In the ongoing missional church conversation, much is said about the necessity of discipleship. In fact, one of the leading voices in the conversation--Mike Breen--goes so far as to say that in the absence of having a system in place that produces and reproduces disciples, the missional movement, like so many church movements before it, will fail.
Maybe.
Predictions of failure aside, though, there is no doubt that creating disciples is a (perhaps the) critical issue. It's an easy enough conclusion to draw from Jesus himself--go forth and make disciples, he said, and I will build the church. Discipleship is job one.
This isn't a challenge peculiar to missional/incarnational churches, however. It's a challenge faced by all churches of all times in all places. And it's a challenge rooted, first, in Christendom's substitution of church for Kingdom and, second, in the fact that we've thoroughly domesticated the Gospel in order to control it. Domesticated it in the sense that the church has taken what is, in truth, a call to a very radical, counter-cultural way of living and emasculated it (forgive the sexist overtones) into a sappy, syrupy behavioral to-do list of suggested behaviors (often masquerading as "spiritual disciplines") from which we pick and choose those we can integrate into our daily lives with minimal discomfort and upset.
No wonder, then, that our understanding of disciples and discipleship is...well, let's just say it's something that any close reading of the Gospels and Acts makes clear is a good deal less than Jesus intended. Which goes a long way towards explaining why the church, on so many fronts, is in the mess it's in today (WorldVision's Richard Stearns nails this).
So: the challenge for all churches, missional or otherwise, is to discern and teach biblical, Jesus-driven discipleship. Given the plethora of off-the-shelf, out-of-the-box discipleship programs available, it shouldn't be so. Except that that's precisely the problem: we approach discipleship as a program. Discipleship isn't a program. It's a way of life. It isn't a series of books or classes, a 12-step program or a seminar. It isn't a set of behaviors that can be integrated into our already-living daily lives. Our worldview cannot shape our discipleship. Our discipleship must shape our worldview.
This is not to say behaviors aren't important. Paul makes that clear enough. Nor is it to say that any efforts invested in learning more about discipleship are wasted. It's simply to say that we can't get there from here. Centuries of domesticated Gospel and discipleship-as-program have gotten us where? Discipleship is what Jesus has always told us it is: we die to ourselves (and to the world, with all that means) to live for Him. Reading Scripture and studying and practicing spiritual disciplines can be aids to the journey but they cannot be the journey itself.
The day we quit talking about programming and polity and ministries and mission--quit, in fact, talking about church because, after all, Jesus himself promised us that he'd take care of that--and, day-in-, day-out begin living for Christ and the Kingdom, is the day we truly begin to become disciples. That, in itself, won't immediately solve the challenge of producing disciples who produce disciples, but it is, I believe, the absolutely necessary pre-condition for such producing and reproducing to begin.
Wednesday, June 19, 2013
Thursday, June 6, 2013
If You Want People to Follow You, They Have to Know You Care
More than one book has been penned (well, key-stroked) about Leadership Principles According to Jesus. I've never been entirely comfortable with the everything-you-need-to-know-you-can-find-in-Scripture school of Christianity. Most of what you need to know, certainly. All the really important stuff you need to know, absolutely. But everything? Biblical truth transcends time and place, but I'm not sure even Jesus would claim that the Gospel narratives of his earthly ministry provide a leadership textbook for the 21st century.
But...even if Jesus doesn't tell us everything, that doesn't mean we shouldn't practice everything Jesus tells us. I'm thinking of one Leadership Principle in particular: If you want people to follow you, they have to know you care about them.
Jesus calls his disciples, they drop literally everything to follow him. Sure this is Jesus we're talking about. Being the Messiah does give your call street cred that your average run-of-the-mill ministry opportunity doesn't have. And Jesus undoubtedly had a charisma (fully human yet fully divine) that pretty much immediately banished any second thoughts his disciples had about answering the call. But, for all that, Jesus was relentless in communicating through words and actions not only that he cared for those who followed him, not only did he love them, but he was willing to die for them--even when they had no idea what he was talking about when he spoke of what awaited him on that hill outside Jerusalem.
