Culture of Prayer vs Program of Prayer (Expanded)

I heard one of my mentors from afar, Daniel Henderson of Fellowship 6:4, says something that I wanted to pass along to you. He was talking about the importance of building a culture of prayer in your church rather than a program of prayer. I have been thinking about it, and it is a very important distinction. It is also very helpful as well. Here are just a couple of the reasons.

A culture of prayer affects everyone rather than just those in the “prayer ministry”.

This means that you are looking for ways to grow prayer in your men’s ministry, youth group and children’s ministry. This can be empowering especially if you are in a smaller church because you don’t need to create a whole new program than needs to be maintained.

As I travel around speaking at churches one of the things that I find too often is Christians intimidated by prayer. I often speak about the fact that prayer is not just for super-Christians. Part of the reason for this intimidation is the result of people thinking that there are people who pray and then there are the rest of us. There are reasons to have a prayer altar workers team – like being able to train them on the salvation follow up process. But it is important to communicate that one of those reasons is not that not every Christian can pray for needs.

2. This allows all sorts of opportunities to be moments to grow the culture.

Taking some extra time in the board meeting to model the life of prayer is helping you build a leadership that is praying. When you are already doing an outreach connecting the life of prayer to that event is natural and life-giving. Your goal becomes to have leaders of your men’s ministry who spontaneously take time to pray for each other in a group not just to have an “elite group of prayers.” Now you are multiplying rather than just adding to your churches prayer life.

One way to think about this is as connected to the “spiritual” fire of your church. If prayer is just a program we are containing that fire to one area of the church. By creating a culture of prayer in the church we are spreading that fire everywhere. Ministry begins to happen in different areas of the church at a new level and ultimately spills into the streets.

If you are a pastor or leaders what is one way that you could help build the culture of prayer in your church today? If you are not yet a leader in your church let me encourage you to not be afraid of the life of prayer, but dive right in and see how it changes your life.

Are you embracing emotionalism? (Updated)

Having grown up in the church all of my life I have heard the challenge against “emotionalism.” This normally follows someone, who is a young believer, doing something that out of order. This “emotionalism” can be attached to a lot of unhealthy things that can happen in a church. I live in the wintry, upper Midwest of the USA where we are affectionately called the Frozen Chosen. We are definitely on the calm side of the calm/emotional spectrum.

But this idea of the calm/emotional spectrum leads me to a challenge that people in my neck of the woods struggle. Merriam-Webster.com has one of the definitions of emotionalism as, “undue indulgence in or display of emotion.” And those of us who have seen this in church say a hearty, “amen.” Actually where I live a hearty “amen” could be called emotionalism.

What if you move to far in the other direction? What if our fear of emotionalism causes us to disengage our heart completely? If some of us expressed our love to our spouses with the same emotion that we express toward God we would end up in marriage counseling. Jesus called us to love the Lord with all our heart and soul. I think that includes our emotions.

I will love the Lord with all my heart and that includes my emotions!

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We can miss out on a lot if we do not engage our emotions. Charles Finney would go so far as to say that “excitements” are the only way for the church to grow.

David’s wife Michal was appalled at David’s dancing and I can be in danger of becoming like her. The answer, as in most cases, is an internal look. Ask yourself, “Which end of the spectrum am I?” If you find yourself in an emotionless religion then you must find new ways to engage your heart. It may be scary for a couple reasons. One: engaging our emotions before God does not always feel safe to start with because we are not used to it. Two: we may fear that our friends will charge us with “emotionalism”.

I want to challenge you that the journey will be worth it and may just bring new life to your walk with Jesus. It will also give us more grace for brothers and sisters who happen to slip into “emotionalism.” You may provide healthy models for others on how to express emotion in their seeking of God.

For thoughts on emotion and prayer watch this and if you want to engage your emotions and are having a hard time start here

Moving from Palm Sunday to Change the World Monday

I grew up attending church. This was the era of flannel graphs in Sunday School. Palm Sunday was a time of kids with palm branches and conversations about donkeys. The shift then moves to Good Friday and Easter. But if we move too fast we miss a lesson that Jesus taught to change our world and rock our heart.

In Mark’s telling of the story he sandwiches the story of the clearing of the temple with the strange story of Jesus killing a fig tree. The depth of the message of Mark 11:12-25 is beyond what I can cover in this post, but let me challenge us with three lessons that could impact the world.

Be on your guard against hypocrisy

Jesus finds a tree that has lots of leaves, but without any fruit. Moving from there to seeing Jesus disrupting the religious establishment of the time makes the message clear. You can have a lot of the trappings of religious activity but not be producing any spiritual fruit. This is hypocrisy. The danger of hypocrisy is that it is easier to see in others and hard to see in ourselves. Hypocrisy insulates our heart from the humility we need to be hungry for more of God. We need to be desperate for God in order to produce fruit out of our connection to Him. I realize that even this post loses its power without the energy of God.

Hypocrisy insulates our heart from the humility we need to be hungry for more of God.

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Be aware of our own draw toward racism

In Jesus’ day a reference to a verse in the scripture is a reference to the whole chapter where it is found. Jesus’ reference to, “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations” comes from Isaiah 56. Isaiah 56 is a word of encouragement to the immigrants living in the land. Jesus’ here matches the challenge that He and the early disciples gave to confront the ethnic superiority of the day. If we read carefully we see Jesus getting in trouble again and again for disrupting racial stereotypes. Speaking of immigrants and racism today may be read as a political statement of some kind.

Although I do see racism in both political parties that is too safe to point that out. Jesus wants to get closer to our heart. Rather than engage in arguments what if the church led the way by going in the opposite way of love? But even that is too safe. What about me? So I am committing right now to learning Spanish to a level that I can preach in Spanish. What about you? Will you let God’s word break through your heart to an actual change that may be uncomfortable?

What if the church led the way against racism with radical love?

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Prayer should not be a side dish

The story of the fig tree is explained by Jesus with a challenge to pray things that require faith. I wrote a book on simple ways to engage in conversation with God. But we must not forget that prayer also has great power to change things. Prayer invites us into a faith adventure with Jesus that should produce fruit. God invites us to change the world with our prayer.

Are you praying dangerous, audacious prayers? As Lisa Bevere says, “If you are not praying the kind of prayers that scare you, believe me, they are not scaring the enemy.” We need Christians who believe for a life that makes a difference. As Pete Grieg says, “We need to move from survival to revival.” What are you going ask God for that will make a difference for Jesus’ kingdom?

We need to move from survival to revival.-Pete Greig

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I believe that if we really let these things past our guard and into our heart we could change the world. Are you with me?