One of my favorite sports to play was volleyball. It was one sport where I felt like I might have been good enough to make a team. I was too ucoordinated for basketball, too skinny for football (true story). But I thought I was pretty good at not just jumping to block or spike, but also diving after balls.
Fast forward to a few weeks ago at the neighborhood picnic and there’s a volleyball net up. Janiece and I wandered out there with a couple others, and… there was no diving. If that ball was heading anywhere further than about three feet around me I wasn’t getting to it. And I certainly wasn’t skying up to slam the ball home on a spike.
We finally decided to get a beachball. It was easier to hit, and moved slower through the air, giving us more chances to hit it.
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Dwelling on what we can’t do.
Those moments where you’re reminded of what you can’t do can be hard. They humble you. You’re disappointed.
Where it really starts to harm you is when you define yourself by what you can’t do.
That’s not limited to growing older. It can happen younger in life when you don’t have the experience and aren’t sure how to do life on your own. Or when someone doesn’t take you seriously.
It can happen in sports, where teams get into a funk when they keep losing.
There are probably thousands of churches where that is happening as well. They may be a lot like us, where they once thrived, had a lot going on, but have lost numbers. Now they’re older, fewer young families, and you start thinking more about what we can’t do than what we can.
One thing we can do:
James gives us a way to shift that mindset as he wraps up his letter full of practical wisdom.
Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray. Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise. Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. Elijah was a human being, even as we are. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops. My brothers and sisters, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring that person back, remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of their way will save them from death and cover over a multitude of sins.
James 5:13-20
What is James’s takeaway here? They should pray. They should pray.
We can’t do the things we used to do. They should pray. We don’t have the people to operate the ministries we used to. They should pray. We’re too old. They should pray. We’re too young. They should pray.
No circumstance prevents us from praying.
Sometimes when you say, you can pray, someone might say, yeah, I know, but I want to do more. I want to really contribute.
It feels like the kid who got put at catcher in T-ball, or moved out to right field once they started pitching the ball. That was always the spot where they put the one who can’t do much damage.
And that’s how we treat prayer. It’s a consolation prize. It’s this thing you’re relegated to when you can’t do anything else. But let’s look at the early church and ask if that’s how they saw prayer?
How did the early church view prayer?
We get it backwards. Let’s contrast that to the early church.
In those days when the number of disciples was increasing, the Hellenistic Jews among them complained against the Hebraic Jews because their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food. So the Twelve gathered all the disciples together and said, “It would not be right for us to neglect the ministry of the word of God in order to wait on tables. Brothers and sisters, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will turn this responsibility over to them and will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the word.”
Acts 6:1-4
As the church was growing, things were getting busier. They were ministering to more and more, and balls were starting to get dropped.
The apostles’ answer was a brilliant application of time management and leadership principles: Prioritize their most critical tasks and delegate the rest.
But what did they consider the most important task?
Prayer and the ministry of the word.
These were the most important leaders in the history of the church, outside Jesus himself, and their most important tasks were prayer and scripture.
I’m sorry, but I have a hard time grasping that. It’s hard to fathom prayer being such a massive part of the day that you need to delegate other things because of it.
Prayer was not the consolation prize. It was THE thing.
Prayer in times of revival
The mission of God is fueled by the prayer of the faithful
Shodankeh Johnson, a leader of the Disciple Making Movement in Sierra Leone, Africa.
Prayer is a big deal. It’s probably fair to say that the ultimate reason that the American church has stalled and is ineffective today is not about strategy, staffing, worship styles or anything like that.
It’s because we don’t put prayer where it belongs.
The greatest revivals in history, the greatest religious movements in history, all got their start with people praying fervently that God would move, that the Holy Spirit would bring about revival.
Revival took root at Asbury University a year and a half ago, and has led to revivals breaking out on college campuses all over. It was preceeded by people praying for revival for decades.
Revival is breaking out in Africa. It’s said more Muslims were baptized in the last 15 years than the previous 15 centuries combined, times ten.
When one of the leaders, Shodankeh Johnson, was asked how they’re doing it, he said prayer is everything. They pray constantly for the Gospel to spread.
