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One aspect of church worship that’s always been a challenge for me is communal prayer. Partway through the church service every Sunday morning, a designated member of the congregation leads the church in community prayer, incorporating prayer requests from the community and sometimes asking the rest of the congregation to add their voices to the prayer as they feel called to do so.

Community prayer doesn’t come easily for me. I’m a private person for whom public and community prayer doesn’t come naturally. But there’s something powerful in a group of believers gathered together for prayer, and Bible Prayer Fellowship argues that it’s a crucial part of Christian worship:

Every congregation and all believers everywhere need united agreement in prayer and faith. True, we can play privately, but we must also come together with the church expecting to find one accord in prayer. The church in Acts began in one accord in prayer (Acts 1:14; 2:1). United prayer was a top priority of the apostles and the people (Acts 6:4; 4:18-33; 12:1-25; 15:1-30). United agreement in prayer is necessary because of who we are.

We are related to Christ and each other like the members of our natural body are. Our head coordinates the life and action of all the parts of our body (I Corinthians 12). Christ is the head over all things to the church.

We are one family. We pray to “OUR Father.” Andrew Murray said that it is unnatural for the children in a family to always meet with their father separately and never know a shared relationship with him.

Read the rest of “Why Pray Together?” at the Bible Prayer Fellowship website.

What’s been your experience with communal prayer? What does it bring to worship that private prayer doesn’t? Have you seen tangible effects of community prayer in your community?

Share your thoughts!

There’s been a lot of online chatter lately about bumper stickers connecting Psalm 109:8 to President Barrack Obama. Psalm 109:8 reads:

Let his days be few; and let another take his office. (Psalm 109:8, KJV)

As a post over on examiner.com points out, what’s more alarming than calling for President Obama’s swift removal from office is what follows in Psalm 109:9:

Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow. (Psalm 109:9, KJV)

Perhaps the makers of these bumper stickers are attempting to coyly express dislike of the President’s policies and leadership by taking a verse from the Bible out of its original context. Presumably they’re just looking forward to the psychological relief they imagine will accompany President Obama’s eventual replacement. However, if those that slap this on their bumpers include not only verse 8, but 9-20 as well, this starts to fall into imprecatory prayer territory.

An imprecatory prayer is a plea for God to come and take care of an enemy. They’re rare in the Bible and almost always defer to God’s wisdom and judgment in the matter. The destruction of an enemy is a very serious thing for which to pray. Outright hatred in the name of Christ should give us pause—after all, Jesus rather famously told us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us.

While Psalm 108 happens to be an excellent example of an imprecatory prayer, it’s also a vivid picture of a man at the end of his rope with no other options before him. As bad as you might think the United States has become, it’s nowhere near the situation that David speaks of in Psalm 109.

Thankfully, from what I’ve seen googling around, it seems that few people are vociferously defending the bumper sticker’s statement; and let’s be honest—the bumper sticker by itself isn’t going to change anyone’s mind. At best it might spark a thoughtful exchange between two people (although I have my doubts).

Whenever topics like this come up, we have an excellent opportunity to evaluate why and for whom we pray. When we pray for those who persecute us, we pray that they might also find the grace and mercy we’ve received through Christ. The hope that God gives us is not that all who oppose us would be laid to waste, but that all who oppose us would also find forgiveness and life.

Today’s devotional comes from A Slice of Infinity, a daily series by noted Christian apologist Ravi Zacharias. Drawing on an unusual experience from a visit to a communist country, Ravi shows that powerful witnessing can take place when we simply model for others what prayer and worship look like:

A few years ago, two or three of my colleagues and I were in a country dominated for decades by Marxism. Before we began our meetings, we were invited to a dinner hosted by some common friends, all of whom were skeptics and, for all practical purposes, atheists. The evening was full of questions, posed principally by a notable theoretical physicist in the country. There were also others who represented different elements of power within that society. As the night wore on, we got the feeling that the questions had gone on long enough and that we were possibly going in circles.

I asked if we could have a word of prayer with them, for them, and for the country before we bade them good-bye. There was a silence of consternation, an obvious hesitancy, and then one said, “Of course.” We did just that—we prayed. In this large dining room of historic import to them, with all the memories of secular power plastered within those walls, the prayer brought a sobering silence that we were all in the presence of someone greater than us. When we finished, every eye was moist and nothing was said. They hugged us and thanked us, with emotion written all over their faces. The next day when we met them, one of them said to me, “We did not go back to our rooms last night till it was early morning. In fact, I stayed in my hotel lobby most of the night talking further. Then I went back to my room and gave my life to Jesus Christ.”

I firmly believe that it was the prayer that gave them a hint of the taste of what worship is all about. Their hearts had never experienced it.

