Making prayer part of the fabric of our church culture.
Chadron Bible Church Podcast
Core Value: Prayer
(upbeat music) - Well hello and welcome to the "Shadron Furion Church" podcast. This is Pastor Justin here. I have a brief message for us. This week on one of our core values. Our core value this month is prayer. And I wanted to talk about it before the month is over. However, first I wanna remind us of what we're talking about when we're talking about a core value. A core value is something that we wanna make part of the fabric of our church's culture. Every church has a culture and we wanna be known as a praying church. We are known as individuals who pray. We are a church that prays together corporately. We pray for each other, you know, when you come through our doors. It's not surprising to see two, three people praying. People praying for one another before the service, after the service, that sort of thing. My personal thoughts on prayer this year have been very relaxed and maybe that helps you. I think a lot of people, just the thought of prayer being something relaxing might help some folks who might fear praying out louder with others. I can totally relate to that. By God's grace, God has helped me with that over time. I'm not so shy about praying out loud the more that I have done it. But what I mean when I talk about my thoughts on prayer being relaxed is that just prayer at its most basic sense is simply talking to God. It's communicating with God in the inner man. Really, it's the actual and constant flow of communication between us and God. The Apostle Paul said in 1 Thessalonians 5, 17, we are to pray without ceasing. Now, does that mean we need to be on our knees every moment of every day with our hands folded, our head bowed and our eyes closed? Not at all. This what he's talking about here is that all throughout our day, we're living with an awareness of him being with us and we're talking to him about the things that are going on in our day. We're just doing life with God by our side and in our hearts, we're sharing life with him and him with us. So it reminds me of the evening walks that my wife and I frequently go on. My wife and I, no matter where we live, we just, we love to go on walks in the evening and since we live close to the state park, we enjoy walking over there. It's just, it's a, it's beautiful place to walk together, but it creates a natural space for us, just walking together, creates a natural space for us to talk about the things of life and to talk about how our day went. We have some of our best conversations while simply walking together side by side and that's what walking with God is all about. We're just doing life together, talking with one another. That is our walk with God. So recently I had someone ask me what I think about using things like prayer beads or prayer acronyms to give more structure or routine to our prayers. The degree of my response would depend upon the exact nature of those elements, but I tend to avoid such things. And most definitely some of those things, you know? God, you know, God's a person and I think he wants to hear communication from the heart like we do in our relationships with others. You know, we don't want people to treat us like impersonal beings who must respond in a pre-programmed cause and affect way. You know, I think too that God wants our souls just to open up before him and unfold before him like any intimate relationship would. The relationship just grows deeper and deeper over time as we talk to each other about our hopes and dreams and fears and struggles, the things of life, and then walk through those things together like a married couple. And so that being said, I think the structured elements in prayer can, I'm not saying like Jesus didn't give us a pattern for prayer or anything like that at times, but you know, some of those really structured elements can just turn a relationship with God into something religious. It can turn it into a religious work and it can be really unrelational. I think it can actually make God out to be a genie who must turn left. You know, every time we expect him to turn left, and he'll turn right every time we expect him to turn right if we just say the right things or do the right things. And in reality, you know, God often turns left when I expect him to turn right. He turns right when I expect him to turn left. And so God is just no tameable genie like that. And Jesus warned in Matthew six, five and seven about, you know, treating prayer in that sort of manners if like, if I just repeat this this way or this many times, then God will answer me. That he said that's pagan religious stuff. He said, don't have anything to do with that. In my experience, my best praying doesn't happen, you know, with a list or an acronym or even a specific posture. It's something that comes from the heart when I let out really what's going on inside of me. And what's really weighing me down, my cares, my concerns, whatever. My best prayer happens when I, you know, I don't pretend to be something I'm not before God. Just authentic and humbled before him. I refuse to be fake and instead admit my sins, admit my struggles and just give everything over to him including myself. And sometimes that happens daily or like God, not just daily, but many times a day. But as a new believer, I remember looking down on someone who was praying with their eyes open, their hands unfolded, they were in a very relaxed, unconcerned posture in this setting. And I looked down on them until I read a scripture where Jesus gave thanks at the feeding of the 5,000. And when Jesus gave thanks, he didn't fold his hands, he didn't close his eyes and bow his head. He actually had his eyes open and he looked up towards heaven and faith. So just that, I guess that sort of stripped away my legalism in that area. But quite often when I pray, I'm sitting in my recliner or I'm on the porch with a cup of coffee or a cold drink like, I don't know, some sort of tea sitting on the porch and I'm just talking to God. And or I'm at a picnic table in the park or I'm at an empty pew in the back of the church in the middle of the week or I'm on a walk or I'm on a hike and my eyes usually just aren't shut. And if I'm praying while I'm still, I may have a pen handy because I'm unpacking things and I'm weighing down my soul, unpacking the things that are weighing down my soul and I'm just giving them to God. I'm processing life with God and dreaming about the future, that sort of thing. And so a pencil and a journal can actually help me be very authentic and transparent and prayer. I had one Bible school instructor who seemed to like to walk around in circles around an empty second-story classroom. It was a large classroom and just kind of walk around the desks there, but he would walk around and pray. And the reason I know that is because I asked somebody what the sound was from the library, right? The library was on the first story of that old creaky building, the classroom. He prayed and was on the second story. But so when it comes to prayer at the end of the day, let's just let it be authentic. Let's let it be from the heart genuine communication with a relational God. Let's embrace that, let's embody that authentic prayer together and make it part of the culture of our church's fabric. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)