James 24:7

During my exploratory foray into the corporate world, I had a boss who would  walk by my desk with some memo or email detailing some difficult Human Resource matter and issue his favorite command: "Deal with this.  Sooner is better than later."

When he did that, I felt my stomach twist into a square knot.   How was I supposed to "deal with it?"  What made for "dealing with it?"  How would I know when I had effectively "dealt with it?"   And what did "sooner rather than later" mean?  

The problem was that I did not trust this boss and these orders always felt like a set up to me.  He seemed to leave himself in the position of setting the standard of what made for "dealing with it" and what "sooner rather than later" meant while purposefully concealing his meaning.

I  learned the hard way that you could never do anything "soon enough" and that you could never do an adequate job of "dealing with it."

Yes...my boss was a sadistic crazy person...bless his heart. (In the South, you can say anything about anyone as long as you follow it with "bless his/her heart."   It cancels out all that stuff Jesus said about speaking ill of others.  Can you imagine Peter raising his hand after Jesus taught them not to call their neighbor "Raca" and asking, "Can we call them Raca if we follow it with 'bless his heart'?"  But I digress....)

Back to my boss....My point is that I came to believe that my boss, through the use of vague language, was more interested in exercising power than he was in resolving issues.  

I thought about that boss this morning as I thought about one of the vaguest expressions we use in prayer.   That phrase is "be with..." 

We have all said it: "Lord, sister J- is sick.  We pray that you 'be with her.'"   I remember as a kid in church hearing us all pray: "God, 'be with' the missionaries in the foreign fields." or  "Lord, 'be with' the sick and the shut-ins." (When I was a kid, I didn't know what a 'shut-in' was but figured it wouldn't hurt for the Lord to 'be with' them.  As an adult, I"ve come to realize that we are pretty adept at making God a 'shut-in.'  But I digress..again...bless my heart.)

What's the problem with asking the Lord to "be with" someone?   From the Lord's side there may be no problem at all.  After all, God knows what the subject of our prayers need before we even ask. 

I think the problem is not the Lord's, the problem is ours.  I think the phrase "be with"- unless it names the form of how we want God to 'be with' others- is vague, lazy, and thoughtless. 

When we ask God to 'be with' someone (and from henceforth I mean that as the extent of our intercession for the other) we usually don't have a clue what we mean.  

Is God not 'with' another until we ask God to 'be with' him or her?

What if God suddenly spoke from the heavens and asked: "And what should I do when I am 'with' them?" 

"Lord, be with the shut-in missionaries in the foreign fields..."

"And what should I do when I am with them?"

"Uhh...whatever they need you to do???"

I think that maybe we say 'be with' these other folks because we haven't given enough thought to their situation; we have not tried to learn about them; we have not taken time to enter into their world and empathetically experience their situations. We haven't asked God to help us see our neighbor as God sees our neighbor.

In other words, we haven't given attention or taken time- we have not laid down our hours- so we say "be with."

Why don't we just pray: "Lord, deal with this.  Sooner is better than later?"

I think the story of the Good Samaritan is instructive on this point.  You know a man went down onto the Jericho road where he fell among thieves and was beaten, robbed and left for dead.

A priest and a Levite passed him by.  (I bet they muttered: "Can't stop Lord.  In a hurry.  Dare not be made unclean.  Be with him.  Deal with it.  By the looks of it, sooner would be better than later.  Bless his heart. Amen")

This outcast Samaritan came along the Jericho road. He saw the battered man.  He stopped.  He attended to him.  He took time with him.  He took responsibility for him.  He took 'ownership' of him and cared for him.

I wonder how our neighbor would be affected and how we would be affected if we prayed like that Samaritan acted.   What if, rather than rushing through our prayer list with a few 'be withs', we took the same sort of time and offered the same quality of attention that the Samaritan did?  How would our prayers, how would our lives and the lives of our neighbors be affected?

Now I know...we sometimes say 'be with' because we don't know what else to say.  If we are praying for a parent who has lost a child and we have not had that experience we certainly do not know what to say. 

