Southside Baptist Church, Athens, AL

1. This practice has conditioned believers to think that prayer is merely bringing a list of needs and/or wants to God.  Many seem to not know how to pray or what to pray without first being provided a list of requests.  Often, even when the list is provided, the person asked to "voice our prayer" will say something like, "We lift up all those requests that have been mentioned..."  I'm not really sure what that even means.  Unless it means, "I don't remember anything that was said by anybody, and my heart has not been moved to fervently prayer for these needs, but since I was called upon to pray, Lord, you have heard the requests so I feel no need to reiterate them to you as if you were not paying attention earlier (as I was not)."  Now don't get me wrong; disciplined intercessory prayer is necessary, and lists are helpful in the practice of that discipline, but we cannot allow the lists alone to define our prayers.


2. This practice has conditioned believers to think that prayer is always in third person and usually regarding health.  It's unavoidable; you ask for prayer requests, and you get a list of other people's medical needs.  Has God become to us "The Great Physician" and nothing else?  This may explain why the person asked to "voice the prayer" doesn't know how to pray for the requests given; He doesn't know the people he's been asked to pray for, and he doesn't really understand the medical condition.  Only in one place in Scripture (that I have found) are we commanded to bring the sick before the Elders and to pray for them (James 5).  With that said, it is Biblical to bring medical requests to the church for prayer, but health needs should not be the vast majority of requests.  Believers should be asking other believers to pray with them in first person for their own personal needs, their own struggles even their own repentance so that we can encourage, edify and hold accountable one another.  And our third person requests should be filled with the names of people who need to hear the Gospel rather than those who need to go to the doctor.


3. This practice has conditioned believers to neglect the relational aspect of prayer.  Oh how I long for a depth of intimacy with Christ in which I share openly with Him my thoughts, emotions and desires even when those may be sinful so that He may work repentance in my heart.  We have many examples of this in Scripture.  Believers should learn from those examples.  The problem is that the church has been teaching by example, and that example has been weak.  The young believer learns from this practice that the private prayer life is one of intercessory prayer alone, that confession has no place in prayer, that key phrases like "lead, guide and direct" are real spiritual, that one cannot speak to God in a normal voice or speech pattern, etc.  The believer who follows this example in private prayer never develops any depth of intimacy with Christ.


4. This practice has conditioned believers to think that the more people praying for a particular thing, the more God is apt to respond.  This approach treats God like the City Council or some other political body.  If a lot of people show up, politicians are forced to respond.  So, it is assumed that if a lot of people are praying, God will respond.  But Scripture is full of individuals praying for whole nations rather than whole nations praying for an individual.  The prayer of a single righteous man "can accomplish much."  Let us not forget that whether one or one-hundred pray, it is the same, sovereign and almighty God listening, and He is not influenced by the majority.

I vent this frustration in the hope that here at Southside we will be more and more faithful to pray honestly unto God and meaningfully for one another.  Let us pray for the sick, yes, but let us all the more pray for the lost, pray for our own repentance and genuinely express our hearts in relationship with Christ.  Lord, teach us to pray.