"A new commandment I give you...love one another as I have loved you." That would've made no sense apart from Jesus' manifold efforts at compassion and caring for his followers...caring that went way beyond saying, "I care about you" or "I love you," though Jesus undoubtedly said that often enough. Jesus cared enough about his followers to invest time in them, to teach them (over and over in the face of their thick-headedness), to warn them, to heal them, to tell them the truth that following him would mean rejection and suffering and daily shouldering their own cross. And for all who said, "this is too hard," and turned back, we know of the relative handful who stayed and followed and, ultimately, understood...a handful that grew into a few hundred, a few thousand, a few million, tens of millions, hundreds of millions. And that relative handful: they followed because Jesus was the Messiah, was charismatic, because he was the Way to life. But they followed, too--in fact, until they did figure him out, probably followed mostly because--Jesus cared about them in profound and extraordinary ways, and they knew it.
I don't know anybody (OK, hardly anybody) who answers the call to ministry for the paycheck. Most churches don't have the resources to pay people enough to do the work. It's too hard, too costly. People do the work because they are called and they can't not do it. And they follow a leader because they buy into the vision and believe in the mission but, most of all, I think, because they know the leader cares about them. In my experience, at least, people will not follow someone they think doesn't care about them no matter how compelling the vision or urgent the mission. They don't expect the leader to die for them, but they do expect the leader, through words and actions to say to them in healthy, appropriate ways, I care about you.
But...even if Jesus doesn't tell us everything, that doesn't mean we shouldn't practice everything Jesus tells us. I'm thinking of one Leadership Principle in particular: If you want people to follow you, they have to know you care about them.
Jesus calls his disciples, they drop literally everything to follow him. Sure this is Jesus we're talking about. Being the Messiah does give your call street cred that your average run-of-the-mill ministry opportunity doesn't have. And Jesus undoubtedly had a charisma (fully human yet fully divine) that pretty much immediately banished any second thoughts his disciples had about answering the call. But, for all that, Jesus was relentless in communicating through words and actions not only that he cared for those who followed him, not only did he love them, but he was willing to die for them--even when they had no idea what he was talking about when he spoke of what awaited him on that hill outside Jerusalem.
"A new commandment I give you...love one another as I have loved you." That would've made no sense apart from Jesus' manifold efforts at compassion and caring for his followers...caring that went way beyond saying, "I care about you" or "I love you," though Jesus undoubtedly said that often enough. Jesus cared enough about his followers to invest time in them, to teach them (over and over in the face of their thick-headedness), to warn them, to heal them, to tell them the truth that following him would mean rejection and suffering and daily shouldering their own cross. And for all who said, "this is too hard," and turned back, we know of the relative handful who stayed and followed and, ultimately, understood...a handful that grew into a few hundred, a few thousand, a few million, tens of millions, hundreds of millions. And that relative handful: they followed because Jesus was the Messiah, was charismatic, because he was the Way to life. But they followed, too--in fact, until they did figure him out, probably followed mostly because--Jesus cared about them in profound and extraordinary ways, and they knew it.
I don't know anybody (OK, hardly anybody) who answers the call to ministry for the paycheck. Most churches don't have the resources to pay people enough to do the work. It's too hard, too costly. People do the work because they are called and they can't not do it. And they follow a leader because they buy into the vision and believe in the mission but, most of all, I think, because they know the leader cares about them. In my experience, at least, people will not follow someone they think doesn't care about them no matter how compelling the vision or urgent the mission. They don't expect the leader to die for them, but they do expect the leader, through words and actions to say to them in healthy, appropriate ways, I care about you.
Thursday, May 30, 2013
Jesus and the "C" Word
There is that dreaded "c" word: change. And the reality that change--these days, exponential change--is the norm. And the reality that the church is not immune. And the reality that as the church (especially traditional mainline congregations) now comes to grips with what that change must be, comes to grips that the choice not to change is in fact no choice at all, church leaders necessarily become change agents.