However, I think we can imagine.  We can ask.  We can read and research.   And we can offer up even our faulty and inadequate prayers for them trusting that the Spirit will intercede for us since we do not know how to pray.

I would encourage us all to drop "be with" from our prayer vocabularies...at least for a while.  If nothing else, we may find that one of the by-products of our prayers for others is that we are becoming more compassionate and thoughtful ourselves.

Not long ago I wrote a bit about what a "praying church" might look like.  I received several thought-provoking emails and comments.  You can scroll down and read some of those in other blog posts.

One comment in particular set me to thinking about whether it is more important for a church to have a reputation as a "praying church" or whether it is more important for a church to have a reputation for a quality of life and ministry that could only be accounted for by the fact that they pray. 

An analogy that came to my mind as I thought about the question is the analogy of a great hitter in baseball.  Such a hitter is known not for the hours and hours of practice he puts in but for how he performs at the plate.  His performance at the plate is the evidence of the hours of practice.  If he somehow practiced and practiced but failed at the plate he would not become known as a great hitter even though he put in hours of practice.

I guess the point is that it is conceivable that a church could put in hours of prayer but fail to bear fruit, especially if the hours of prayer somehow became a competitive event.  (One commentator spoke of visiting a church that is known as a "praying church" and found the prayer meeting to be something of a competitive sport.  Who could pray the most passionately?  Who could pray the most breathlessly?  Who could pray the longest or the most eloquently?   When we allow ourselves to get into that, we would do well to remember Jesus' words concerning doing things for show versus doing things in secret and remember under what conditions it is that we "receive our reward." )

Prayer is part of the fabric of our relationship with God.  Prayer is not a competitive sport or a self-aggrandizing performance.  Just as verbal and non-verbal communication is part of the fabric of a friendship or a marriage, so prayer is part of the fabric of our friendship with God.

In such prayer we may express our praise, our wonder or our thanksgiving.  However, in the context of that friendship we may also make requests, offer petitions and intercede.  In any case, prayer is a God-appointed practice that builds and expresses friendship with God. 

Like everyone else I have had the horrible events at Virginia Tech on my mind all week.  This morning I sat down and wrote a little piece on intercessory prayer.  While it does not speak directly to what happened at Virginia Tech, I hope it does remind us that there really is nothing more loving than to pray for those who are suffering.  I hope you find it helpful.  If you do, please feel free to pass this page link on to others who may also find it helpful.  Thank you for reading my blog.  I do appreciate your many kind and encouraging words to me.

Jim

The Most Loving Thing You Can Do

“This is the very best way to love: lay down your life for your friends.”  -Jesus

            I confess that for a few moments I stopped entering into prayer with my friends and observed what was going on.  I listened as each one prayed his or her prayers of praise and thanksgiving and confession.  I listened as each one named the concerns of friends and strangers who stood in need of prayer and I asked myself: “What can be more loving than this?  What can be more loving than to ask the God of all might and power to act on behalf of one who is not even present and who may even be unknown to us?”

            As the calming rhythms of prayer ascended to the Father, I gave free reign to my imagination.  I thought of the simplicity of the moment, of how these kind people gave their time to close their eyes and bow their heads and humbly approach the throne of grace on behalf of those who were not present.  I listened as they prayed for the suffering, the grieving, the dying, and the lost.  I heard them lift up the names of the unemployed, the unhappy, and the uninspired.  I watched their prayers span the globe on behalf of the strange and the stranger and ascend like the smoke of incense to the presence of the Creator God who makes all things new.

            I thought about those for whom they prayed.  Some of them had scribbled their requests on a Prayer Concern Card and dropped the card into the offering basket on Sunday.  Some had emailed their concerns to the virtual prayer box.  Some had requested prayer face to face.  Some concerns had simply crossed our paths.

             I wondered how many of those who made requests gave another thought to the subject of their concern after making their request.  I know some did. (I recalled the request I made to the gathered when my granddaughter was born with a health problem that could affect the rest of her life and how comforted I felt in knowing that the people to whom I made my request known would actually pray.)

