I heard a very good message lately that used Jesus' cleansing of the temple as text. The key point was that God's temple was intended to be a house of prayer.
That stands in stark contrast to most churches. It's long been established that prayer nights are the lest attended events at a church. How often do churches want to be known for their programs, their music, their preaching or multimedia. How many churches are known for their prayer?
I know how hard it is to get people to pray, and how other things, preaching, worship etc. are also important. We must keep in mind, however, that worship, sacrifice, teaching and community were part of temple life as well, and yet it was still to be known as a house of prayer. All interaction that happens between people is limited and crippled if there is no interaction between the people of God and God Himself.
If we put as much time and effort into prayer as we do the other aspects of church life, I think three things would happen. First, we'd have to spend less time, energy and stress on the other things and put them into better perspective. Second, relationships would grow deeper - it's hard not to connect to those you pray with and pray for. Third, and most important, we'd see and experience the power of God because we would (finally) be open and available to it.
4 comments:
Good reminder! I know our church (of about 80-100 people on Sun morn) has a tues night prayer meeting and we normally average 10-12. And we have virtually no young people, one or two at most. It's boring! And that's too bad, because talking with a close friend should not be boring!
BTW, how did you get a sleep-in day two days ago? Especially while nursing!? How do I get one of those?
Saturdays are my sleep-in day (altho technically Ben gets to sleep in too because he's usually up at 5:30 and Hana gets up at 7). I have Eli in bed with me, so if he wakes up I can nurse him laying down and fall back asleep. I love sleep-in day - it's the only thing that gets me through the week sometimes (like last week when Hana was gettingup at 6 every morning)
All nursing comments aside it's really funny that you blog is about prayer. I just had a girl come into the office because she saw a slide in the window asking people if they needed prayer to just let us know. Yay God.
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