Don't Talk About It, Be About It: Prayer

Last week, in honor of Memorial Day, I wrote about the concept of living out our convictions not just talking about them.

That got me thinking...

As Christians, there are several areas of our lives where “don't talk about it, be about it” applies: prayer, evangelism, reading the Bible, being the Church, communion, and baptism.

Therefore, over the next six weeks, we will address these important topics. Remember Jesus' call is holistic. He does not intend for us to accept a few doctrines while we live our lives like everyone else. While there are certainly other topics we could get into, these six will provide sufficient illustration for us all to self-evaluate.

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Growing up, I remember prayer meetings.

Prayer meeting was the time the church body came together to pray for the people and situations on our prayer list.

Some people even call this list “the sick list”.

At prayer meeting, people were supposed to mention their prayer requests, give updates on the situations and people on the list, and pray.

But more often than not, no matter whether the meeting was supposed to last 15 minutes or one hour, 80% of the time was updates and stories. Then with a couple of minutes left the pastor would just pray “for everything”, or we would double up the time finally praying.

We do the same thing in Youth Group.

We talk about how important prayer is and then cram it in at the very last moment. Once a parent got upset with me for not letting out on time, but I said we were praying.

The problem was I waited until the last two minutes to actually pray. What if we spent half the time studying the Bible and the other half praying?

The same can be said for our Sunday morning worship services.

What if we actually prayed during a worship service?

Not only the pastor after his sermon. Not just a moment where we scribble something on a piece of paper and drop it in the plate or take it upfront (although I think that is a very good practice). And not just while you sit quietly in your seat.

Last summer, my wife and I were part of a small group at our church reading Francis Chan's Letters to the Church.

When reflecting on the questions about worship services, my wife looked at me and said “what if at the beginning of every single worship service [and every meeting] we took 15 minutes, got down on our knees, and got right with God before we did anything else?”

Before any announcements, music, or preaching.

Or what if we didn't have any music or preaching at all (not to mention the silly reminders about a committee meeting that only applies to three people), but just prayed for one whole hour?

Imagine it, 200 people on their knees pouring out their hearts to God. Or praying with one another.

Jesus was well known for skipping out on the crowds, teaching, preaching, healing, and even His disciples to get away and pray. He even spent all night long praying before He called the Twelve disciples.

His model was so strong that in John chapter 11 verse 1, one of Jesus' disciples came to Him asking Him to teach them to pray.

“One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.””

This was not a request to be taught what John the Baptist had taught his followers to do. Nor was it a script for athletic teams to say pre-game to invoke the Lord's blessings. Rather it was the disciple's genuine expression that he wanted to learn how to better communicate with God from his master.

Notice that throughout Scripture when anyone prays there are not 15 minutes of discussion and situational descriptions.

They just prayed. Now surely people acknowledged what the prayer request was but they didn't need three years of backstory.

Many years ago, after attending a conference, my youth ministry volunteers and I were convicted that we needed to be more diligent about praying for the students in our church.

So we started a monthly prayer gathering, and those were some of the greatest moments I can remember.

At the beginning, I usually gave some notes about things I knew about, but then we just went around the room and prayed and prayed until we felt like we had nothing else to pray for. People prayed for however long and however often they felt they needed to.

There was no set end time. There was no specific order. The people just bounced in and out of praying as they were led by the Spirit. There was no agenda except to pray.

Over the years, I have been asked to pray for people individually. And many times, and even recently, I just say “of course” and go on about my day.

However, many times, I have stopped and prayed right then and there whether in-person or over the phone. I have even texted prayers to people. Once when I offered to pray right then, the person looked at me sideways and said, “Really?”

In large gatherings or in our personal lives, we sometimes struggle to “fit prayer in”. Many have said that the busier our lives are the more time we need to carve out for prayer and study of God's Word.

Translation: when we say we don't have time to pray that is precisely when we need to.

Prayer is something we often talk about. But I ask you, are you about it? Do you spend more talking about your prayer requests or actually praying for those prayer requests?

Anyway, I was just thinking...