Click Here to Check Out the New Store.


SAVE $5.00 on first purchase.

Use the code phrase below at check-out on your first order and receive $5.00 off the total.

PRAYNOW

It Seems to Me . . .

. . . I have developed more than a few pet prayer peeves over the years. At the risk of sounding like one of the judges on "Dancing with the Stars," sometimes I want to interrupt a brother's prayer by holding up a paddle with a number on it while yelling "5!" Or follow-up a sister's praying with a "6 and please stop!"

Now, go ahead and tell me this column is personal therapy and that you've never blanched when that someone in your congregation stood to pray or that you've never silently groaned (or even prayed!) when your pastor selected that other someone to begin the class with a prayer (often ending any sense of joy or faith!). So, since this is my unique confession, I'll expect you to pray for me, that is unless less-than-completely-sincere prayer requests is one of your personal pet prayer peeves!

These never bother you, but they sure trip me up when a gathered group begins praying:

• "Be with them Lord." If I'm bugged by this how much more so the Lord must be! What do we mean when we ask the Lord to "be with" someone who is already indwelt by the Holy Spirit? Is He not with them until someone asks Him to GPS a struggling saint and go to that location? Is our omnipresent Lord somewhere else or is He failing to express His omnipresenceship so that we need to ask Him to find our sister or brother and announce His arrival to them? Of course, we all know, every "be with them Lord" prayer request is in actuality intercession on their behalf, that they will have an increased sense of the Lord's already and always presence in their life. That they would have a realization of what it means to "pray wit out ceasing."
  
• "Close in a word of prayer." I promise (well, maybe) the next time someone asks me to open or close a meeting with a word of prayer I will pray a one word prayer! Are we just beginning a meeting? "Hello!" Stuck over a decision? "Clarify!" Celebrating a new birth (biological or spiritual)? "Joy!" Are we quickened to our sin and sins? "Forgive!" or "Mercy!" How about at the close of one of those meandering sermons that never got into the text or into our lives? "Huh?" 
  
• "Everyone bow their head." I complained about this before (but that won't stop me now!). Bowing of one's head is a cultural expression of submission, something the Body of Christ certainly needs when we come to our Lord and King in prayer. So what's my beef? I almost always get the impression that the person directing our posture is of the opinion that the external act insures an identical internal response. Bowing our head (or for that matter, standing while we sing praise and worship songs) can become routine and worse, a substitute for the real thing.) I made the mistake of observing a congregation of several hundred standing in worship some time ago and saw so few singing--maybe the not moving their lips were praying. Oh that that were so!)
  
• "Lord." How, you are wondering, can I have a problem with a praying person speaking directly to their Lord? I don't. Unless the term is dropped into the end of every phrase of a Pauline-style run-on-sentence. One of my favorite songs from the 60s ("Fun, Fun, Fun" by the Beach Boys) has three brief verses, each with two sentences. Every one of these lines ends with the word "now." What sense does that make? It is a throw-away word in the song (because the rhyming word needed actually precedes each "now" anyway). "Lord" should never be a throw-away word or a sound to just fill up space. He remembers who He is.
  
• "Will you lead us in prayer?" I wish! When was the last (should I say first?) time anyone asked to lead a group in prayer actually led? We hear "lead us" as an invitation to monologue-pray; and a longer than normal one, at that. Truly leading a group into prayer would require me to cause their participation in ways other than merely listening to me. Please, would someone REALLY lead us, all of us, into the praying of the prayers of the Church gathered in that place at that time for God's unique purposes for that group.

It seems to me . . . I may have just become one of your pet prayer peeves "Lord, be with my friends as they close in a word of prayer for me . . . "Help!"

Pastor Phil

Does God Have Something Special in Store?

Whenever I get a sense that the Lord is directing me to change something at the last minute, my antenea go up. That usually means He intends to do something unique--watch for it.
 
Two weeks ago, I began having the strong sense that I needed to approach Dana Olson to join our team of keynote speakers for Empowered. We did not need another speaker, but we could fit one in. So in the course of two days, I went from hearing from the Lord to finalizing arrangements for Dana ot be on our team. I wonder what message the Lord is giving him for us.
 
Another individual that was added after our original line-up was set, was businessman Ted Kallman. Ted will be doing seminars on prayer, faith and healing. He had a tremendous ministry on our team at last year's Empowered. Ted is a man who God is uniquely using to see hundreds--even thousands--of people receive physical and emotional healing through the weekly mid-week prayer services at his church in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
 
Here are some of the miracles that occurred this last month at the "W" as this session is called (For the "Wrestling Team).

