else? 

Having decided not to run and having chosen not to organize themselves for strategic action what else could they do given the enormity of the calling and the inadequacy of the called?

They, the men, the apostles, the very inner circle of Jesus  "constantly devoted themselves to prayer, together with the women..."

Those who were formerly walled out of the Temple and hidden behind the veil of the synagogue joined those nervous men and all of them together stood on level ground looking toward the anxious horizon of their calling and devoted themselves constantly to prayer.

What else?

Gone were their practices of exclusion; gone was their all-shoulders confidence; gone was the luxury of the prayer of convenience...

Given the enormity of their calling and the inadequacy of the called, "they devoted themselves constantly to prayer, together with the women." 

I received an email this morning from a couple of missionaries I know in the Ivory Coast.  I had to smile as I read that they had been away from their work for 8 weeks to study the Jula language in a place called Bobo-Dioulasso Burkina Faso.  (You know you are really a missionary when...)

Anyway, while they were away for those 8 weeks their little congregation planted 3 new congregations and then set a goal to plant 20 more new congregations in the next 3 years.

Some folks ask me sometimes what the word "missional" means...well, that's what missional means!