We pray for it. We beg God for it. Then when he answers, we do it.
Shodankeh Johnson on the secret of the growth of the African church
The power of prayer in Africa
When Shodankeh was asked about his prayer life, he said this is what he does:
- He wakes up at 3:30 and prays for 3 hours
- Then he prays with his family for an hour
- Then he prays in his home office
- Then he prays in his church office
- Then he prays at lunch
- Then he prays at the end of the work day
- Then he prays at the end of the day
And that’s only just getting started.
David Young, an American pastor, visited Africa to see what was happening. He tells the story of a man named Esa.
Esa was an imam at a mosque, but lost his sight. People in the mosque thought his blindness was a punishment for something, so they kicked him out. Some Christians found him and asked if they could pray for him.
He became a believer.
After he was baptized, he sat at a tree and spent his days praying. People noticed him, and some started asking if he’d pray for them. People were being baptized, and a church got started.
Eventually, Esa paid someone a little money to take him to another town, where he sat at the base of another tree to pray. Soon he was praying for people. Soon people were getting baptized.
David reports that so far, Esa has started nine churches, simply by praying.
Don’t tell me that prayer is a consolation thing. Don’t tell me that prayer is just an add-on or an afterthought. The mission of God is fueled by the prayer of the faithful.
Contrasting their prayers to my failures
I was in the ministry several years ago, but dropped out at 28 years of age. I always blamed it on hurt and burnout, but there was more to it.
However, there was something deeper. I think there were two things happening.
First, it really became a case of being stuck in what I couldn’t do. I thought I’d failed. I was afraid that I couldn’t be any good at this.
The second thing is much deeper. In reality, I did fail. But my failure was that I tried to do it on my own. I never gave my ministry over to God. I never developed a real walk with Him. While I did pray often, I could also go days without.
Don’t make the mistake I made. Dont’ get stuck on what we can’t do. And don’t leave God out of it.
Dwelling on what God CAN do, not what we can’t.
Here’s something I believe. Green Mountain can be a church that is so effective sharing the love and hope of Jesus with our neighbors that we can be forced to start planting new churches.
Does that seem bizarre to say that? Let’s face it, sometimes we think we’re barely hanging on here, with the tank getting empty. How can this be a church that plants new churches?
And the thing is, Charles can’t make it happen. Us elders cannot make it happen. The worship team can’t make it happen.
That’s because no one can. In fact I don’t think God wants us to be good enough. Because once we start relying on our own efforts, it’s not going to happen.
But when we turn it over to God in prayer, watch out.
First and foremost, we pray. We pray for it. We beg God for it. And then when he answers, it happens.
Will you commit to be a person of prayer?
I don’t mean a few light prayers or a couple sentences each day in a devotional. I mean, will you go deep? Will you pray for GMCC? Will you beg God to reach the people around us?
I know, when you talk about someone starting with 3 hours of prayer at 3:30, that’s intimidating. I know that my experience was, I can’t do that.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want to. But I knew my prayer life: “God, be with me, God, Just… Oh Lord… sigh In Jesus name.”
So how do you get out of that? Don’t try to do the three hour thing. But make a start. I’ll offer some advice that I found helpful:
Make a commitment.
Can you commit to pray every day for the remainder of the month? Set a time and place and stick to it.
I recommend making it the first thing you do in the day. Before you touch your phone, before you open any media, spend time with God.
Ask God to build a desire within you for time with him.
That’s what I had to do. I had to admit that I’m so bad at this, that I WANT to have a regular walk but I can’t do it on my own.
Pray that God’s spirit builds a desire in you to spend time with Him regularly.
Use a guide or prayer book if needed.
I struggled with this because, isn’t it supposed to be my own prayer?
I found a couple things: One, over time I was making it my own prayer. Two, it’s like it was priming the pump. It got me started, but I was spending more and more time with my own prayers.
You won’t be a 3-hour prayer warrior yet. I’m far from that, and it takes time. But can you commit to walking a little more in your prayer life if you have one? Can you commit to letting God build that in you if you don’t?
Pray for God to move. Beg for him to do it. And then when he answers… watch out.