            I wondered how many of those who made requests remembered that there would be those who would “lay down their lives” for a couple of hours on Monday night for no other reason than to pray for the very matter they had brought to the church.  “Were they praying too?”  I wondered.  “Were they genuinely appreciative that others took time to pray?”

            As I listened to the prayers I thought about all of the times I had failed to pray for people who had asked me to pray even though I had assured them that I would pray.  I also thought of the many requests I had uttered and then forgotten.  I thought about how often I had failed to appreciate those who laid down their hours for me and my concerns.

            An odd memory crossed my mind.   When I was a rock musician standing on a stage for the thousandth time while aimless crowds danced the night away, I sometimes pretended that there was no music, no pounding rhythm, no heavy beat on 2 and 4.  I would secretly smile as I imagined that these folks had just suddenly burst into rhythmic gyrations for no apparent reason.  Dancing looks funny when there is no music.

            “What if there is no God?”  I heard myself asking as I listened to the prayers.  “What if there really is no God to hear our prayers?  Would this moment of be like those moments in those dark clubs when I imagined there was no music and people engaged in spontaneous group gyration.  Would this be the ultimate absurdity….people with closed eyes and bowed heads believing that their words ascended to God while in truth they only climbed to the ceiling and bounced back down as empty as when they rose?  Would that be as funny as spontaneous group gyration?"

            I decided that prayer even in the absence of God would not be funny or absurd.  Even without God, prayer would be among the kindest things we could do.  To remember the suffering of others, to call it to consciousness and to name it out loud would conceivably be an act of simple kindness even in a Godless world.  If nothing else it would serve to remind us…

            My mind turned to a profound moment in my life when I lay flat on my back for the eleventh day in a hospital bed.  I remembered hitting the bottom as I wondered whether my ragged heart would ever stop with its fibrillation and tachycardia.  I remembered how there came the sweet and reassuring word that not only is there God but that “God is love” and that there is nothing that can separate us from the love of God we find in Christ Jesus our Lord.  I remembered the assurance I received that day when I realized that whether I lived or died I would do so into the love of God. 

            We pray to God who lives, who loves, who is love, and who holds us in the palm of His mighty hand.  Our prayers arise to God on the fragrance of praise and thanksgiving.  Our prayers arise to the God who not only hears but leans forward to listen to the word spoken, the word unspoken, the word unspeakable.

            When we pray to God about the suffering and concerns of others- whether friend, foe or foreign- we do one of the kindest things we can.  We lay down our minutes and hours – we lay down our lives- for them and we lift them up to the loving grace of the infinitely compassionate God.

            What can be more loving than that?

I came across this wonderful statement by theologian Walter Wink not long ago.  It's from his book, The Powers That Be: Theology for a New Millennium. 

The statement is worth pondering again and again.   On the heels of Enlightenment and modernist thinking many people questioned the value of intercession.  All petitionary prayer was seen as a throw back to a more primitive way of thinking. 

For them, the true aim of prayer- if there was any point at all- was to come into communion with God or to simply remind oneself of what one should be doing.   Prayer became a form of mood music for the divine encounter or simply a mental Post-It Note to go do some good for someone.  For many, prayer became so much superstition.

Walter Wink reminds us that intercession matters.  As disciples of Jesus, we are called to envision God's future, receive it,  pray for it and live into it today.

The kingdom of heaven is at hand.  Our intercessory prayers are, as the late Stanley Grenz has written, a "cry for the kingdom."  We live the not (completely) yet, in the already and pray for the coming fullness that God has promised.

I've been re-reading Pete Greig's and David Roberts' book Red Moon Rising.  I read it last year and am repeating it.  I'll write a little review later.  However, I just noticed that Pete Grieg has a new book called God on Mute: Engaging the Silence of Unanswered Prayer.  I haven't read that but I bet it's great. 

Pete is a founder of the 24-7 Prayer movement and Red Moon Rising is about that.   His new book is about his and his wife's struggle with her severe epilepsy following the removal of a brain tumor.  

I'm passing along a podcast interview of Pete Grieg conducted by Mel Lawrenz, Senior Pastor of Elmbrook Church.  It's an interesting interview.  I look forward to reading the book.

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."

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!"

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."