What comes to mind when you hear the term “prayer meeting”? Do you think of something vital to church life and to the lives of individual Christians? Do you think of prayer meetings from church history that have been used by God to spark reformation, revival, and zeal for missions? For many Christians, unfortunately, the answer to these questions is no. When most believers hear about prayer meetings they probably think of a caricature: long-winded requests about things that don’t seem terribly important. Far from the works of the sovereign and omnipotent God who hears and answers prayer, when we think of prayer meetings, many of us think of an exercise in tedium that detracts from the work of the church. In spite of some tedious and
Pray for the Church
The apostle Paul wrote to his beloved church in Philippi from the praetorium, a Roman prison. He told them that his imprisonment had “really served to advance the gospel”. There were three reasons. 1) The gospel had become known throughout the prison, 2) everyone knew that his imprisonment was “for Christ”, and 3) many Christians had become emboldened “to speak the word without fear.” 1 Paul expressed his joy because “I know that through your prayers (emphasis added) and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ this will turn out for my deliverance.” Paul’s joy was such that, whether the authorities released him or put him to death, he would be free. His freedom will come, one way or another, through the prayers of his people. What can we
What is Prayer?
Prayer is a lot like vegetables, only a lot better. We know it’s good for us, and there are plenty of passages and people telling us to do it, yet like a two year old in a high chair who refuses to eat his broccoli, we often refuse to pray. Prayer is hard for so many reasons. We are busy. We are lazy. We are worldly. We are distracted. We don’t know where to start. And the list goes on. Our hesitation to pray is strange, given the sweetness we’ve experienced in prayer. Isn’t it true that something fights against the idea to attend, for example, a church prayer meeting? Yet on the way home we are thankful, even thrilled, that we went? But then the cycle repeats itself. Our prayer lives ebb and flow. There are days when prayer
Showing Mercy to Our Neighbors
Some time ago, a professional London actor ran into some trouble onstage. He was supposed to pick up a telephone and respond to what he heard, but when he put the phone to his ear and listened, he forgot his line. There he was, on stage for a moment that felt like an hour, with absolutely nothing to say to an audience waiting for him to speak. He did what you or I might do if we thought of it. He gave the phone to one of the other actors and said, “It’s for you.” A clever trick to save a performance is not at all a proper way to receive the Word of God. But isn’t that sometimes how we treat what God has said? Forgetting our part, we say, “It’s for you.” We have a friend, a child, a spouse, who needs this message. But as for us? Not so
Sleeves Rolled Up in the Church’s Service
When a person is preparing himself for hard work, we may describe him as “rolling up his sleeves.” Church planters, it would seem, never roll their sleeves back down. At the beginning of 2019, Brad Peppo started his labors as the organizing pastor of a mission work in Dayton, Ohio. Around the same time, the denomination, along with the Presbytery of Ohio, welcomed a new area home missions coordinator, Mike Diercks. Their words and example may encourage us to keep our sleeves rolled up, too. First Street Reformed Fellowship in Dayton held their first evening worship service on Sunday, August 5, with ten households making up the core group. Soon after this, Peppo began a weekly home group. “We have a good degree of diversity from