If change ain't always pretty, being a change agent can be downright butt-ugly.
Change is hard. Leading change harder still. I've been doing a lot of reading in Luke lately, though, and--duh--have been smacked in the face again and again that the ultimate change agent was Jesus Christ. In the sense that we can divide human history into pre- and post-Jesus, yes. In terms of redemption and salvation, of being restored to right relationship with the Creator, absolutely. In preaching Kingdom ethics that turn the ways of the world on their collective head, of course.
But Jesus was the ultimate change agent in another way as well--a way that speaks directly to the challenge of leading change in the mainline church. Jesus' sabbath-was-made-for-man-man-wasn't-made-for-the-sabbath message in all its manifestations pitted him squarely against an understanding of being church as entrenched, codified, and stratified as any mainline denomination today, posing a threat so severe the only response Church People of the day could muster was kill him.
And in the face of that, Jesus' response was instructive:
If change ain't always pretty, being a change agent can be downright butt-ugly.
Change is hard. Leading change harder still. I've been doing a lot of reading in Luke lately, though, and--duh--have been smacked in the face again and again that the ultimate change agent was Jesus Christ. In the sense that we can divide human history into pre- and post-Jesus, yes. In terms of redemption and salvation, of being restored to right relationship with the Creator, absolutely. In preaching Kingdom ethics that turn the ways of the world on their collective head, of course.
But Jesus was the ultimate change agent in another way as well--a way that speaks directly to the challenge of leading change in the mainline church. Jesus' sabbath-was-made-for-man-man-wasn't-made-for-the-sabbath message in all its manifestations pitted him squarely against an understanding of being church as entrenched, codified, and stratified as any mainline denomination today, posing a threat so severe the only response Church People of the day could muster was kill him.
And in the face of that, Jesus' response was instructive:
- remain faithful to the call God had placed on his life
- speak the truth in love
- have compassion for those who didn't get it
- focus the majority of his personal attention on discipling those who did
In all the resistance to change I've ever encountered, I'm aware of no plots to kill me--yet. But Jesus' response strikes me as the template for helping to lead change. Anywhere, but especially in the church. Faithfulness. Truth. Compassion. Focus.
What does your experience leading change tell you about Jesus' experience leading change?
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
Rethinking the Dog and Pony Show
The connective tissue is ripping.
Many mainline denomination congregations think "connectional," as in "connectional church," as in we are not stand-alone congregations but, collectively, part of a bigger body. And in said bigger body--the so-called "middle judicatories" which, for Presbyterians, are synods and presbyteries--we are called to do much of our work. What happens, then, when such connective tissue, pulled apart, no longer holds?
It's a question being asked across denominations. In the case of the presbytery to which I and the church I pastor belong, the tissue is ripping rapidly. The three largest congregations in the presbytery are all withholding financial support of the presbytery itself while they discern whether or not to remain in the denomination. These three, between them, account for 40% of the presbytery budget. The presbytery can't withstand a 40% cut in revenue and remain the kind of presbytery it's been. The presbytery exec (seeing the handwriting on the wall?) has resigned. Remaining churches are scrambling.
Middle judicatories have important work to do. Indeed, in the Presbyterian Church (USA), much of the real power in the denomination resides in presbyteries. So ripping here is painful.
But it also can be rejuvenating. If, as I believe, Christian churches are being called to a new Reformation, leaving Christendom behind for a renewed embrace of the Missio Dei, of Christ and his kingdom, then the recasting of traditional, attractional church in missional/incarnational forms necessarily must extend to things like synods and presbyteries. In other words, we have an incredible opportunity to re-think the role of middle judicatories, returning them to what they were always intended be--agents for facilitating ministry, mission, and outreach.
