Does prayer matter?

On March 27^th of 2011 I stood before the congregation of Estevan Alliance Church and accepted the call to take on the role of Lead Pastor of this church. I was on that day overwhelmed with humble appreciation for the faith that this church had placed in me and for the calling that God had placed on my life to serve the wonderful people of this church who had over the six and a half years previous, become like family to me. It was a day of joyful affirmation and I will always remember it fondly – but that doesn't mean that things were perfect.

On the contrary, this wonderful church that I deeply loved was a church that had issues. For as many wonderful and true things could be said about Estevan Alliance Church (and there are many), she was affected by a sickness of the gravest sort: Prayerlessness.

Estevan Alliance Church was not a church that prayed. There were certainly members of this family that prayed – on their own, in their homes, spending time on their knees before the Lord perhaps on a daily basis – but the church did not pray. There were two functioning weekly prayer meetings at that time, one on Monday nights and one on Sunday mornings before the service and for both of them the same handful of faithful followers comprised the majority of a very, very small group. I have been told that it wasn’t always this way – that at points in our history as a church we were fervently committed to prayer – that the prayer meetings were literally bursting at the seams and that people in those times understood the value of corporate prayer – but those days were a long time ago. And since those days I have heard of and witnessed pastors and elders sound the warning about our prayerlessness, and do what they could to rally the troops to pray. But in what is approaching two decades now, little has changed.

So on March 27, 2011 I stood up as just the most recent in a long line of pastors concerned about the prayerlessness of his flock and sounded the call to become a people of prayer. I summarized the teaching in this blog post here. I called us to return to our knees corporately and to join together in one accord to raise our petitions on high. I said what had undoubtedly been said by many people before me and yet hoped this time for a different response than they had received.

I had pledged to start something new – to lead by example and to be at the church every Tuesday morning from 7:30-8:30 for corporate prayer and invited everyone and anyone to join me. The response was great, in fact there were many who wanted to come but found that their work schedules didn’t allow them to roll into the office that late in the morning so in a couple weeks we added a second AM prayer meeting that began at 6:00 and got everyone out in time to be at work shortly after 7. The early days were promising – but then the inevitable drop off happened.

Summer came, and as it always does, interest in church activities and attendance at church events dropped. Early morning prayer was not an exception. The 7:30 prayer meeting saw their numbers dwindle to just a handful and the 6:00 prayer meeting became Waylon’s personal devotional time for a season. When the fall came around things had rebounded a bit at the 7:30 meeting (which now has settled into an average attendance of about seven) but the 6:00 meeting still hasn’t taken off. It has been moved to Thursday mornings now and there is a steady attendance of two committed people.

We had also hoped that our existing prayer meetings would be bolstered by this new emphasis on prayer in the church, that Monday night and Sunday morning would see a bump in participation as a result of the renewed focus on corporate prayer – and while occasionally a new person comes out and maybe sticks around for a couple of weeks – those two prayer times are comprised today of pretty much the same people they were before I was installed in this church.

They say that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results – but that is what I feel like we are doing. My three-month commitment to early morning prayer is now going on 14 months. We still run all of the prayer meetings we had started and we still encourage people to attend and participate; we still pray weekly for more people to join the ranks of our pray-ers, but our results aren’t changing. What will it take to break the cycle of prayerlessness in our congregation and really tap into the power of God to change our community?

Well a few weeks ago we issued a new challenge – we opened up a new opportunity for you to get involved in prayer at EAC. When I was on one of my morning walks and was talking to the Lord about this issue, He led me to plan for a day when we would literally take to the streets in prayer for our community. I believe that he asked me to lead our people in a prayer walk for Estevan – a single event that had the potential to break through the strongholds that exist in our community and see God’s power unleashed and released through every home in Estevan. He asked me to marshal our people for battle and to send out squadrons of prayer warriors into every single corner of our city – to walk and pray over every single house and every single family here. So I got out a map of the city, and broke down the streets into sections and formulated a system that would ensure every single household would be prayed for. I took it to my staff and they loved it. I took it to my board and they got behind it. I took it to my prayer group and they were excited about it. Then I took it to the congregation, and that’s where the enthusiasm seems to have run out.

What is the big aversion to corporate prayer? We have offered evening meetings, morning meetings, weekend meetings, safe and non-threatening environments, big and audacious challenges, we’ve created an event that the whole family can participate in and crafted groups that cater to only a narrow demographic. I have preached on prayer, people have given testimonies about the prayer times, and I’ve received encouragement from people in the church about how great it is that we’re doing so much for prayer – from people who have not shown up to a single meeting in the time I’ve been pastor! What more do people want us to do to make it easy for them to join us?

