Visions of Faith - Prayer
Home > Pastor's Blog > Visions of Faith - PrayerAt our Annual Meeting, the Overseers took the opportunity to lead the church in seeking God’s vision for the upcoming year. In prayer and discussion, small groups sought God and shared ideas to grow as a church in five specific areas: Prayer, Relational Harmony, Service, Trusting God, and Evangelism. The Overseers took these thoughts and in the process of a few meetings distilled all the great ideas down to some action items. The following is the vision for the upcoming year. This vision is only accomplished by the participation of everyone in the church as we work together to see God’s will be done in and through us.
Prayer
Prayer is certainly the most important aspect of a church. Without prayerful dependence on God and the seeking of his will, nothing we do as a church will make a real difference in the Kingdom of God. The problems recognized in this area is not enough prayer. The cause of this was thought that Faith in Prayer (1st & 3rd Sundays) didn’t meet all our needs in terms of time and scope. To remedy this, the idea of Open Prayer Meetings was proposed.
The Open Prayer Meetings work like this. Any individual can call/schedule a prayer meeting. At first this would be led by the Overseers, but as the desire for corporate prayer grows, more people would take the initiative to call prayer meetings. This gets more prayer times happening at the church, making some prayer meeting fit everyone’s schedule. Secondly, the prayer meetings would be around a theme such as a ministry area (Worship, Nurture, Outreach), a topic (praise, repentance, intercession, spiritual warfare), a need (healing, job), a passage of Scripture (Psalm 23, Lord’s Prayer, etc.), or mode of prayer (prayer walks, laying on of hands). This would increase the scope and variety of prayer which would allow people to pray in a way they are passionate about. Some people are intercessory pray-ers, others like to move as they pray, and still others like to pray scripture. No way is wrong, each is beneficial, but we all pray differently and should all be growing in prayer, learning different ways to pray.
Along with the Open Prayer Meetings a second Faith in Prayer was added on Wednesday evening at 6pm which will focus on general needs shared that night.
All these prayer meetings will be on the new prayer calendar in the lobby area. It will also be on the online church calendar.
I agree that we do not pray enough and that our prayer lives tend to be rather impoverished and self-serving, but I must take issue with the idea that prayer should be the “central focus” (as stated in announcements about Faith in Prayer) or “most important aspect” of a church. The central focus of the church is and must always be Jesus Christ her Lord. We exist as a church to glorify God and lift up Jesus Christ. Prayer is communication. It is only a vehicle by which we draw near to Jesus Christ and seek to know his mind and heart for the church. If we are paying more attention to the vehicle than we are to our destination (Jesus Christ), we may never reach our destination, or worse yet, our perspective may be so skewed that we won’t recognize it even if we get there.
The content and attitude of our communication turns out to be more important than the mere fact that we are speaking words at God using a multitude of techniques in a multitude of prayer meetings. Now don’t get me wrong, I believe the Overseer’s initiative to provide a greater number and diversity of prayer opportunities is inspired. But our prayer life must be continually informed by the Word of God, which gives us insight into God’s nature and character and into what effective communication with him looks like. However, even the Word of God cannot be the central focus of our church, because it too is only another vehicle which takes us closer to understanding who God is and what he requires of us.
Likewise Missions cannot be the central focus of the church, because the means we use to take the Good News to the nations do not have the same value as the Good News of Jesus Christ himself. Nor can Worship be the most important aspect of the church, because the object of our worship (Jesus Christ) is far more valuable than the forms we use to declare his worth back to him.
This is not theological nitpicking. It is vital truth. We must strive always to keep the main thing the main thing, lest we succumb to fixing our eyes on the process rather than on the Goal. As the apostle Paul says, “I consider (all things) rubbish, that I may gain Christ.” Phil. 3:8b
Well said. Jesus Christ needs to be the central focus. My point in this post is that prayer, which is communication with God, should be our first action as a church. Without first speaking to him and listening to what he might say to us, anything else we would undertake is our own effort and doesn’t fall under the authority of Christ our Head.
My point in emphasizing prayer is the same as that of a marriage counselor who would take a couple who love each other very much but aren’t communicating their love to one another nor being able to hear when their spouse expresses love. Without this communication the relationship slowly begins to die. The teaching on the Five Love Languages helps the couple be able to express and feel love for each other. In the same way, the Bride of Christ’s first call is to the relationship, expressing love to God and receiving it. This must happen before we undertake doing ministry together.
Obviously “the content and attitude of our communication” is important, but for many there is NO communication. We as a church must first dedicate ourselves to communicating with our Father. This is what the early church did. Out of that commitment came the other ministries of service (diaconate) and missions. And I believe that more time spent in prayer–being in God’s presence, talking with God–will increase our love for him, making him all the more central to our life as a church.