Over the years I have discovered that praying with people can sometimes do more for them than preaching to them. Prayer draws the heart away from one’s own dependence to leaning on the sovereign God. The burden is often lifted instantly. Prayer is only one aspect of worship, but one that is greatly neglected in the face of people who would be shocked to hear what prayer sounds like when the one praying knows how to touch the heart of God. To a person in need, pat answers don’t change the mind; prayer does.

Read the complete devotional at Ravi Zacharias’ website.

Pointing people to God doesn’t always mean handing out tracts, preaching to them, or outwitting them in an apologetics debate—sometimes it’s as simple as showing them what worship means in your own life.

Whether it’s in the morning, during lunch or in the evening, most people try to block out some time every day for prayer.

What about you, when do you pray?

Share your thoughts!

Meditation is defined by m-w.com as the act of engaging “in mental exercise for the purpose of reaching a heightened level of spiritual awareness.” Let’s assume that we’re talking about meditating on a particular passage or phrase in the Bible, or on an aspect of God.

So, what do you think, should Christians meditate?

Share your answer!

There’s that old saying that there are no atheists in foxholes, but do those foxhole dwellers need to confess that Jesus is Lord before God will grant them safety? Or does God answer every prayer offered to Him regardless of one’s standing in the Kingdom?

So, what do you think, does God listen to the prayers of non-Christians?

Share your answer!

When’s the last time you gave thanks for the simple things in life?

If you’re like me, despite the many Biblical injunctions to be thankful, I rarely spend serious time in a spirit of thankfulness. I’ll devote a token amount of time on Thanksgiving to thank God for my family and friends—and that’s definitely a good thing—but I tend to miss out on the day to day opportunities for thanksgiving.

Thankfulfor.com is out to create a collective journal of everyone’s daily thanksgivings. They ask the simple question, “What are you thankful for today?” to which people have responded with everything from “This class being over in 45 minutes!” to “I am grateful that my mother lived for almost three years after stroke. I am happy that she met her grandson.”

You can login using your twitter account, or create an account with thankfulfor.com. Or jump straight to reading what the world is thankful for.

So, what are you thankful for today?

Ramadan begins tomorrow—are you ready?

Ramadan is, of course, an Islamic tradition, not a Christian one. For Muslims, it’s a month-long period of fasting and prayer. But some Christians are suggesting that we use the month of Ramadan as a time of special prayer for Muslims around the world.

Arab World Ministries has put together daily Ramadan prayer points for Christians, each of which highlights a specific prayer need “for Muslims, Muslim background believers or Christian workers based in the Arab world.” If you’d like to participate, just check back each day over the next month for a daily prayer point.

Mission Network News is also running a story about Ramadan if you’d like more background about it. If you know of other Christians or ministries who are using the month of Ramadan as an opportunity to pray for Muslims and Christians in the Arab world, please leave a comment below!

Every year, Muslims around the world celebrate a month of intentional and rigid fasting called Ramadan. From sun up to sun down, they fast from anything considered not of good nature or considered excessive: eating, drinking, smoking, sex, etc. If you’re interested in knowing more, you can read more about Ramadan on wikipedia.

World Christian ministries publishes a prayer guide for Christians to follow along during the month of Ramadan. It attempts to educate Christians about worldwide Islamic culture and gives them ways in which to pray for Muslims.

Mission Network News is distributing the book this year. They recently published an article about the prayer calendar and Ramadan.

Here’s an excerpt:

“It [World Christian's 30-Days Muslim Prayer Guide] literally takes you around the world introducing you to various countries, regions, people groups and even issues that are facing the Islamic culture today,” said Greg Yoder, executive director of MNN.

Yoder believes this guide is one of the best resources available for average Christians to gain information and understanding of the Islamic culture. The booklet is mostly centered around Ramadan.

“World Christian has put together this booklet that will help you pray each day, at the same time Muslims are praying,” said Yoder. “The twist is this: we’re encouraging Christians to pray that many of these Muslims will turn to Christ.”

You can order the book through Mission Network News. Even if you don’t, consider spending some time praying for our Islamic neighbors during Ramadan this year.

What do you make of the New Testament command to pray continually?

The King James Version is even more evocative in its wording: “Pray without ceasing.” Clearly, we aren’t mean to physically pray 24 hours per day. But the standard explanation I’ve heard—that this verse means we should have a “prayerful attitude” throughout the day—always struck me as sidestepping some of the force of the command.

So what should prayer look like in the life of a Christian? One of the best examinations of Christian prayer that I’ve come across is at the Bible Prayer Fellowship, in their free 12-part guide to prayer. They’ve put the full text of the study—a leader’s guide and an accompanying student workbook—online. While it’s written to be used in a small group study environment, the relatively short length of each day’s material actually would make them quite workable as a daily personal devotion.

So if you, like me, have often wondered how to make prayer a more central part of your life, take a look. And if you have a fresh perspective on what it means to “pray without ceasing,” please share your thoughts below!