Prayer Circles

I was recently at a prayer meeting. Its been a while since I had been to one of these things. Imagine, 12 people sitting around a table, holding hands, and going around the circle praying about what was on their hearts.

Pray circles are interesting. You get the email that invites you to some location so we can just pray. The email will usually have something about “you are in no way obligated to attend…blah blah blah.” The invite will also usually have something about the invitee being “moved by the Holy Spirit to invite you and others.” And, interestingly, the invite will usually include some type of declaration from the sender stating they “have no reason why they are inviting you, other than the Holy Spirit told them to.” Now, how do you turn that down??? How on earth do you turn down the Holy Spirit?! And yet at the same time, why can’t I just pray here, at my desk? Why do I need to be surrounded by others if we all we are going to do is pray? Why couldn’t this be one of those forwarded emails to tell me to pray right now so that I get a bazillion dollars but I will need to forward it to my entire contacts, and if I don’t then I must not be that great of a Christian…. I already pray for my ministries and others. Why do I need to go somewhere to pray?

This recent experience was amazing. We had a couple of elders, ministry leaders from various ministries, and our pulpit minister. The gentleman running the meeting asked us, “Why are you here? What were you thinking on your way here?” I’ll be honest, I wasn’t expecting that. I was geared for the more traditional, “let’s circle hands and start praying!” However, the reason I was there was to pray for my college group our church, and my family. Others were there to pray for the church, someone was sick in their life, someone wanted to pray that our church would be open. Someone wanted to pray about a job. So, before we started praying, we just talked.

Probably the most common example of prayer circles I have been associated with would be the kind from youth groups. Teens do them real well. They have no issue circling up, someone starts the prayer, and it goes around the circle. If you don’t feel like praying, you just simply squeeze the hand next to you and you can skip. The person getting the squeezed hand can tell your aversion to praying to how hard you squeezed his hand. Squeezing multiple times is the international sign for, “please pray! I do not want to pray publicly! I have an aversion to praying!” Your only worry in a teen youth group prayer circle is continually thinking about how clammy that other hand is, Of course, if you are a guy, you are trying to strategically place yourself by the hot church chick. This guy will probably never ask her out, but at least he gets to reminisce on holding her hand until the next prayer circle. Of course, if you are the hot church chick, you are trying to strategically place yourself as far away from the amazingly awkward guy during the prayer circle time….

Small groups do prayer circles to. In these situations, usually the small group leader takes prayer requests, everyone then circles up, then the leader gives the prayer. . You don’t have to worry about saying a prayer, just holding someone’s hand who is not your wife! If you plan your initial sitting right, you won’t be holding a man’s hand during this. Hey, you know you are thinking it, at least if you are a guy! Be honest; your are thinking to yourself right now: "boy, girl, boy, girl, ...."

Interestingly, there is no example of prayer circles in the bible (well, at least where they call out “holding hands”). Probably the most familiar example of group prayers is when Jesus takes his students off to pray right before he is arrested, and he comes back to find them sleeping. I am quite certain if they were circled up they would have stayed awake. Think about it: John is holding Peter’s hand and John starts to nod off. Peter would know by feeling John’s grip start to give. Peter could instantly put the death grip on him to wake him up! Problem solved. Jesus wouldn’t be lowering His expectations as he does when comes back finding them asleep!

Seriously, there is something about holding someone’s hand when you pray. I love it when my wife reaches for my hand when we start to pray. I can look at an order of worship on a Sunday and think to myself, “yep, she is going to grab my hand right there (pointing at the line that says ‘public prayer’)”. Even if we fought all the way to church, yelling at the kids to act appropriately; I know she will grab my hand for the prayer. It might hurt like hell, but she will still grab it.

I knew this elderly couple who had held hands to pray ever since they met. That’s a lot of hand holding! I really respected this couple. The gentleman was a mentor of mine. I can remember sitting in church across the aisle from them. I stole a peek one Sunday, and watched as they silently closed hands while some guy prayed. It was beautiful. Their hands looked like they were made for each other! It was like there were indentions on the hands that would only fit the spouse’s hand!

Holding hands brings us comfort. It gives us peace. But let’s face it: in a prayer circle it keeps us on our toes! Who do I sit by? Is it knuckles opened? Do I cup the hand? How hard do I squeeze? Will they look at me the same after an hour long hand hold?

This current prayer circle started this week. I’ll be honest, I wasn’t expecting much. I really felt like we were just going to talk out loud to God then go on home. Man, was I wrong…. The Holy Spirit came into that room! We plan to meet every week until God provides what we are needing. I was truly at peace in that room, and yet my spirit inside was being stirred as well. We all had very similar prayers: church growth, church healing, openness in communication, etc. There was a feeling the Spirit was providing guidance, but not necessarily answers, yet. I’ll keep you up to date on how it goes. I think Michelle is going to go next week.

By the way, is there something I can pray for you?

Prayer (Part 2?)

I taught the teenage class last Sunday morning. I have to say, since we got the "new guy", I have really missed that part of my previous duties. The teens are so complex. They have such a strong grasp of the world, and yet at the same time, assume way too much. These guys are really smart, so I usually try to push them in their thinking. I admit that sometimes I push them pretty hard. It may back fire every now and again, but at least it gets their wheels turning.