With that in mind, what follows are some suggestions for changing presbyteries. I'm thinking in terms of the Presbyterian church because that's where I hang my hat. Change the nomenclature, though, and I suspect the suggestions can work elsewhere...or at least spark some conversation.
Many mainline denomination congregations think "connectional," as in "connectional church," as in we are not stand-alone congregations but, collectively, part of a bigger body. And in said bigger body--the so-called "middle judicatories" which, for Presbyterians, are synods and presbyteries--we are called to do much of our work. What happens, then, when such connective tissue, pulled apart, no longer holds?
It's a question being asked across denominations. In the case of the presbytery to which I and the church I pastor belong, the tissue is ripping rapidly. The three largest congregations in the presbytery are all withholding financial support of the presbytery itself while they discern whether or not to remain in the denomination. These three, between them, account for 40% of the presbytery budget. The presbytery can't withstand a 40% cut in revenue and remain the kind of presbytery it's been. The presbytery exec (seeing the handwriting on the wall?) has resigned. Remaining churches are scrambling.
Middle judicatories have important work to do. Indeed, in the Presbyterian Church (USA), much of the real power in the denomination resides in presbyteries. So ripping here is painful.
But it also can be rejuvenating. If, as I believe, Christian churches are being called to a new Reformation, leaving Christendom behind for a renewed embrace of the Missio Dei, of Christ and his kingdom, then the recasting of traditional, attractional church in missional/incarnational forms necessarily must extend to things like synods and presbyteries. In other words, we have an incredible opportunity to re-think the role of middle judicatories, returning them to what they were always intended be--agents for facilitating ministry, mission, and outreach.
With that in mind, what follows are some suggestions for changing presbyteries. I'm thinking in terms of the Presbyterian church because that's where I hang my hat. Change the nomenclature, though, and I suspect the suggestions can work elsewhere...or at least spark some conversation.
- Refocus presbyteries on building the Kingdom, not maintaining the presbytery. Put another way, our first allegiance is to Jesus Christ, not an administrative structure. Many presbyteries are top-heavy with committees and policies which exist primarily to maintain the presbytery. So...
- Limit presbytery committees to only those doing work only the presbytery can do. In the PCUSA, that would mean the Committee on Ministry, Committee on Preparation for Ministry, and Mission (understood as connecting congregations to do mission together that congregations cannot do alone). This would then allow us to...
- Limit presbytery meetings in quantity and duration. The presbytery of which I'm a member meets four times a year. That's nuts. Twice a year is enough, three times at most. And keep the meetings to three hours. Multinational corporations are run via meetings shorter than that--why not presbyteries? Partly this is good stewardship of time and resources. Forbid the dog-and-pony shows of every committee and ministry in the presbytery getting up and reading what's in their written reports. And partly it's common sense: meet twice a year for three hours of solid accomplishments, attendance (and participation) at meetings will go up. Guaranteed.
- Presbyteries should be agents of change as much as agents of preservation. Presbyteries have the responsibility to take care of business and much of that business involves preserving and maintaining approaches to church rooted in tradition. But as church membership statistics constantly remind us, we must change. Change is scary and we frequently don't know how to do it. There is no entity better situated to bring frightened congregations together to discern and facilitate change than presbyteries.
What suggestions would you make from your own experience with middle judicatories?
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
Missional Discipleship Practices, 7: Kingdom-Focused
Where’s your focus?
If life is going to be something more than a go-through-the-motions, tread-water, maintain-a-daily-existence kind of endeavor, it has to have a focus. And the focus itself has to be the consequence of intentional choice. True enough: choosing not to have a focus—I’ll just continue to go through the motions, thank you very much—is a focus…of sorts. But there should be more to life than just living. There should be meaning. And meaning requires focus.
That said, you can focus your life in all sorts of ways, on all kinds of things—collectively, referred to as “things of this world.” It’s what the world teaches: focus on money, job, status, stuff. It’s what I meant when I wrote about live small, the very first of the discipleship practices. And let’s be clear: money, status, and stuff are not necessarily bad things to focus on providing such focus is in service to something bigger than ourselves…providing, that is, money, status, and stuff are not the primary, the most important focus of our lives. Discipleship needn’t be a call to scarcity.
