Becoming a Church of Prayer
--Acts 2:42-47
Sam Walter Foss was a New England poet in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. His wife was a minister’s daughter, and their Church was College Avenue Methodist Church in Somerville, Massachusetts [SOURCE: http://www.ethicalstl.org/platforms/platform071199.shtml]. Many of his, matter-of-fact poems still speak vividly to us today. I have always especially appreciated “The Prayer of Cyrus Brown”:
“The proper way for a man to pray,”
Said Deacon Lemuel Keyes,
“And the only proper attitude
Is down upon his knees.”
“No, I should say the way to pray,”
Said Reverend Doctor Wise,
“Is standing straight with outstretched arms
And rapt and upturned eyes.”
“Oh, no, no, no,” said Elder Slow,
“Such posture is too proud.
A man should pray with eyes fast-closed
And head contritely bowed.”
“It seems to me his hand should be
Austerely clasped in front
With both thumbs pointing toward the ground,”
Said Reverend Doctor Blunt.
“Well, I pray while resting every day,”
Said Mr. Henry Pack.
“So I should think you say your prayers
While lying on your back.”
“Last year I fell in Murphy’s well—
Headfirst,” said Cyrus Brown.
“With both my knees a’stickin’ up
And my head a’pointin’ down.”
“And I made a prayer right then and there,
The best prayer I ever said,
The prayingest prayer I ever prayed,
A’standing on my head.”
“So, if your prayers come
From mouth and not from soul;
God may just someday let you
Fall into a hole!”
[SOURCE: http://willmington.blogspot.com/2006_08_01_archive.html]
The New Testament Church knew and practiced “the proper way to pray.” After the revival fires fell in Jerusalem that Pentecost Sunday, Luke attests in Acts 2:42, “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.”
A vibrant prayer life and ministry in a local congregation is fundamental for any church to remain dynamic in their witness and outreach for Jesus Christ and the effective making of disciples for His kingdom. Spirit led and spirit filled prayer is a must for the local Church to remain effective in her ministry and to grow in our post modern, post Christian society in which we life today.
Luke stresses in our text that the Church in Jerusalem after Pentecost, among other things, “devoted themselves to . . . prayer.” What exactly does that mean? The form of the verb “devoted” as used by Luke conveys the message that the Church was continually devoting themselves to the ministry of prayer. Prayer was not something they could take or leave at will. It was a spiritual discipline in which they were constantly diligent, one in which they continued to persevere. Prior to the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, Acts 1:14 testifies that the 120 in the Upper Room “all joined together constantly in prayer.”
They never stopped continuing in prayer once they had been filled with the spirit but followed Paul’s charge in Romans 12:12. They were “joyful in hope, patient in affliction, and faithful in prayer.” As a result of their faithfulness in prayer “the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.” The New Testament Church’s motto when it comes to prayer appears to that of our own Marines, “Semper Fidelis.” They were always faithful in prayer.
I want praise the Lord and affirm today that Trinity United Methodist Church is on the road to “Becoming a Church of Prayer” but also challenge us to make even more progress toward that goal by allowing the Holy Spirit total leeway to work in and through us. My heart has “been strangely warmed” these past weeks and months as we see more and more people in our congregation begin to pray verbally during our prayer time. God is truly present in a visible manner when so many of us verbalize our prayers of praise and petition during our time of prayer in public worship.
I want to encourage everyone to “let go and let God” lead you in following the same course of action in praying out loud. No one needs to be bashful or frightened to pray out loud in public. Prayer is simply a childlike conversation between God and His children. We don’t have to worry we will stutter over the right words to use, for the Holy Spirit will “give us the words to pray every time.” It is not the words we use that matter to God but the condition of our hearts when we come before Him in prayer.
God is not concerned with using the right vocabulary in prayer, and your brothers and sisters in Christ are not either. If you still hesitate to pray publicly in worship, block out all thoughts of anyone around you but God Himself. He is the Only One who matters. You are not praying to any of us, but to Him alone. What counts with God is that your words come from your soul.
In giving his personal advises near the end of his classic work A PLAIN ACCOUNT OF CHRISTIAN PERFECTION John Wesley affirms:
God does nothing but in answer to prayer; and even
they who have been converted to God without
praying for it themselves, (which is exceeding rare,)
were not without the prayers of others. Every
new victory which a soul gains is the effect of
a new prayer.
