We Have Not Because We Ask Not

This is, by the way, what healthy and vibrant churches throughout church history have gotten right—there have consistently (though not universally) been ministers and laypeople hungry for God who have spent their lives, including hours before the service, praying for God to come among His people.  And God, throughout church history, has answered. 

It was said of many old Methodist meetings, for example, that there were more people at the altar before the service began, praying for God’s presence and work to come in their midst, than after the service at the “altar call.”  Even in a Southern Baptist church I attended for some time, the pastor had the whole church come up to the altar to seek God—a spontaneous prayer meeting embedded in a church service.  Jim Cymbala’s Brooklyn Tabernacle experience bears witness to this truth in our own day—if we ask for God’s presence, then He comes.  If He comes, then church can happen in a powerful way.

In our housechurch experience in Texas, the leaders (and whoever else wanted to) got together an hour or so before the meeting to pray and seek God’s presence and direction for the meeting.  They would then compare notes right before it was time to start to see if God had given any clear direction. 

Some practical suggestions for how to incorporate this principle:  teach on the Presence of God so that everyone will have some kind of inspiration and biblical vision of what they’re praying for; covenant together to pray throughout the week for whatever meeting or service you have; spend the first thirty minutes to an hour of that service in prayers of adoration and supplication for His presence (not lists of prayers for the congregation’s needs—that comes later); let the leaders keep in communication with each other during the service to determine whether the service plan, as such, needs to be abandoned in favor of just waiting on God in prayer. 

Coming soon...Chapter 2.13:  Let Spiritual Gifts Fuel your Prayers