Following Jesus—if we’re really to take this seriously—demands that the primary, most important focus of our lives is the Kingdom. Not the church. The Kingdom. Which is to say that the focus of our lives is to be living in such a way that what we do and who we are bears witness to the values and ethics and understandings God desires for all God’s children. That’s the point of all these discipleship practices, to direct us toward living not for a paycheck or a party but for something bigger, something, if you will, higher. The higher purposes of the Kingdom.
What, exactly, are the higher purposes of the Kingdom? Let me suggest five:
• Lordship of Christ—acknowledging that because Jesus is over all things, we are to follow Jesus in all things; we cannot be what we cannot see so, in knowing the life of Jesus, we know what it means to be a follower of Jesus
• love of God, love of neighbor—“Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and strength” Scripture tells us, to which Jesus added, “And your neighbor as yourself,” summarizing what is most important for us to do
• humility—it’s not about you because you don’t belong to you, you belong to Jesus who bought you at a price and calls you to be a vehicle by which others can come to know the love of Christ
• mercy—in a broken world, reaching out to and coming along side people to aid them in their suffering
• justice—working in the ways of Jesus to bring about the love of Jesus, that the shalom God desires for all people can be manifest
It’s no coincidence that, one way or another, each of the discipleship practices I’ve written about are implicit in these higher purposes of the Kingdom because the goal of discipleship is a Kingdom-focused life.
Some Scripture: Deuteronomy 6:5
Matthew 22:34-40
Philippians 2:6-11
If life is going to be something more than a go-through-the-motions, tread-water, maintain-a-daily-existence kind of endeavor, it has to have a focus. And the focus itself has to be the consequence of intentional choice. True enough: choosing not to have a focus—I’ll just continue to go through the motions, thank you very much—is a focus…of sorts. But there should be more to life than just living. There should be meaning. And meaning requires focus.
That said, you can focus your life in all sorts of ways, on all kinds of things—collectively, referred to as “things of this world.” It’s what the world teaches: focus on money, job, status, stuff. It’s what I meant when I wrote about live small, the very first of the discipleship practices. And let’s be clear: money, status, and stuff are not necessarily bad things to focus on providing such focus is in service to something bigger than ourselves…providing, that is, money, status, and stuff are not the primary, the most important focus of our lives. Discipleship needn’t be a call to scarcity.
Following Jesus—if we’re really to take this seriously—demands that the primary, most important focus of our lives is the Kingdom. Not the church. The Kingdom. Which is to say that the focus of our lives is to be living in such a way that what we do and who we are bears witness to the values and ethics and understandings God desires for all God’s children. That’s the point of all these discipleship practices, to direct us toward living not for a paycheck or a party but for something bigger, something, if you will, higher. The higher purposes of the Kingdom.
What, exactly, are the higher purposes of the Kingdom? Let me suggest five:
• Lordship of Christ—acknowledging that because Jesus is over all things, we are to follow Jesus in all things; we cannot be what we cannot see so, in knowing the life of Jesus, we know what it means to be a follower of Jesus
• love of God, love of neighbor—“Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and strength” Scripture tells us, to which Jesus added, “And your neighbor as yourself,” summarizing what is most important for us to do
• humility—it’s not about you because you don’t belong to you, you belong to Jesus who bought you at a price and calls you to be a vehicle by which others can come to know the love of Christ
• mercy—in a broken world, reaching out to and coming along side people to aid them in their suffering
• justice—working in the ways of Jesus to bring about the love of Jesus, that the shalom God desires for all people can be manifest
It’s no coincidence that, one way or another, each of the discipleship practices I’ve written about are implicit in these higher purposes of the Kingdom because the goal of discipleship is a Kingdom-focused life.
