About That Prayer Meeting

     Alright, let’s talk about that Wednesday night prayer meeting.  First of all, I will try very hard to avoid discussing what it should be.  Because if I do, some will throw tomatoes at me while others may actually try to stone me.  Of course, I’m sure that there are those who will agree with what I will not discuss, but I’m not certain that they will come to my defense.  In doing so, it will get them exposed and they will be getting the tomatoes and stones.  So, for the intention of protecting the endangered species, this article will not discuss what the prayer meeting should be.  Instead, I would like to describe what it has become and the culture that forms around it in the Chinese churches in North America.  Furthermore, I will attempt to expound on some of the strange phenomena that have been passing down in our tradition that we have chosen not to talk about them but simply accepted them as norm.

A Cultural Phenomenon

When I attended a small Chinese church some years ago, a visiting pastor who came from the bible belt spoke to me about our prayer meeting.  “How many people come to the Sunday service?” He asked.  And I told him.  “How many people attend the prayer meeting?”  The number I told him was about ten percent of the first, which I believe was the same in every other Chinese evangelical church.  “They should be the same,” he said that two times to himself quietly.  That represents our position of the Wednesday night prayer meeting in the Chinese churches of North America.  It is not written in any doctrinal statement of faith among evangelicalism, but I’m sure that there are a lot of die-hard supporters believe that it should.

If you are a traveling preacher like I am, preach on this and I’ll guarantee you’ll be welcomed enthusiastically by the senior pastor and the elders when you stepped off the pulpit.  And if you are a lay church leader who wants to get some attention, try advocating to “revive” the prayer meeting.  People will think that you are really spiritual, and you’re definitely up for the next elder or deacon candidacy.

In general, we believe that prayer is a significant part of Christian living.  It is holy.  It is spiritual forming.  It is an essential spiritual discipline that every Christian should engage.  It is the time when a Christian comes before God to take on spiritual matters.  It allows no space for anything else that is mundane or not central to what happens between man and God.  Unlike the Sunday worship that people may come for different intentions, prayer is the pure form of spiritualism.  Therefore, pastors often refer to the weekly Wednesday night prayer meeting as the source of power and energy for the church.  One problem – that weekly prayer meeting can be extremely boring.

It can be “it-makes-you-want-to-throw-up” or simply “just-want-to-shoot-yourself” boring.  So what’s the problem?  Many great saints have written on prayer through the ages and it is something that is supposed to be wonderful!  It is something that Christians supposed to be able to enjoy.  The hymn is titled “Sweet Hours of Prayer”.  Why would 90% of the congregation think of it as the bitter medicine — something that’s good for you but it just tastes bad.  Our unspoken conclusion goes something like this:  God cannot be the problem because he’s perfect; so it must be you!  You don’t want to come to the weekly prayer meeting because you are not godly enough.  It must be that you don’t really like to pursue spiritual matters.  You don’t really love God.  It follows that “good” Christians would be those who go.  In the end, I find it amusing that the Wednesday night prayer meeting has turned into some form of asceticism.  In Dan Brown’s novel The Da Vinci Code, the villain priest came from a cult that wears a cilice that will induce discomfort or even pain as a sign of repentance or atonement.  This device is being utilized within some religious circle as a mean of spiritual discipline.  The weekly prayer meeting has become something like that.  If you have the discipline of going every week and do not throw up or shoot yourself, then you are deemed a good Christian.

The Rescue Mission

I’ve seen good intentioned pastors tried different tactics to save the prayer meeting.  They use “testimonies” for positive reinforcement and guilt for negative.  But the more interesting strategies revolve around the “add-on’s”.  Many pastors realize that people don’t care about coming out in the middle of the week to pray, so they make the prayer meeting into “Bible-study and Prayer Meeting”.  They figure that they can attract more attendants because people like to learn more about the Bible.  Other strategies might involve leading the prayer meeting by having large group then small group singing and sharing that last at least an hour, then followed by a fifteen-minute prayer that wraps everything.  While all these tactics work to a certain point, the impression of the “bitter medicine” is not changed–they are just giving you some sweets before you swallow it.

My son went to a pre-school that was run by a big pentecostal church.  When I dropped him off in the morning I could often see the people in the church office through the large glass windows.  Sometimes they would hold early morning prayer meeting before a day’s work.  What impressed me was that in spite of the small prayer group of three or four people, they would still have a person playing guitar while they prayed.  They would hold hands, close their eyes ,and give praises to God.  Yes, I know they do that all the time on Sundays, but I’m talking about a morning prayer meeting in the church office of no more than four people!  That got me to thinking about our attitude towards prayer and prayer meetings.

The Sunday Service and the Prayer Meeting

Before jumping into my thoughts on prayer meeting, let me digress a little bit.  Think about how we prepare for our Sunday service each week.  We have a choir or a praise team.  They practice at least once or twice during the week before going on stage.  The pastor spends about twelve hours to prepare for his sermon.  The worship bulletin is carefully designed and worded.  The ushers are trained and scheduled in advance.  And that’s not all.  Don’t forget the entire sanctuary is built for the purpose of worship!  The lighting, the sound system, even the air-conditioning is worked on and prepared to deliver when it’s time for worshiping.  When someone steps into the sanctuary, he immediately knows that this is the time and place for worship.  He is not here to chit chat or to socialize.  He comes to worship.  Now, how do we prepare for our prayer meeting?  We have a single page of prayer item list typed on an 8 x 11 inch paper.  That’s it!  So, to those pastors out there who complained that your church members don’t care about the Wednesday night prayer meeting, don’t tell me you think of the prayer meeting as highly as you think of the Sunday worship, because your actions are telling everybody that you don’t.  Your church members have been hearing you loud and clear.