• A woman came to the “W” with severe Fibro Myalgia and MS. As she was prayed for the pain disappeared and she was able to stand without falling over (not possible when she came in).  Thank you Father.
• A man with 4th stage Prostate Cancer and Bone Cancer (metastasized, fourth stage) had heard about the “W” from a friend who had been freed from a Cocaine addiction via prayer at our little service. He was determined to come and be prayed for. His car broke down at the corner of Wilson and Chicago Drive and would not restart. He got out and pushed it into a parking lot but as he pushed he heard a pop and his arm began to hurt. He and his wife walked the mile to Dunkin Donuts (close to Mars but a mile from the breakdown). He was in such pain that he could not go on.  A man getting an ice cream cone had just dropped off his kids at Mars and offered to take them to the “W.” As the man got into the car he heard another pop and his hip started to hurt as well.  He got out of the car at the entrance to Mars but could not walk any further. We took the whole service out to the parking lot and swarmed him in prayer. We offered to take him to emergency but he was determined to be with us in worship and prayer so we got a wheel chair and rolled him in.  The pain had diminished as we prayed but he was still uncomfortable. After the “W” he finally let us take him to the hospital where he was admitted and had surgery soon thereafter. He had a broken arm from pushing the car and a broken femur from getting into the other car. With all of that going on he still had a tenacious desire to be in God’s presence and to be prayed for at the “W.” He is home now (released early) and looking forward to coming again. God, bless the tenacious faith of Your son who pushed through the crowd to touch the edge of Your garment.  Bless him indeed.
• While we were re-starting the “W” one of the intercessors was prompted to go with this man’s wife back to the car to see if he could help with the mechanical issue. When they got to the car he said “in the name of Jesus, start” and it fired right up. The phrase “Speak to the mountain“ comes to mind.
• A man from Finlay, Ohio heard about the “W” through some teaching tapes his pastor heard. He checked out our trustworthiness with a man who is the executive pastor of one of the largest churches in West Michigan who also serves on the Ohio man’s non-profit board. He got an affirmation so drove up with his wife and 16 year-old daughter for prayer. His daughter has 4th stage metastases cancer and has had nine chemo treatments in the last three years and they were losing hope. One of the people who came to the “W” that night had been healed of Parkinson’s and only been there one other time in the last year. He sat right next to this family. The man from Ohio leaned over and asked “Are you on Chuck Roost’s board?” Our guy said “Yes, how did you know.” The same exec pastor that he had called to verify our ministry has his own non-profit organization apart from the church and the Ohio guy had seen this gentleman at a meeting where they were all in attendance. We swarmed his daughter and then they drove home. While at the “W” we did the box. This is where our ministry time consists of everyone writing out requests, all are put in a box and we anoint and swarm the box in prayer. This family from Ohio had written a note for the box that read “God, if you want us to verify this healing via a new PET scan then have the doctor call us so we know it is of You.” The next day the doctor, from her home, called and said she wanted the girl to have another PET scan and it is scheduled now to happen. I talked to the father last week and he said his daughter has not smiled this much in three years. And she has felt so good that she has not missed a single day of school since we prayed for her. God, You are gracious in confirming Your work and blessed Your children with answers that are immediate and powerful and could only come from You. Thank You again.
• A man needed peace and wisdom in a very difficult family situation. God washed him over with peace. Father, Your name is peace and we thank You for operating according to the character of Your name. Shalom.
• A woman needed to see a doctor regarding adjustment of her medications relating to a release from a local Psychological Hospital. She did not have insurance and everywhere she called turned her down. As she was driving down Leonard Ave the Holy Spirit said “turn in here.” She did and it was a clinic. The person at the desk said “you don’t have insurance do you?” and our gal said no. She said “Good, that is the only clients we serve. Our 4 O’clock just canceled, can you see the doctor now?” and she went right in. The doctor reduced her med’s because she is doing so well and she was rejoicing the God had shown her the way when there was no way.
• A woman was having trouble sleeping. After prayer she has slept through the night ever since.  We bless you Healing Lord.
• A story came in where a cousin with a cancerous tumor was prayed for via “the box” and a week later reported that the tumor was gone, as well as the cancer and the doctor cannot explain why.  We can. Father, Your children pray and You answer still today.
• An intercessor that is a part of the WT was led to talk to a person in line at a resort down south. It resulted in sharing a meal. When the people found out that they were a part of Mars Hill they rejoiced because their son had seen some "Pneuma’s" by Rob Bell and that was the catalyst that brought him back into relationship with God. Father, You take us far and wide to encourage Your flock and to be encouraged by them.
• A young boy was prayed for at the “W” for panic attacks. They stopped. Bless God.