We are on the right path of genuinely and faithfully “Becoming a Praying Church.”
Today I invite you to do two things to help us make progress in becoming more effective prayer warriors. First, it is imperative that the local Church pray for their pastor and for every worship service. I am asking you to sign up to become prayer partners with me. Pray for me each week as I prepare to preach God’s Word. Pray for God to bless the Word that is proclaimed each week by touching and changing lives of those who hear. Pray for my family and our Church family every day.
What I really want is a group of people who will meet me each Sunday morning in my office at 9:30 to pray for about 10 or 15 minutes for God to pour out His Holy Spirit on the Morning Worship Service and to “anoint me with oil” each Sunday for God to bless the Word that is preached from this sacred desk. If I am gone a particular Sunday, I would ask that you meet with the speaker who fills the pulpit that morning to share this same, courteous ministry with him or her.
Then I would like to have two or three of these prayer warriors remain in my office each Sunday to pray over every act of worship as it is shared in our sanctuary with our people. Pray that the Call to Worship will lead our people into “The Holy of Holies.” Pray for every song as it is sung that it will speak to hearts and lead people to Jesus.”
Pray that our Prayer Ministry time will minister to the hearts of all present in our Service. Pray for God to use our musicians to “put a song” in our people’s hearts. Pray for the ministry of music by the choir or soloist to prepare the hearts of all present to enter into the presence of Jesus with open and receptive hearts to receive His Word that is proclaimed.
Pray as the Word is proclaimed that it will find fertile soil in the hearts of all present to apply the proclaimed Word by applying it to their personal lives by “becoming doers of the Word and not hearers only.” Pray that during the ministry time at the end of the service people will obediently respond to the call of the Holy Spirit as He speaks to their hearts by “doing whatsoever He tells each person to do.”
I hope many of you will sign up to be YOUR PASTOR’S PRAYER PARTNERS and see what God will do in our Church, as we pray together and depend on His Holy Spirit to bring revival and renewal to our local Church, our denomination, our nation, and our world.
Secondly, I have been having prayers each week for the sons of two friends of mine. Thad Lael is the son of Sally Lael, our Community Lay Director for the Central Illinois Emmaus Community, and her late husband. Dale Lewis is the second son and third child of Stan and Bev Lewis from our first Church at Marissa, about forty miles southeast of St. Louis in St. Clair County. Both boys went to Iraq about the same time in August.
We need to pray more specifically for military personnel that have some kind of relationship with our Church. I would like to see us post their pictures on a “Prayer Bulletin Board” in a prominent place in our Church. Let’s “personalize” our prayers for our military men and women fighting against terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan. We do that by “personal identification” with some of our troupes beyond just asking God to generally protect them. “Our “Prayer Bulletin Board for Our Troupes” will enable us to do that by placing names with faces.
I invite you to turn into Sue as soon as possible a picture of a service man or woman in your circle of influence whom you somehow can personally identify as serving our Country in Iraq or Afghanistan. Include their name and place they are serving along with your own, and we’ll post these on our “Prayer Bulletin Board.” We’ll also pray for them “by name each Sunday.” As soon as you get this information to Sue, we’ll get busy preparing our bulletin board and “naming our service men and women in personal prayer each week.
Praise the Lord, Trinity is truly on the road to “Becoming a Praying Church,” and these two practical means of prayer will bring us farther along on our journey and closer to our desire to be true “Prayer Warriors of Christ.”
In Alford, Lord Tennyson’s Epic Poem IDYLLS OF THE KING, “Idyll 12: The Passing of Arthur,” King Arthur is dying. He speaks these inspiring words to his friend Sir Bedivere:
I have lived my life, and that which I have done
May He within Himself make pure! But thou,
If thou shouldst never see my face again,
Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer
Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice
Rise like a fountain for me night and day.
For what are men better than sheep or goats
That nourish a blind life within the brain,
If knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer
Both for themselves and those who call them friend?
[SOURCE: Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Idylls of the King, Idyll 12: The
Passing of Arthur,” Canto 24, lines 6-15]
Indeed, “More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of.”
May all of us who “know God lift our hands of prayer both for ourselves and those who call us friend.” As we faithfully do, God will continually help us “Become a Praying Church.”