Some Scripture: Deuteronomy 6:5
Matthew 22:34-40
Philippians 2:6-11
Thursday, September 13, 2012
Missional Discipleship Practices, 6: Worship
As with prayer, we tend to make worship difficult. And, as with prayer, it isn’t. Or shouldn’t be.
We think worship we tend to think sanctuary and liturgy and pastors or priests, as if worship can only be done rightly in special places, in special ways, led by special people. There’s no doubt that services of worship, organized according to liturgies that include confessions and prayers and hymns and sacraments that we know and have meaning, held in sacred places set apart for such a purpose and led by people who, through their training and insight, make the services meaningful in ways they otherwise might not be, are a blessing.
Yet it’s also true that one person, alone, anywhere, anytime can worship God. Because it isn’t the time or the place or the leadership that makes worship. It’s the presence of Jesus Christ. And as Scripture itself reminds us in stories of people worshiping in tents and caves and prisons and mountaintops, Jesus is everywhere.
Wherever, whenever, however we proactively acknowledge we are in Christ’s presence to worship, certain basic realities of worship don’t change:
• In worship, we acknowledge the presence of God in the world and in our lives. This, in fact, is one of the most important professions we can make.
• In worship we are nurtured and renewed by the Word, the Sacraments, by prayer and the opportunity to give thanks. Indeed, most worship is an act of thanksgiving to the God who gives and sustains our lives.
• In worship we are reminded, even when we worship alone, that we are members of a much larger community—followers of Jesus who are doing the best they can to follow faithfully. And for all the gifts of worshiping alone, there is a greater gift of the synergy that arises when worshiping with others.
• In worship we are renewed to be sent out into the world as ambassadors of Christ. As with so much else when we follow Jesus, worship, for all its gifts to us as individuals, is always in service to something bigger than ourselves.
Some Scripture: Exodus 27:21
Acts 16:25
We think worship we tend to think sanctuary and liturgy and pastors or priests, as if worship can only be done rightly in special places, in special ways, led by special people. There’s no doubt that services of worship, organized according to liturgies that include confessions and prayers and hymns and sacraments that we know and have meaning, held in sacred places set apart for such a purpose and led by people who, through their training and insight, make the services meaningful in ways they otherwise might not be, are a blessing.
Yet it’s also true that one person, alone, anywhere, anytime can worship God. Because it isn’t the time or the place or the leadership that makes worship. It’s the presence of Jesus Christ. And as Scripture itself reminds us in stories of people worshiping in tents and caves and prisons and mountaintops, Jesus is everywhere.
Wherever, whenever, however we proactively acknowledge we are in Christ’s presence to worship, certain basic realities of worship don’t change:
• In worship, we acknowledge the presence of God in the world and in our lives. This, in fact, is one of the most important professions we can make.
• In worship we are nurtured and renewed by the Word, the Sacraments, by prayer and the opportunity to give thanks. Indeed, most worship is an act of thanksgiving to the God who gives and sustains our lives.
• In worship we are reminded, even when we worship alone, that we are members of a much larger community—followers of Jesus who are doing the best they can to follow faithfully. And for all the gifts of worshiping alone, there is a greater gift of the synergy that arises when worshiping with others.
• In worship we are renewed to be sent out into the world as ambassadors of Christ. As with so much else when we follow Jesus, worship, for all its gifts to us as individuals, is always in service to something bigger than ourselves.
Some Scripture: Exodus 27:21
Acts 16:25
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Missional Discipleship Practices, 5: Prayer
We make prayer so difficult. It isn’t. Really.
But, first, we have to get past the idea that proper prayer means saying the proper words in the proper way at the proper time, otherwise God won’t listen. Prayer, at its most basic, is simply talking and listening to God, no more, no less.
