One month ago today, my friend and I started a Wednesday night Bible Study called Midweek.
As we were dreaming about what it would look like, we both came to the table with some strong ideas and convictions. My friend was burdened by the lack of depth in Biblical teaching that is pervasive among so many of our churches. That conviction led to our mutual commitment that we would not sacrifice the depth of knowledge and wisdom in God's simply to enlarge our audience.
The conviction I brought to the table was the deficiency of prayer within the church. So many churches and Bible studies are known for their music or for their teacher, but rarely do you hear of a church that is known for its commitment to prayer. That conviction led us to the mutual commitment that we would be known for our depth of prayer.
We do not have music for worship. Instead, we lead the study in guided prayer for half an hour.
We work very hard to ensure that the prayer time is active and engaging. Everything we do is calculated and purposeful.
You see, I fear that the majority of church-goers don't really know how to pray, and I'm afraid the Church is largely responsible for this. How many times have you gone to church, and you listened to prayers, but you never once prayed? This happens quite frequently because churches have conditioned their congregations to be consumers rather than participators in prayer.
They come. They listen to the music. They listen to the message. They listen to the prayer. They go home.
But perhaps this doesn't account for everyone. Maybe there are those who participate in the prayer by praying silently. That's all well and good, but when they pray silently, who is receiving encouragement from them? Who benefits from knowing that other Christians are praying specifically for them?
Our main goal in their prayer time is to worship God through prayer. Our second highest goal is to create participators rather than consumers, and there are several ways we do this.
1) We have a moment of teaching about an aspect of prayer. There are so many different facets to prayer that are mentioned in the Bible, and many times, they are not explained to the church. So far, we have covered Supplication, Thanksgiving, and Intercession. The next few weeks hold some other interesting aspects of prayer.
2) We have a time of education about an unreached people group. I believe God has a heart for all nations, so we should be informed about all of them and praying for them.
3) I can shamelessly admit that I borrowed this one from the Passion Conferences. Some call it world prayer, others call it group prayer, whatever you want to call it, it works. We divide, the audience into groups of 3 and we ask them to number off. Then we have three prayer points, and we assign one point to each person. Then, we ask them each to pray out loud when it's their turn. Why do we do this? Two reasons: First, it forces them to engage in prayer. Nobody is allowed to sit idly. Everyone must participate. Second, it forces them to engage one another. Nobody gets to be an island. It promotes unity and solidarity. We have taken unengaged consumers and turned them into engaged participants.
4) Lastly, we give them the chance to pray for one another. They can use this time for prayer requests or simply getting to know one another. We have also worked to make this time creative. Last week, we introduced our entire group to the prayer wall. On this wall, they could write prayers of thanksgiving, intercession, supplication, and praise.
Some of you may be thinking that this sounds too extreme or too forceful. You might be thinking that these tactics will scare people away. However, our experience has been contrary to those assumptions. We are growing in numbers, and people are growing spiritually. People are getting closer to God and to one another.
Prayer as worship...it's been an amazing experiment.
