Its ALL About Prayer

Like thousands of people before me I have determined that life is all about prayer. Not a great revelation I suppose - its pretty evident from all of the prophets and Christ himself that prayer is ministry. We had a sermon today that I really appreciated because it talked a bit about obedience which has been my "goal" for some time. I am trying to learn to be satisfied with trying to be obedient to God. This has taken so much pressure off of me. I figured once I knew whether I had the ability to preach that I could then figure out my next steps. But its not that easy and now I am content just figuring out what God wants of me next. Its very exciting because I get glimpses of very exciting possibilities but then they disappear. I think this is done on purpose - God always gives me just enough to push me further - making it look easy and then once I'm committed he changes what seemed to be so clear to another unknown.

If I had not been at Calvary and given so much support I never would have gone into the InMinistry Program. I had already left one church in order to attend a traditional program. But once everything at Calvary seemed set in stone I knew it wasn't the right time and I had to move on. Its exciting in a way but requires a lot of prayer to keep from getting ahead of God's prompting.

But disappointingly I have come to the realisation that prayer is missing in some churches. It is an added thing, not an essential thing. I admit that I can't say I put a lot of time into prayer these past years - I have been learning through Seminary that it is the only thing I can rely on. I becoming much more serious about it. And my church has been promoting it for a few years now - that's funny isn't it - I mean that we have to make it a priority instead of just assuming that we are all doing it.

From my limited experience I have to say this is common. I say this because I was invited to sit on the World Day of Prayer planning group and with the very limited dealings I have had, prayer does not seem to be part of the planning. We had a meeting to plan the event and we will have a dry run through of the service and that's all. I thought we would meet as a group and pray and be given some "homework" to pray about as well.

I have to think about why this is. Why as Christians are some of us so removed from this means of communicating with God? I know that I had thought of it as an added feature instead of a fundamental - maybe everyone goes through that - maybe we need proof that it works before we become dedicated to it. I'm not sure. And I'm not sure how to find out - asking people about prayer is awkward - who is going to admit they don't pray enough?

I'm becoming interested in this area of ministry but unsure of where to go with it. I have a feeling that this may become a focus over the next year!