The missing link in worship

--> It was a great gathering of God’s people. The welcome was warm, events started on time, announcements were efficient, music was superb and the word was well preached. Even the coffee  was good!

What’s missing?

I attend many church services in different places and notice that many modern services go light when it comes to prayer.

This ‘going light’ has two dimensions.

First, prayer is somewhat absent.

These simple tests can be applied. How many prayer slots were there? What share of the gathering was taken up with prayer, and what share by other activities? Anecdotal evidence is that services nowadays have fewer and shorter prayers. Meanwhile announcements, music and various sharings have grown in prominence.

Second, prayer is often on a low horizon.

Consider the prayer that taught (Matt 6) and the prayer that Jesus prayed (John 17). Both start on high horizons. Jesus prays on the horizon of God’s glory and teaches his followers to pray on the horizons of God’s name, kingdom and will. These are big horizons.

Consider now the prayers typically heard in Christian gatherings. My impression is that we pray for immediate needs (troubled relatives and friends, work pressures etc) and conversions (well worthy of prayers). These are worthy prayers, for all dependence on God to meet needs is an act of worship. However, where are the prayers that take in the world outside the local church and its connections?

Further on this, the kind of prayers we pray are changing. A recent pattern was to work with ‘ACTS’.  That is, with prayers adoring (or admiring) God, prayers on confession, thanksgiving and finally supplication (prayers that ask for things). It is commonplace now to focus prayers around the theme of asking. It is especially now rare to hear a prayer of confession, coupled with suitable words of gospel comfort.

And of course it’s not just in church services that we go light on prayer. The congregational prayer meeting has all but disappeared. Prayer times in small groups is often related to the rushed interval before supper and, again, are often prayed just on the low horizon of our immediate needs.

Prayer seems a bit like washing hands after we go to bathroom. Everyone agrees that it’s a good idea but not many do it.

It is such a contrast to look at the book of Acts. 2:42 sums it up as it speaks of a church ‘devoted to the prayers’. The church of Acts had nothing but God to rely on. And so they prayed.

This is the missing link.