3.5% Rule | Song: Mother's Prayer |
Friends,
I love Joel 2:28. I really believe in this idea that God's spirit pours out on all people. I imagine a crowd of people all filled and speaking. Perhaps this is where people who speak in tongues get their motivation. The lectionary pairs this with Luke 18:9-14, thus implying that the spirit might be on everyone, but we are to express that "full of the spirit" feeling in private.
But public prayer has a place when it is not haughty and performative. Public prayer is a witness to other's needs. We should do more of it.
-Liz
Create a Prayer Space
I've been a member of my home church for several years, but when I was serving as pastor elsewhere I never attended. Like, really, never. Don't tell anyone, but when I was off from work I didn't want to go to church.
But now I'm pleased to be part of the church in the town where I live.
This past Sunday, a man I don't know gave thanks for all of our prayers over the past months, and years. He felt the situation was desperate, and now it is resolved. His feelings poured out, over-the-top thankfulness, gratefulness, praise.
Sometimes these outpourings make me uncomfortable. I do not believe in a God that is waiting for the proper number of requests, or testing our faithfulness, or even deciding who is healed and who is not. The people who are not healed are relevant and important in our theology of prayer. And I know a lot of them.
But once I get over my theological-correctness I can see that what this father was saying was that he knew this congregation had stuck with him. He recognized that our prayers were not magic cures but rather promises that we too cared about the outcome. We, individually and all together, cared about him. I don't know his theology, but for me, there is God out there, but there is also God in all of us. So what he felt was the God in each of us touching the God in him. And in the loved one the congregation had prayed for.
As is common in so many difficult situations, the "resolution" to his problem was not a miraculous 180º turn-around. Resolution is often peace, comfort, information, acceptance. In this case he was offering over-the-top thankfulness for a small progress where none seemed possible.
In our society public prayer is counter-cultural. It is the insistence that we are all together in this, and that each person's problems belong to all of us. No one is alone. I've talked in many posts about direct service ministry, providing people who are poor the material resources that they need. A useful addition to these ministries is to add a prayer room, or corner, or couch, or a pair of chairs, available at the time of your give-away program.
It turns out that people think churches are places that you can prayer. Places where our prayers will be heard. And so I suggest we find a way to listen to people's prayers.
A prayer space is a comfortable, semi-private room or nook where someone who is comfortable with listening to others listens, and then offers prayer. It is best to offer cozy chairs, with room for three or four people. This allows the person requesting prayer to sit a bit separate from your prayer-volunteer if they want to. That said, I've seen prayer space that is a four folding chairs in the hall. Start with what you've got.
The best volunteers for this are people who are comfortable helping others to tell their story. They are really curious about others. If you don't have immediate volunteers, arrange a practice session for people to try it out. Many will find this work rewarding and not very difficult.
The point of this practice is to get comfortable encourage the other person to keep talking. Ask what happened, and how they are feeling about it. Use active listening: non-verbal feed back and agreements that help the story move along. Eye contact, nodding, leaning in, non-committal noises. Use ummm, uh-huh, yes, and "say more" to communicate you are paying attention.
Mirroring is a useful technique where you repeating a phrase or sentence that seems important. If you are confused, repeat it as a question: "you went inside?" If it is clear but important simply repeat it as a statement: "you went inside." Whatever you choose to repeat will become important to the speaker, so be careful not to lead them on a tangent. This sounds awkward, and may be so when you practice, but once you start paying attention you'll see that humans use this in all sorts of conversations.
You can also mirror emotions. The story likely hints at some emotions, and by stating your guess (as a question!) you can get to some depth. "Were you angry?" or "Is that frustrating?" or "Did that make you sad?" In my experience most will adjust or correct what you offer: "I wasn't angry, I was livid!" Sometimes you will get it completely wrong: "Sad? I felt numb, and then later I realized I was mad." All of these are effective ways to help the story teller get at what they are feeling.
Eventually, perhaps twenty minutes in, you need to get to the end of the storytelling and ask what prayer they would like to say. Don't guess at this! It might be directly related to the story you heard, it might be something else entirely. Some people will have a little more story to go with the request.
And then close out your session by praying! Hold hands if you know the person, or turn toward one another, or make prayer-hands and turn your face down. Sometimes I look directly in the person's eyes. I suggest a moment of silence, but know that some will fill that silence by beginning their own prayer. That's okay too.
Use as many of their words as you can. Remember to address your prayer to God, not to the story-teller. This is not a time to teach them something they could have done better. Just pray for what they want.
If this sounds hard, I want to affirm that at the beginning it is. But as you get practice you'll find that it becomes natural. When you are in a prayer space, you don't have to worry that you are imposing anything on the person--they are here because they are longing for prayer.
You may be like me, and find out you like prayer more than you thought!.
What is going on with prayer at your church? Reply to this email to let me know what's happening.
I'm posting this before the No Kings protests, but you are reading it afterward. I assume it will be good to read an update on the 3.5% rule. The rule (which the article says is not a rule, it's a description) is that if you can get 3.5% of the population to speak up, you can make change. Read Erica Chenoweth's update here.
Connie Caldor is a Canadian singer-songwriter I love. Her Mother's Prayer is ten years old but highly relevant to today.
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