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?