Purchase a cd set of Ted's teaching: Click Here for Information. 

The Relational Affects of Corporate Prayer

David Livingstone Rowe

Note: This is a chapter in a new book, Giving Ourselves to Prayer, a 560 page, 80 chapter, hardcover book designed for ministerial students and pastors. As a prayer leader you would benefit from having a copy, or buy it as a gift for your pastor. You can receive a special pre-publication price of $24.99 (The book retails for $39.99) if you sign-up this month. The book will ship to you in early July.

Click here for more information.

It’s a lovely, meditative place, and I’ll start here in my reflections on the relational affects of our practice of corporate prayer. Something in the very environment communicates to us and evokes a response. Imagings and palpable messagings come to strike the heart in their wordless ways of divine love and we of the “little flock” lift up our responses in prayer, returning our love. For the ritual of our corporate prayer attaches itself to a sense of place and that sense of place so profoundly affects us, we come to realize it is of a piece with the ritual itself—good ritual, not dead ritual, for it breathes and exudes life. In these places God whispers lovingkindness and provident care to us, and we know what it means to sing “This is my Father’s world and to my list’ning ears, all nature sings and round me rings the music of the spheres.”

Places of prayer are many, mind you, and each has its own imagings and messagings in the grand semiotic bearing God’s love to His creatures and in particular to His redeemed people. Augustine, that granddaddy of Christian rhetoricians, contended this: a thing in nature is never just a thing, for it also functions as a sign which carries a message from the Creator. “The heavens declare the glory of God,” says the psalmist (19:1-2), “the heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows His handiwork. Day unto day utters speech; night unto night reveals knowledge.” But while Black slaves met in forests and Celtic Christians also met under trees (hearing, perhaps, as “the trees of the field will clap their hands”) or at the coast to hear the words of the waves, others met in richly symbolic cathedrals and sparsely symbolic meeting houses or even in homes, each place bearing its environmental word to the praying people.

The First Level

I want to argue this elemental factor of corporate prayer, this human-to-world relationship, becomes a first level of relational affect we may experience. Whether it’s a natural environment or a built environment and whether it happens subconsciously or consciously, the place has a communication of its own which evokes affective responses of God’s people at prayer. Light comes beaming in the window or through the dappling leaves of a tree saying “God is light” and “He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good” (Mt. 5:45) and our hearts warm to the Creator’s purity and grace: the Holy One in whom is “no darkness” yet smiles on us and even cleanses our sin so we can “walk in the light as He is in the light” (1 Jn. 1:7). Or consider this: is it any accident that both Eden and Gethsemane are garden places in which we see profoundly intimate and impassioned prayer evoked? In one the first Adam walks and talks with his beloved Father in the cool of the evening with undarkened bliss. In the other, the second Adam kneels and sweats as if it were blood in the dark night as He cries out agonistically to the same Father. A draped cross, a tree, a stained glass nativity, a howling coyote, a raised pulpit, an ebb tide, an advent wreath and myriad other signs will charm and call to us in the person-to-world relationship that stirs wonder, awe and love. This way we learn to love God through his world.

The songs continued, then a time of spontaneous spoken prayer happened and we bore our hearts before the throne on behalf of one another. Then another song or two broke out before it happened. In the gap between songs a one-anothering occurred over a familiar favorite: “I think we should hear Hazel do ‘Wayfaring Stranger,’” said our friend Chris, and a clamor of affirmative voices ensued. Now Hazel, my dear wife whose voice is simply seraphic, usually tries to get out of this assignment because it’s a very demanding piece for a serious vocalist like herself. So she counteroffered: “I’ll sing it if Charity will sing with me.” Concord having been reached, I started the familiar picking pattern on the guitar and the two women began to sing. None of us wayfarers that night even dreamed how it would end.