What is going on in everyone’s life that makes prayer such a low priority?

What is so much more important?

Jesus reminds us in John 15 that apart from a vital connection to Him we can do nothing of value:

 “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

John 15:5-8

Why do we pay lip-service to wanting to accomplish great things for God if we are not willing to make the sacrifice to abide in Him corporately, like he commands us to?

Sign-up has been really slow and discouraging for the Prayer Walk this weekend. I’m excited to see many of the usual core of prayer participants signed up – but this was a task that was never designed to be achievable by such a small band of soldiers. This was a challenge to our whole family to answer the call and make a bold statement of commitment to God about how we are going to move forward as a church. The walk is happening this Saturday at 11:00 – there is still time to get involved. I will be there and I – and the small band of pray-ers will walk and pray whether you join us or not – but wouldn’t you rather rise to the challenge and be a part of the solution?

If you’re a Facebooker (and if you’re reading this blog you probably came here from there in the first place) you can find the event information here. If you’re concerned about the Dance Recital this weekend and it conflicting with the prayer walk – if 50 people show up we could easily be done in an hour and not conflict – and if you’re still worried, we’re entertaining the idea of staggered start times for certain neighbourhoods to accommodate people who might want to go prayer walking at 10 instead of 11. Just talk to me and we can set you up.

I’m begging you to prove this rant unwarranted. I’m begging you to show me I worried for nothing. I’m begging you to make prayer a priority. This weekend as we walk, and every week as we move forward as a church.

Praying for you,

Chris

Guest Post!

Hey everyone, this will be the first time that I've featured a guest post on this blog. My friend Brian is a local writer and reporter and has written this OpEd piece that he's graciously given me permission to share with you. He raises some important points and I'd like to share his thoughts with you today. So without further ado...


A debate for more than the funny papers
By Brian Zinchuk

Edda Burber is a difficult spot.

The stunningly gorgeous blonde just appeared on the cover of a magazine. She has an endorsement deal for a lingerie and swimwear company. Her main gig is as a ballerina in New York. And she’s passionately in love with her high school sweetheart, Amos.

Too passionately, perhaps, because her world is now crashing down around her ears. She’s about to get booted from the ballet company, the endorsement deal is going south, and, oh yeah, she’s pregnant.

Over the past few weeks, the protagonist of the comic strip 9 Chickweed Lane has had to contend with the idea of aborting her baby. It’s not an easy choice, either, because her own mother was a love-child. If her grandmother had chosen abortion, she would never exist.

This comes just a few weeks after Doonesbury all but called a recent Texas law state-sanctioned rape, forcing ultrasounds on those desiring an abortion.

Pretty heady stuff for the funny papers.

While the comics are taking a stab at the abortion debate, many people wish it would just go away. It’s not. If anything, we’re seeing it appear in the national discourse more and more every day.

I mentioned my intentions to write about this topic to a friend, and she immediately got all tense and blurted, “Why would you want to write about that? Of all the things you can write about, why write about that?”

This is precisely the attitude taken by Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who wants nothing to do with the abortion issue, even going so far as to ensure a private members bill, brought up by one of his own MPs, would be swiftly killed.

For most anti-abortion, pro-life types, they recogniheze the time to address this issue is now, when a Conservative majority is in power, in the first half of its term. That’s when most governments do their most controversial legislation, allowing time to recover before an election is on the horizon. But that window is now surely closed.

For Harper, there’s no upside. Trying to address abortion in any way means greatly upsetting the left as well as many moderates. Anyone who would be against abortion has likely voted Conservative already, and therefore there is nothing to be gained, politically speaking.

That aforementioned private member’s bill was an unabashed attempt at limiting abortion by asking a key question – when does life begin?

We are in a crazy situation in Canada right now, with zero limitations on abortion. It’s now quite common for babies only 26 weeks into their term to survive. I can’t count how many friends and relatives have had children born prematurely, in some cases, very prematurely, and have the children pull through.

Saskatchewan just gained its first helicopter airborne ambulance. One of its capabilities is neo-natal care.

We’ll spend tens of thousands to save a preemie, and yet in the room down the hall, we’ll just as easily kill one.

The Globe and Mail talks of the need to bring in 400,000 immigrants a year. We have barren couples scouring the world, going as far as orphanages in China, to adopt, yet we continue killing our own children.

I can’t stand the thought of abortion, period, but if nothing else, there should at least be a moratorium on anything past 25 weeks. We know these children in most cases are viable, given the proper care. How can we not, in law, recognize them as human beings?