This Sunday we opened with a prayer. I asked for prayer requests, and one of the teens said, "you know the usual: school and college." He said it rather nonchalantly. Well, this kind of set me off on a tangent. Imagine that.....



I asked them, "If you guys keep praying for the same things, are you really turning your requests over to God? Do you really believe He is going to step in, and do what you ask?"



As you can imagine, they didn't like this too much. "Are you saying we are not supposed to pray about school and college? What would pray for then?"



"That's not what I am saying. What I am saying is, when you pray that way (nonchalantly) do you really turn your requests over to God."



"But God says for us to pray about something we care about all the time."



"Are you sure about that?"



You can kind of see how the conversation (debate, then disbelief) went from there.



Let me see if I can explain my point now. For one thing, prayer is not JUST a shopping list. Western culture for some time completely misses the point on prayer. We get it in our head that praying to God is about asking for stuff like, good health, forgiveness of sins, clarification for decisions, prosperity, etc. This is basically a shopping list. This is not at all what God has in mind when it comes to prayer. Look at the great guys from the Old Testament. They "walked with God". They conversed with God in other words. Even better, look at Jesus. He would get up early in the morning to be with His heavenly father. He would sneak off to a solitary place to speak with Him. One of the greatest prayers is the Lord's Prayer. However, if that is our only format for praying, we are missing the point.



Prayer is so much more than shopping list. It is more involved than just stopping and thanking God for the food we are about to eat, then devour only half of a meal that costs more than a lot of people make in a month. We have to set aside time for prayer. We should block it off on our calendars. It should be such a part of our daily routine, that it would feel weird NOT to do it.



Also, prayer is a two way street. We sometimes forget, usually in our haste to get something, that we are actually TALKING TO GOD. Think about that. God wants to hear from us. God wants to talk to us. And sometimes, we just tune Him out. All we want, is for Him to give us what we ask for, overlooking the great gift of one on one communication with Him.



Don't get me wrong, we should pray fervantly. There are numerous passages about doing that. But there are also numerous passages where we are just to ask God. We are to "turn our requests over to God." We are to forget about them, with the understanding that God will take care of it. And just as there are prayers for those things that we are really passionate about, and prayers where we are just to "let it go", there are also prayers where we should listen to God. And these, I bet, are the hardest of all. God loves us so much. He just wants to have a relationship with us! Why in the world would we overlook one of the most important ways of communicating with Him?

So let me ask the question: what are your thoughts on prayer? Am I way off base on this?

Turning it to God....

"...and they drew lots for them..." - Acts 1:26. I can't help but be fascinated by this verse. Its not just this verse, but the section of scripture. Its right after the Ascension, and Peter and other apostles and disciples have gathered together. Peter talks about how that the one who betrayed must be replaced (v. 22). In 21, he seems to give some requirements for this replacement: ...accompanied us all the time...". And the selection fell on two men, Joseph and Matthias. They prayed to God, and then in 1st century fashion rolled the dice.

Last night Michelle and I got into a discussion of prayer. Really, how often do we actually allow God full control of our decisions? I consider myself a rather logical individual. I don't take much to chance. I mean, my job requires that I have as much information as possible, before making a decision. I have to research things. I have to experiment. I have to collect the facts. I usually base my decisions on the knowledge that I obtain. However, at the same time I pray to God that He will guide me in my personal life; that the "correct path" will be obvious; that I will "know" the right thing to do in a particular situation. Here is where my eyebrows are starting to raise. Am I really turning over my decisions to Him? Do I allow Him full control of my life? I think I do, but I still need to see the logical choice. I have to weigh the evidence. Collect the data. Based on my understanding, I then make the decision. I say that I am allowing God to guide me, but am I really?

May be its me, but if we are not careful, we will see "God's path" where there actually is no path at all. Yesterday, a good friend of mine and myself were mountain biking. In short, I got us lost because I took a path "that I knew" would get us back to the car. However, even before we made the turn, I knew it was the wrong decision. I wanted that path to be it, because it looked easier. It looked cooler. It looked like it would turn in the direction of the car. I created an analysis that just wasn't true, and relied on my own knowledge to make a decision. We would have gotten to the car eventually, but it would have been after dark!

No doubt the bible is littered with words of wisdom of how to seek advice, obtain knowledge, seek council, etc. But how do we explain this passage out of Acts? The apostles prayed to God, then basically rolled the dice. The name that popped up, they believed was the man for the job. God made the decision by choosing the lot of Matthias. End of discussion. There was no committee to decide the best candidate. There was no reference check. There was no comparison of GPA, or numbers of publications. Don't get me wrong here though. A group did get together and looked at the individuals that met the qualifcations that had been set forth. And from what we can tell, only two men met those qualifications. But it was God who made the final decision. He picked.

I think if we are not careful we may pray to God to "show us the way", but then never really allow Him to make the decision. If it really is so obvious to us, then we shouldn't be afraid to roll the dice. What is it that we are afraid of?