November 18, 2002

A men’s prayer meeting was established about 5 years ago now by the Chief of

Police in Henderson, Texas. Men from any denomination are invited to come

and pray for revival in the community, personal and other needs on Monday

nights from 7 to 8pm.

A Methodist minister from Henderson, Texas wrote in his newsletter to his

congregation the following message I found very good, and want to share it

with you -

I’ve talked and written about this many times, and I’ll keep doing that,

because it’s one of those "God things" that always defy any kind of

conventional explanation. I’m writing about it this week, because I

experienced it again this Monday evening for the first time in a couple of

months. I’m talking about the small group of 25 - 30 men, white and black

men, from all sorts of churches in our community, who’ve been meeting

together every Monday evening for almost five years at different churches in

Henderson to pray for revival in our community. They met here in February

and they’ll be here again the first Monday in June (2002). I’ll have to

admit to some disappointment because our men rarely, if ever, attend, but I

can understand why they don’t; because the way a lot of these men pray is

very different. Some of them come from church traditions where the praying

is kind of "rowdy" by Methodist standards. Some of them pray in a "prayer

language" that some Methodists are not only suspicious of, but also unsettled

by. In fact, I’ll confess it was a real struggle for me to learn to pray

with these guys, because I kept getting distracted by all the commotion.

When I’m praying in church I’m used to having one person at a time do the

praying, either me or someone else, and when they pray I expect to understand

what they’re saying; or I’m used to praying when nobody says anything out

loud. These men just don’t pray like that. And then there is that time,

after the initial half hour or so when the focus of the praying is asking God

to bring spiritual revival and renewal to our community. Those who are so

inclined gather together, and share individual prayer requests, and lay hands

on some who are there, and pray for healing, on the assumption that God

really does heal, but just not always in the way we pray for that to happen.

And there’s the obvious problem some Methodists can also have, that this is a

men-only gathering.

Because of all that, I’ve had conversations with some of my preacher friends

and others who just can’t get past some of the theological differences they

have with some of the prayers, or the churches they represent, and I respect

that. If you’re convinced, as I am, that praying is the single most

important activity in the Christian life, and that every church is called to

be "a house of prayer" then this business of praying, and how you go about

it, is very important; just like the different views Christians have about

baptism and communion that insure we will always have denominational

differences. I’ve managed to work past those concerns, and I’d love to tell

you it’s because I’m such a tolerant and open-minded fellow. But that wouldn ’t be exactly true. I go pray with these men on the Monday evenings when I

can work it in my schedule for selfish reasons. I have come to love all

these guys who don’t pray the same way I do, and they’ve convinced me that

they have come to love me, too. And I covet the prayers they pray, no matter

how they pray them. They have prayed for me, and for my family, and for this

church family, and for our Common ground service. They have laid their hands

on me, and prayed fervently and loudly, and caused me to weep. And I believe

that the prayers those men pray so faithfully every Monday night, as

imperfect and theologically questionable as they might be to some folks, are

heard by God; and that God sorts through all the flaws and improprieties in

those prayers and uses them anyway, just like he uses all the terrible flawed

and Improper prayers I’ve prayed, and will continue to pray, because I have

this problem with my humanity - it just keeps hanging on! So I believe that

God is doing absolutely incredible things in the churches in our community,

and in our church, and that the messy prayers prayed by that rowdy group of

Monday night pray-ers have something to do with that.

But I also believe that when I get together with those wonderful brothers in

Christ on Monday evenings, who don’t pray like I do, and might never darken

the door of our church, except to pray on Monday evenings, I’m getting a

little preview of the way things will be in heaven. Not that heaven will be

a men-only place, but that it will be a place where a lot of us will be

surprised to discover who’s there and who’s not, and to find all sorts of

folks there who aren’t like us and who didn’t pray, or baptize or take

communion or do lots of other things like we did. What we’ll have in common

with all those folk in heaven, and what I share in common with my Monday with

praying buddies though, is what counts most of all - a conviction we’ve all

bet our lives on. What we believe is the life-changing truth that Jesus

Christ is Lord, that the God of the universe broke into the plane of human

existence in the person of a Nazarene carpenter, who lived, and died, and

rose from the dead, and who lives and reigns today, so that every human being

on the face of the earth can experience a personal relationship with God, and

the incredible fellowship and communion with our brothers and sisters in

Christ on earth that we know as "the church," imperfect and splintered and

divided though it may be.

So on these Monday nights when I can, I’ll keep praying with these guys who

don’t pray like I do. And I’ll trust God to sort it all out, and to keep on

doing amazing things with the imperfect prayers of imperfect people like

them, and like you and me. Let us pray. In Christ,