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