In some areas of Canada, there’s an alarming new demographic trend – immigrant communities with a lot more boys than girls. The reason? It’s widely believed these people are killing off their unborn girls, so that they can have more desirable boys. It’s called “gender selection.”

In other contexts, this could be called eugenics.

This leaves a really hard argument for the feminist pro-choicers to make. How do you rail against the slaughter of girls, without acknowledging that it is a slaughter in the first place? That would mean acknowledging they are people in the first place. Is it okay to kill boys and girls, as long as it’s done in equal proportion? Maybe you shouldn’t kill as many girls? You can drive a truck through the holes in that logic.

Via social media I keep tabs with a certain Saskatchewan born and raised philosopher, a New England university professor with a PhD who is vegan, practices yoga, and is about as left wing/feminist as you can get. She’s also quite pregnant. The pregnant feminist vegan yoga enthusiast PhD posted on her profile the other day, “Turns out arguing with anti-abortion protesters while visibly pregnant goes about as well as one might expect.”

I can imagine. Perhaps that’s because, like the underlying truth of the whole abortion debate, it’s impossible to ignore there are real lives at stake here. That’s especially true when you can see it kicking, right in front of you.

The abortion debate isn’t gone. There’s a serious discussion to be had here, and not just in the funny papers.

Brian Zinchuk is editor of Pipeline News. He can be reached at brian.zinchuk@sasktel.net.

Fresh Manna

Yesterday’s sins forgiven,

Yesterday’s failures forgotten,

Yesterday’s fears dispelled,

Yesterday’s trophies put aside,

Yesterday’s victories left behind

Yesterday’s high-point the new baseline –

THIS is the day that the Lord has made and I will rejoice and be glad in it.

Identification Please

Earlier this year it became apparent that my passport was about to expire. It had taken me many places and served a guarantee of sorts on many occasions that I was who I said I was. I had used it to fly into and through Canada, the States, Guatemala, the U.K. and France and had nervously had it inspected at American land border crossings dozens of times when heading down to North Dakota to do some shopping. Having a passport is a perk of citizenship, it allows you to travel around the world and declare yourself (in my case) a proud Canadian. It also bears a promise that should something go wrong while abroad – as long as I am in possession of that passport – the Canadian government will vouch for me and do everything within its power to bring me back to my home and native land.

For some people getting a passport is easy. You take your birth certificate and some standardized photos and attach them to an application form, pay the fee and drop them in the mail. For some getting a passport is more of a challenge – my lovely wife for example is not a natural born Canadian citizen. Even growing up as a citizen of a friendly, commonwealth country she had a long and sometimes arduous journey through the immigration and citizenship processes before she was deemed worthy by our government to carry a little book around that says she’s Canadian. Easy or challenging though the price of travelling the world as a Canadian is the passport application process – and every year in Canada tens of thousands of people go through it for the privilege.

That who passport situation got me thinking though about a spiritual reality that has a lot of similarity: The Bible talks about a type of Spiritual passport that marks us as citizens of heaven – it’s called Baptism. Baptism is a rite by which we publicly and willingly identify with Jesus just as our passport identifies us with our country.

In the Old Testament the visible mark of inclusion in the community of God’s chosen people was the act of circumcision. It was (and still is) a painful reminder of the cost of following Yahweh and claiming kinship with his people. In the New Testament, Jesus introduces a new type of identification that went beyond a physical marker – a type of identification that opened up citizenship in the Kingdom of God to all people – but that came at a high price: Baptism. It’s an identification not just with a chosen people – as circumcision was – but an identification with Christ himself, as in the rite of Baptism we re-enact the death of Christ in going under the water, and the resurrection of Christ in coming up out of death as a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17). The price of Baptism is not identifying self-mutilation, as it was with circumcision – but rather a complete and utter dying to self so that we can realize new life in Jesus Christ. Death requires sacrifice though; death requires forfeiting the life we know for the promise of something beyond it. Baptism then requires sacrifice – and as a pastor I have to admit that I’m troubled that for so many people it’s a sacrifice they are reluctant to make.

It has been over a year now since I had the privilege and joy of baptizing anyone at Estevan Alliance Church. It’s been over a year since anyone in our congregation felt to compelled to identify with Jesus Christ in his death and resurrection. I have tried on several occasions to get a baptismal service happening, I have offered Baptismal class and had no one show up, we have announced baptismal services and then had to embarrassingly change course at the last minute because no one came forward. In our prayer meetings, our staff meetings, our board meetings and our ministerial meetings we have prayed and prayed and prayed for a breakthrough in this area – and seemingly to no avail. And I have to ask myself what is holding people back from following Jesus?

