Lookout Below!

Yancey writes: when I wrote about prayer I began with us, the pray-ers, rather than God, the one to whom we pray, because so many of us who pray come to the work awkwardly, self-consciously, as raw beginners. In attempting this strange act, we think of ourselves more than we think of God.


Do you ever feel as if you get in your own way when you're trying to pray? What keeps you from being authentic and vulnerable--naked--before God?

Our former church in Colorado was not too long ago one of those rapidly growing churches with an energetic, though enigmatic, senior pastor who could keep you spellbound by his sermons filled with "his-story." The slogan or tagline was A Real Church in an Unreal World. We used words like authentic, raw and vulnerable, and even now and then the pastor's message might talk about being naked before God, like David when he danced. Even longer ago, when I was a Baptist we would "pray through" an issue, "bathe it with prayer," "cover it with prayer," "take it to the Lord in prayer." In my earliest Episcopal days, prayers were read and we memorized them and then recited them in rhythm with the other pray-ers hardly conscious at all of the meaning behind the words. So by the time I got to the Real Church in an Unreal World, I was so darned happy to be there, on my way to the New Testament promised land. Two Sunday services became three, and then Saturday night was added. Soon the cute little building without a mortgage overlooking the Continental Divide was bursting at the proverbial seams. So we built an even bigger Real Church for the Unreal World next to the Interstate "Where the World Drives By" and church leaders banked on the idea that the pastor with superlative gifting in communicating Jesus would continue to fill the chairs and the coffers and help pay off what was left over after the capital funds drive.

Can anyone guess what happened next? Can you imagine what got Real and what got Unreal? Without going into detail that would be beneficial for no one, the pastor took some positions that were considered outside the conventional doctrinal stance within the denomination. Given the chance to retract some of those views, the pastor felt obligated to the truth as he saw it and would not retract in the areas of most concern to the denomination. Long story short: pastor lost his ordination, church leaders decided to stay with denomination and the church essentially split, if you can call the space shuttle Challenger disaster a split. Some followed the pastor to a new church down the mountain, some stayed urging those who had left to return, and others just left, gone who-knows-where. Just a week ago, the remnant church turned over the keys of its mega structure to its creditors and moved into a child care center up the road, not unlike the church's humble beginnings.

And here's my point--we prayed, oh, we prayed. Heart-felt, gut-wrenching, tear-dripping prayer. Sometimes the entire prayer team would meet in the room below the one where the leaders were meeting to take on the next problem. Our Wednesday night Living Stones Services were Spirit-filled and emotionally raw, no holds back and we petitioned our God in Heaven to bless our church, those who were leaving the church and even those who followed the pastor to begin a church in the city.

I had joined the team of elders shortly before the dismantling began. I had come on board with nary a clue of the impending doom. I was having a martini on the upper deck of the Titanic when someone suggested it might be getting a little colder. For the next three and a half years, I prayed alone, I prayed in groups, I prayed with denominational leaders, I prayed with christian leaders like Mr. Yancey himself because it was his church too. We prayed for clarity, wisdom, new leadership, resources, for Jesus to continue to reveal himself. We prayed--it was raw, authentic and we were vulnerable and naked, and God answered: He was not afraid and He was not surprised. Why does the pot say to the potter, why did you make me this way? The building has been lost to creditors, many have lost jobs, small groups were dismantled one or two at a time, but the praying was raw, authentic, real. And many now have returned into the shelter of His perfect Will, but that Will appears to be following a map of His own choosing.