One-anothering like this characterizes good corporate prayer wherever it breaks out. Friends in Christ begin to own the concerns and the gladnesses of others. Vulnerability sets in, and mutual enjoyment—even laughter in prayer! We become one in heart as Ephesians 5:18-20 pictures: notice the filling of the Spirit leads us to “speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs” and yet we make music in our “heart” (singular) to the Lord. Sometimes Hazel and I, praying in song like Paul talks about, simply reach a blend of voices that transports us to the court of heaven—and not us alone. Others have been transported also: one friend said “When you and Hazel sing, I live through you.” This oneness of God’s people takes hold during jubilant worship processions (Psalm 42) and also in times of lamenting as during the Babylonian captivity (Psalm 137). And Jesus says anything we disciples ask for in His name we will receive and our joy “will be complete” (Jn. 16:19-24). Corporate prayers of petition are directly connected to corporate affects of joy, our Lord teaches.

My friend Mac does not know Hazel and I are present in his congregation one particular Sunday morning. The people of his church, Keystone Baptist in Chicago, begin a time of corporate prayer before the Lord’s Supper gets served, one African American voice and then another speaking out their praises and supplications that rise as incense before the throne. Sometimes the incense is more shouted than spoken so perhaps it rises a little faster. Then Mac, “a White guy with a Black heart” as some of the folks would say, begins his prayer and about two sentences in, his voice starts to tremble. A prayer of corporate lament and confession he offers, his heavy-burdened heart choking its way out through his throat as he adds to the incense phrases like “we love You so much, Lord, but we’re just poor children who fall so short of Your righteous will. . . . We’ve sinned against You and we need Your mercy! . . .” We the rest of the flock that morning, I’m sure, lived through Mac by feeling and thus owning the weight of our acknowledged sin—and certainly no less, the lightness of our absolution in Christ! What a healing “magic” settled on our souls, let me tell you! One heart with him, we confessed and we were freed.

The Second Level

This way we learn, loving God, to love each other—and through each other, to love God. We become friends around such rituals—friends in Christ. This second level of corporate prayer affect, then, we’ll call human-to-human relationship. It’s about loving God’s people, about one-anothering in joy and sorrow.

So my wife, Hazel, and our daughter, Charity, began to sing the soulful Black spiritual with one another—“I am a poor, wayfaring stranger, a-traveling through this world of woe. . . .” A rather odd turn this seemed, with mother leaning on daughter after all these years; soon we’d realize both in actuality were leaning on Another beyond us all and yet in the midst. Charity did not join us every week, often opting for time with her boyfriend. We her parents had come to know the familiar distance well, though something was afoot lately to give us a modicum of hope. She’d received Jesus by faith as a child, but now had been running from Him for nine years. She’d hung out with druggies, been through rehab, given birth to a son out of wedlock, broken our hearts again, again, again. “. . . but there’s no sickness, toil nor danger in that bright land to which I go. I’m going there to see my Fathe . . .”

Hazel and I had become acquainted with grief and quite familiar with “groanings which cannot be uttered” (Rom. 8:26-27). Strangely, we had known the holy collusion of this level of prayer—the experience of crying out of the depths to God for our precious daughter, now worded, now wordlessly, now only choking out “Jesus, oh Jesus!” and somehow finding Another, indeed the Comforter Jesus sent, joining us in our groanings born of helplessness. Just so, Paul’s text says “the Spirit helps us in our weakness” even when we haven’t a clue what we ought to pray: the verb “helps,” a word picture in the Greek tongue, literally means “takes hold on the other side” as a strong man picking up the other end of a log far too heavy for just one to carry. Have you not known the intimate power of this ministry of divine partnering before our Abba, Father, when a river flows through you, a solace takes hold of your heart, a saintly friend who “dreams dreams and sees visions” gives you a personal word they got from the Lord?

The Third Level

This third level of affect in prayer, then, we’ll call the human-to-God relationship. It draws us into Trinitarian movements of relating: “in Christ” (to use that richest of Paul’s phrases) we pray as Son-to-Abba, having by grace entered the Triune “family circle.” This deepest level is about loving God, our All-in-all, above all. When in prayerful affection we learn to love God’s world and also to love God’s people we always end up here, learning to love God’s very Being.

The author: Dr. David Livingstone Rowe is Dean of Spiritual Life at Salt Lake Theological Seminary, serving there in partnership with Missions Door. He is the author of I Love Mormons: A New Way to Share Christ with Latter-day Saints.