A Call to Prayer
Dear Pastors
Perhaps more than anything else March 15 is a wakeup call for Christians to pray a whole lot more than we do. A few well known verses come straight to mind.
“I urge you, first of all, to pray for all people. Ask God to help them; intercede on their behalf, and give thanks for them. 2 Pray this way for kings and all who are in authority so that we can live peaceful and quiet lives marked by godliness and dignity. 3 This is good and pleases God our Saviour, 4 who wants everyone to be saved and to understand the truth”. 1 Timothy 2:1-4 (NLT)
So I asked 150 or so adults on Sunday to pray for our nation for two minutes every day this week. If they all do that will add up to 5 hrs of prayer a day and 35 hours this week. Not a bad start.
Unlike some Christian folks I was unfazed about our PM’s call to prayer (or a call to silence if you preferred that) to mark exactly one week after the massacre last week Friday. In this circumstance and I want to stress, in this circumstance and given this unprecedented and extraordinary event I saw it as nothing more than a ‘goodwill gesture’. A continuation of expressing solidarity with the Muslim community as we have done all week. Though I understand the concern that some Christians have I wish that on this occasion we could have opted to say nothing and simply support the initiative and pray to the God of the bible. However if this was to be repeated on a regular basis, which is most unlikely, then that is quite a different story all together.
But let’s talk about prayer for another minute……public prayer in our services.
Some contemporary churches include intercessory prayer in their services regularly but most do not. I am in fact an advocate for this but with a proviso. That whoever is praying has thought about what they are going to say AND clearly understand that these few minutes are not an opportunity for a mini sermon or an opinion piece but rather an opportunity to express to God what people present have on their minds.
So many Christians get tongue tied when it comes to prayer, even silent prayer. By the pastor praying every Sunday many Christians are encouraged to go and do likewise…….hopefully.
Gathering for Prayer. My goodness isn’t this challenging these days and has been most of my ministry years. I have no quick fix to offer except to say if Muslims gather and pray five times a day and many of our Korean brothers and sisters gather every morning of the week at 6.00am, I wonder why kiwi Christians can’t gather once……just once……a week to do likewise? Can I encourage you to keep working at it and figure out a way to gather your people for prayer…….regularly.
Blessings
Alan
Alan Vink is currently the Executive Director for LeadershipWorx. Prior to this role he has been the Executive Director of Willow Creek Association NZ (WillowNZ), a Baptist pastor (23 years), Bible College teacher, and church consultant.
