Boring, Awkward and Repulsive

Imagine you are the average attender of the church you lead. Mentally walk through all the weekly church programs, events, and gatherings that you would attend. As you do that walkthrough of the week, mentally consider all the times that you would experience prayer, and consider what that prayer experience would be like for you. Think especially through your worship gathering. How do you as the average attender experience prayer?

In Matthew 21:13, upon entering the temple and seeing those buying and selling there, Jesus quoted the prophets and said, “It is written, my house will be called a house of prayer, but you are making it a den of robbers.” Teachings on the passage typically focus on making sure that we are not turning our churches into a place where goods and services are trafficked in the foyer. Very rarely do I hear about the church needing to become a house of prayer, which is what Jesus was ultimately after.

In this article I define our act of prayer as “people posturing themselves to have communication and communion with God”. Communication and communion in prayer is multifaceted and 2-way; where we speak and listen, feel and sense, seek and discern. If Jesus wants His house to be a house of prayer, why do we spend so little time pursuing God through prayer together in our gatherings? If you grew up in a broadly evangelical American tradition like I did, prayer was often treated as a secondary activity of the church after worship music and preaching. Most of us probably grew up in churches that lacked imagination and creativity in curating corporate prayer experiences. It doesn’t have to be this way! Prayer can be just as engaging as worship music and preaching. Many of us have bought into at least 3 lies about prayer that need to be confronted so that we may once again create spaces for people to pursue and engage with God in prayer. We need to confront the lies that prayer is boring, prayer is awkward, and that prayer repels seekers.

Prayer is Boring

We all know that the most believed lies have a grain of truth to them. When someone is standing in front of a sanctuary dryly praying straight down the list of prayer requests, I often get bored. But that doesn’t mean that prayer is boring, just that certain prayer experiences can be boring. Boring prayer abounds when there is no opportunity for active participation. Whenever leading a prayer time ask, “How do I allow the greatest number of people to actively participate with God during this prayer time?” Answering this question will take some creativity and demand a level of risk.

In my experience leading group prayer experiences, the most important principle I have learned to gain active participation in prayer is to “turn the statement into a question”. For instance, consider praying for a missionary during the service. You could pray for them as a statement in front of the church and hope that the church is engaging through silent agreement. This is what most of us usually do. Instead, to gain active participation, turn that statement into a question and ASK THE PEOPLE to each pray for the missionary. Depending on the cultural context, this could be all out loud together, in a small group in the row where people are sitting, praying quietly individually in their own minds and hearts, or even through writing down the prayers for the missionary (If they write prayers down you could collect them and send them to the missionary. What a blessing that would be!). This kind of opportunity for active engagement makes prayer less boring because people are actively participating.

Prayer is Awkward

Again, the most believed lies have some truth to them. I would guess that we have all been in spaces where someone prays for someone in a way that makes us feel uncomfortable. Deep and lasting spiritual damage has been done to people in prayer gatherings. Yet does that mean that we should no longer have God’s people pray together? No, it means we must lead prayer in a way that allows for active participation and limits opportunity for awkwardness.

The first key to keep communal prayer from becoming awkward is to provide clear direction and communication about what is going to happen during the prayer time. Don’t leave the exercise open to interpretation of immature and unhealthy people. Make very clear who they should pray for, what they should pray about, and the method in which they should pray. For instance, “We are going to pray for our missionaries that God would open doors on the field and that God would protect their families. Take time with one or two people around you to pray out loud for this family”. The second key to keep communal prayer from becoming awkward is to limit the type of prayer you are asking people to engage in communally. Take for example prayer for physical healing. One practical reason that James instructs us to call the elders to pray for the sick is that immature believers can do real spiritual damage and create awkward experiences for people if they don’t have a mature faith where they know how to seek God for physical healing on behalf of another. A good practice is to limit prayer for healing to a time and a space where mature believers are present and can lead that time in a healthy way. Many churches already have this in practice. In each prayer experience, think through what you are asking people to pray for and make sure you don’t put others in a potentially awkward position.

Prayer Repels Seekers

I don’t know what to say about this other than it is a flat-out lie. People are seeking out all sorts of spiritual experiences. Read this article from the BBC about how people are seeking out psychedelic drug experiences, including the use of psychedelic drugs to try to enhance spiritual experiences. Pew research now says that almost half of our population report having some kind of mystical experience. People are actively seeking spiritual experiences, yet for some reason we think that offering active, participatory prayer experiences with the creator of the universe will repel them from our churches. When we offer opportunities for people to engage with God through prayer people are attracted to our gatherings and not repelled. In fact, these type of spiritual experiences might be the very thing they are looking for.

Think back to the mental inventory at the beginning of this article. To what degree are your prayer experiences shaped by the three lies in this article? What would change in your church if you began to allow people to actively participate in prayer to God together? How would the culture of your church shift? Might the prayers of the people start to form them in a deeper way to love God and serve Him fully? Leaders – you get to set the tone for your gatherings. Please lead your people in a way that gives them the opportunity to engage deeply with God. If you would like to talk further about brainstorming and creating prayer exercises for your church gatherings, please reach out and may God bless your continued innovation and creative seeking of His presence!

Kyle Magstadt

Associate Superintendent for
Church Multiplication