Consider this: a God who, by definition, is all-knowing, already knows what’s in our hearts and minds. We don’t have to give voice to our prayers for God to hear them. Which means that “proper” doesn’t enter into it: God will hear our prayers however, wherever, whenever they’re said. I’d even go so far as to say that prayer is less important for what we say and how we say it than it is for what the act of praying says about our faith—that we acknowledge God as the source of our help and salvation, that we turn to and trust in God above all others (including ourselves), that we recognize a God still active in the world is, through the work and power of the Holy Spirit, active in our lives, using for good whatever befalls us.
None of which is to say that we should pray carelessly or only to further our own agendas. The fact “proper” doesn’t enter into it doesn’t mean we can talk to God the way we would a telemarketer…or an employee. We can certainly be angry at God, praying angry prayers…and we can pray frightened prayers and lonely prayers and how-dare-you prayers. The Psalms—Scripture’s prayer book—is full of such prayers. As it is joyful prayers, worshipful prayers, prayers of thanksgiving and outright awe…also appropriate prayers to pray. However we pray, God is big enough to take it.
But prayer, equally, is about listening. If you’re like me, the biggest challenge in praying is to stop talking. I tend to treat God like God’s taking dictation: I speak my laundry list of concerns, God makes notes, then gets to work on my behalf. If, however, God knows what’s in my heart before I say it, my words are far less important than God’s answer. Which means listening, but listening not just with my ears. I may talk but God frequently answers my prayers in ways that don’t involve words at all: they involve other people, they involve experiences, they involve feelings. Understand “listening,” then, as “openness”…openness to all that is around you because God will answer your prayers as God chooses, how God chooses, when and where God chooses.
So, prayer in the life of a Jesus follower—not about “proper” but about this: faith that God alone is the answer…trust that God will answer…openness to how God will answer…patience for when God will answer…conviction to embrace and live out God’s answer.
Some Scripture: Psalm 5
Matthew 6:5-15
Romans 8:26-27
But, first, we have to get past the idea that proper prayer means saying the proper words in the proper way at the proper time, otherwise God won’t listen. Prayer, at its most basic, is simply talking and listening to God, no more, no less.
Consider this: a God who, by definition, is all-knowing, already knows what’s in our hearts and minds. We don’t have to give voice to our prayers for God to hear them. Which means that “proper” doesn’t enter into it: God will hear our prayers however, wherever, whenever they’re said. I’d even go so far as to say that prayer is less important for what we say and how we say it than it is for what the act of praying says about our faith—that we acknowledge God as the source of our help and salvation, that we turn to and trust in God above all others (including ourselves), that we recognize a God still active in the world is, through the work and power of the Holy Spirit, active in our lives, using for good whatever befalls us.
None of which is to say that we should pray carelessly or only to further our own agendas. The fact “proper” doesn’t enter into it doesn’t mean we can talk to God the way we would a telemarketer…or an employee. We can certainly be angry at God, praying angry prayers…and we can pray frightened prayers and lonely prayers and how-dare-you prayers. The Psalms—Scripture’s prayer book—is full of such prayers. As it is joyful prayers, worshipful prayers, prayers of thanksgiving and outright awe…also appropriate prayers to pray. However we pray, God is big enough to take it.
But prayer, equally, is about listening. If you’re like me, the biggest challenge in praying is to stop talking. I tend to treat God like God’s taking dictation: I speak my laundry list of concerns, God makes notes, then gets to work on my behalf. If, however, God knows what’s in my heart before I say it, my words are far less important than God’s answer. Which means listening, but listening not just with my ears. I may talk but God frequently answers my prayers in ways that don’t involve words at all: they involve other people, they involve experiences, they involve feelings. Understand “listening,” then, as “openness”…openness to all that is around you because God will answer your prayers as God chooses, how God chooses, when and where God chooses.
So, prayer in the life of a Jesus follower—not about “proper” but about this: faith that God alone is the answer…trust that God will answer…openness to how God will answer…patience for when God will answer…conviction to embrace and live out God’s answer.
Some Scripture: Psalm 5
Matthew 6:5-15
Romans 8:26-27
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