Many year ago I was assigned to lead a Wednesday night prayer meeting.  Our church belonged to the Southern Baptist Convention and there was a special mission theme that week for the lost people in India.  My assignment was to lead a bunch of overseas-born Chinese immigrant from Hong Kong to pray for India.  I immediately realized I had a big challenge if I didn’t want this prayer meeting to fall into some kind of cliche.  How could I get my church people (and myself) to relate to the needs of someone so distant?  The fact was none of us even had an Indian friend!  As I always did, I took responsibility of the things I had control but I put in God’s hand things that I had not.  I first prayed for God’s guidance and fully trusted in His doing.  I went to the prayer room in the middle of the week to set up the chairs and props that I needed.  I went around the room laying hand on each chair and prayed for the person who will occupy this particular seat.  I prepared music for meditation.  I set up a microphone so people could focus better with my voice on speaker.  I watched the video sent by Southern Baptist and set it up to the point when I wanted to start and I made note of the point where I wanted to stop.  I prayed with the senior pastor for this prayer meeting and he made announcement on the previous Sunday about this special prayer meeting.   On the evening of the event, I lit candles around the room and turned off the main light.  The CD player was already playing some soft music.  When people walked in, they were surprised to see the settings.  I greeted each person with a smile and gestured them to take a seat.  I only spoke when I had to.  Without a single word spoken, everyone was prompted for the reason he or she was here.  They were here to pray.  No one tried to chit chat.  If one did, one would immediately feel awkward to continue.  Everyone was waiting silently in reverence.

When the room was almost filled, I began to speak.  The words were well thought out, crafted for the purpose of leading them into meditation.  My tone was in match with the rhythm of the music.  My thoughts was on God and salvation.  I asked them to remember the day they met Christ.  I asked them to remember the blessings he gave since then.  Finally, I asked them to imagine if they had never known Christ, and asked what would become of them?  At the point of this question, I stopped the music and I turned off all the light.  We sat in complete silence and darkness.  With that thought of not knowing Christ still haunting us, I turned on the mission video sent by Southern Baptist.  I stopped it at the proper place and we started to pray.  I asked our young people to pray for the young people in India.  I asked our men to pray for the husbands in that land.  I asked our women to pray for their wives.  I even asked our pastor to pray for the Hindu priests.  The result of that prayer meeting was way beyond what I expected.  People prayed earnestly with their heart.  We all prayed for the salvation of the people in India.  But some confessed their sins of apathy or even a sense of superiority.  Some could not even form words but wept out loud.  As for myself, the burden of evangelizing to the people of India still dwells in my heart because of that prayer meeting.  My point of telling this story is this:  God seems to work where our heart is.  If we don’t care about something, don’t expect any miracles.

How Now Shall We Pray

The spiritual master, Richard Foster, has a book called Prayer:  Finding the heart’s true home.  In this book, he has listed twenty-one different kinds of prayer, which he divided them into three main categories.  Most of the prayer meetings I have attended revolved around praying simple prayer or intercessory prayer.  While these kinds of prayer are perfectly fine, I cannot help thinking that our church tradition has not explored the wider horizon of the discipline of prayer!  I am not advocating that we can get a better response from God by praying in a certain way, or that certain praying style is superior to others.  But if we truly believe that prayer is important, shouldn’t we be spending some time to study prayer?  Most of the time we are going at it with an attitude that we already know well how to do it.  It is just a matter of having more piety.  I’m suggesting that we may try approaching prayer as a child.  Let’s see how others, who are experienced in doing it, can show us.  Maybe we’ll learn something new.

With all this talk on preparation and studying prayer, there must be some pastors or church leaders out there screaming “We don’t have enough time for all this!” Fair enough.  What about this.  Cancel your Wednesday prayer meeting for a year.  Block out one hour every Wednesday night and study prayer.  In just one year time, you would have spent 52 hours studying the spiritual discipline of prayer, and possibly practiced some of them personally.  Then, go back to your church and say, “Okay, let’s try doing this with our prayer meeting.” I’ll bet you that your church members will have a whole new level of respect of that Wednesday night prayer meeting.

Prayers

Moving Inward:  Seeking the Transformation We Need

1. Simple Prayer
2. Prayer of the Forsaken
3. The Prayer of Examen
4. The Prayer of Tears
5. The Prayer of Relinquishment
6. Formation Prayer
7. Covenant Prayer

Moving Upward:  Seeking the Intimacy We Need

1. The Prayer of Adoration
2. The Prayer of Rest
3. Sacramental Prayer
4. Unceasing Prayer
5. The Prayer of the Heart
6. Meditative Prayer
7. Contemplative Prayer

Moving Outward:  Seeking the Ministry We Need

1. Praying the Ordinary
2. Petitionary Prayer
3. Intercessory Prayer
4. Healing Prayer
5. The Prayer of Suffering
6. Authoritative Prayer
7. Radical Prayer