In so many other metrics our church is growing. Attendance is going up, giving is going up, prayer in on the rise, there is an air of optimism about the future that encourages me greatly – but in this key – this essential – area we are failing miserably. Is it the culture we now live in that shirks away from identifying with Jesus and the Church because of negative public perception? Is it the busyness of the local situation that in its militant pragmatism doesn’t see the quasi-symbolic nature of Baptism as something that matters? Is it the theological language of our movement that has put so much emphasis on Baptism being the ‘outward evidence of an already occurred inward reality’ that has lulled people into the false belief that Baptism is only a fringe practice? Is it the pastor’s (i.e. mine) fault that Baptism hasn’t been taught well enough or frequently enough to make its importance understood? Or is it that people don’t consider identification with Jesus to be a priority anymore?

I’ve heard it said that people will sign up for membership in all sorts of clubs, associations and industries  without a second thought if the opportunity is presented to them – but getting them to become members of their local church is like pulling teeth. And people will sacrifice all sorts of things (time, money, flexibility) for a piece of identification – be it a driver’s licence, boating licence, journeyman’s certificate or whatnot, but they won’t sacrifice anything to identify with Jesus through Baptism. And I’m not talking even about people outside of the church – who may not believe what the Bible teaches, or agree with the positions that the church takes on social issues – I’m talking about people who regularly attend, serve in ministries and who claim to have drank the Kool-Aid – these are people who won’t come forward. What is wrong with this picture?

Perhaps it’s a Canadian problem. We’re so used to getting everything without sacrificing anything in this country that the prevailing attitude has spilled over into our faith communities. In many other countries to take citizenship requires you to forfeit any other citizenship you may carry – in Canada you can be Canadian AND something else – it’s no problem at all. Or perhaps it’s a consumeristic problem – we don’t see what we gain out of this transaction so we don’t consider it value for the investment. Whatever the case it’s an error that we desperately need to correct if we want to be used by God for anything more than taking up space in the church sanctuary on Sundays.

We need to understand what Paul is talking about in Philippians chapter 3 when he talks about all other allegiances and identifiers being rubbish in comparison to his identity in Christ. We need to understand that no piece of identity is more valuable than our identification with Jesus. Why are we willing to go to great lengths to identify ourselves as a citizen of Canada (talk to any immigrant you know and ask them about the process of becoming Canadian) and not be willing to stand up and be baptized to identify ourselves as citizens of heaven? Remember that a passport does not make you a citizen any more than your baptism makes you a Christian – but to make an impact on the world outside our borders you need to do something to prove your citizenship – a passport. I don’t want to sound heavy handed, but if you want to make an impact on the world outside of the four walls of your church for Christ – you’re going to need your spiritual passport too.

All of us, then, who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you. Only let us live up to what we have already attained.

Philippians 3:15-21 (TNIV)

I’m not passing judgement on anyone’s relationship with Christ. But I am questioning whether many of you are willing to live up to what you have already attained in Christ. Whatever the reason is, something has got to change. Another attempt at a Baptism and Membership class is happening this Saturday at 10:00 AM at the church. You’re invited to come, be prepared to stay until 2 and I’ll order in lunch for the group. It’s time to step up and show the world your identification. 

So who should I expect to see on Saturday?

Are you not inspired?

This morning was a busy morning for me. I walked to the gym, spent 35 minutes walking, jogging and sprinting around the track (yes I'm starting to incorporate some short sprints into my workout now!) and then walked home and mowed the back lawn. I then showered, got dressed and had breakfast and  brushed my teeth a second time (because I had a dental appointment - don't pretend like you don't do the same thing) and walked to work where I had parked my car the night before so I could drive to my appointment.

When I got to work and tried to get into my car - I came to the horrifying realization that I had left my keys at home - so I turned around and walked back home to get my keys with the full intention of stealing the van and going to my appointment. Jo apparently had already made plans that precluded my commandeering of her vehicle so I walked/jogged/sprinted all the way back to the church (note to self: jogging and sprinting are not easy in dress shoes) hopped into my car and got to the dentist only five minutes late.

The upside of all this is that when I looked at my Fitbit after finally getting to work - I had already taken almost 14,000 steps and walked a total of 5.7 miles before 10am. Better still I seem to have broken through a plateau on the weight loss project have seen a steady decline for four straight days now!

So in honour of that I thought I'd  show you what progress looks like to me when I look in the mirror in the mornings.

As you can see, I've still got a long way to go, but perhaps this will inspire you to meet whatever fitness goal you have been setting for yourself.

Happy Thursday.

Get your tickets!

I'll be selling tickets all week. I've got a quota to sell to0 - so if you're thinking of going please think of buying from me!

Challenge Accepted

Last June I and some partners in ministry from EAC attended our biennial district conference which was being held in beautiful Morden Manitoba. District conference is first and foremost the necessary business meeting of the district corporation – but it also is a time for vision casting, reconnecting with colleagues, catching up on district and national initiatives, equipping for ministry, and usually some challenging messages from the key note speaker. This past year was no exception as our district team brought in Rev Steve Kerr from Gateway Church in Caledonia Ontario to speak on the topic of stewardship.

Now stewardship is not usually the type of topic that people get excited to talk about; pastors are nervous to bring up the issue; congregations are reticent to be told what to do with their money; and everyone kind of shuffles awkwardly through the greeting line at the end of the service after a challenging message on the topic. Thankfully this was not my experience at all that week in Morden. I walked away from those messages challenged, excited and inspired to talk to my congregation about stewardship too. That fall we began a sermon series at EAC entitled The Final Taboo: Stewardship in the 21^st Century where we looked at the issue from three vantage points: Idolatry, Responsibility and Generosity – and I’m not ashamed to say that I borrowed heavily from Steve’s teaching in crafting my own messages on the topic.

That’s all a lot of background information to get to the point I want to make in this post. During his second message of the conference Steve challenged us with the story of Gateway’s great giveaway. It’s an annual offering they have been taking to give away an entire Weekend’s offering to worthy causes outside of their own church ministries. If you are reading this as someone who was there (or if you listen to the linked message above – which I recommend you do!) you will remember what I’m talking about. In the story Steve talked not only about how much they were able to raise and give away but how it ended up leading the Owen Sound Alliance Church to out give them and raise the bar in the spirit of giving. The end of the message was a challenge for us in the Canadian Midwest District to out-give those churches in the Central Canadian District by having our own great give away – and when we do – to call Steve up and throw down the gauntlet, challenging Gateway to do better.

Challenge accepted.

This past weekend we held our weekend of prayer and fasting for His Hands Taiwan. We had challenged our people to rise to the challenge and intercede for the ministry of His Hands as they face a financial crisis brought on by changing government legislation. (The call to action can be found in my last blog post here if you haven’t already heard about what we’re doing) Let me tell you that our people rose to the occasion. Let me tell you that we fasted and we prayed and we changed the world that weekend. Let me tell you that we followed the biblical model of 2 Chronicles 20 and we went into battle with our worshippers on Sunday morning. Let me tell you that we praised the Lord in faith for what he is going to do in this situation – we honestly believe that. And then on top of all that we gave. Our people were challenged to give without promise of anything in return. With no guarantee that this offering would be significant enough to meet the goal on its own (it wasn’t) and no assurance that God would make up the rest other than faith in his promises. Our people were challenged to give with no promise of benefits on their income tax return as a result because the offering was non-receiptable. Our people were challenged to give knowing it would mean our church forfeiting a week on operating revenue – but they gave anyways (that last one might have been more scary for the pastor than the congregation). And in the end our congregation gave a grand total of $40,351.07 away!

Now $40,351.07 is not as much as Gateway raised on their most recent great giveaway at the time of Steve’s challenge and we haven’t shown those central Canadian churches a new standard of generosity yet – but that’s where you come in. I challenge you to do better.

If you are a pastor of another CMD church (I’m sharing this on the district Facebook page for this reason) or if you’re a pastor of another church, or a congregant of another church – I challenge you to do better. Estevan Alliance Church has thrown down the gauntlet and issued the challenge. We weren’t able to out-give our sister-churches in Ontario – but one of you can. I challenge you to select a cause, a ministry, or even a person that God is leading you to bless and then on one Sunday give all that you can and give it ALL away. I can’t tell you how much we here have been blessed by participating in what God is doing and giving of ourselves for His Kingdom initiatives, and I can’t tell you what the end result of this prayer and giving initiative is going to be for His Hands Taiwan. I can’t even really tell you what the final tally on the offering is going to be because people keep calling up and asking if it’s too late to get their cheques in – but I can tell you this: God is pleased when his children give away his stuff (Luke 16).

We at Estevan Alliance Church have accepted the challenge. What’s holding you back from doing the same? The gauntlet is cast down – who will pick it up?