One of the best ways to think about prayer is to view it as simply having a conversation with God. If someone can talk to a spouse, coworker, friend, or neighbor, they can talk to God in prayer. No special training or vocabulary is needed. No special posture and location are necessary. Whatever you would talk to a friend about, you can talk to God about. Wherever you might speak to a friend, you can speak to God. You do not need to be gathered together with others, though sometimes that is helpful for the sake of the conversation. You do not have to be in a certain building or room, though sometimes, that is helpful so you can focus on what is being said.

Even still, some people are uncertain of what to say when they pray, since having a conversation with God seems different than having a conversation with a friend. So it is helpful to give people some ideas of the sorts of things that can be said in conversation with God. In the next few posts, we will look at four places in Scripture some people find helpful as they learn to converse with God.

The Disciples’ Prayer

The passage that many people think of as The Lord’s Prayer might better be called “The Disciples’ Prayer.” Near the middle of the three years of Jesus’ ministry, His disciples noticed that He spent a lot of time in prayer, and they came to Jesus, asking Him to teach them to pray (Luke 11:1). They did not ask this because they did not know how to pray, for the Jewish people had many daily and weekly times of prayer. But most of these prayers were memorized and recited, and were formal, ceremonial prayers for particular events and holidays.

The disciples must have noticed that Jesus prayed differently. He seemed to talk with God as a man talks to a friend, or a Father. For Jesus, prayer was natural and normal, and the disciples wanted to pray this way as well.

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For every prayer I have heard in prayer meetings that fits one of these examples, I have hundreds of prayers in prayer meetings that are genuine, heart-felt, meaningful, conversations with God about Who He is, what He has done, and how we would like Him to help us live life and serve Him better.

But even where the prayers are meaningful and heart-felt, there are still numerous pitfalls to prayer meetings.

Pitfall - One of my favorite games as a kid.

Questioning Prayer Meetings

For example, have you ever noticed how the true “prayer warriors” of the typical church never come to “Prayer meetings”?

Have you ever wondered why? Have you ever thought it odd that when you ask your pastor to pray for a pressing need in your life, he writes it down, and then says, “I’ll bring it up at the prayer meeting this Wednesday”?

Has it ever seemed strange to you that although there can be dozens of people out in the community loving others, serving the poor, meeting needs, and helping the homeless, the “truly spiritual people” are those who come to church on Wednesday night for the prayer meeting where they pray for the poor, the homeless, and the other needs of the community? Why are the ones who pray about these needs more spiritual than the ones who actually go meet the needs?

Prayer Meeting Slogans

And then there are all the sermons and slogans about how the church advances on its knees, how kneeling men are real men, and how the attendance at the prayer meeting reveals the true health and vitality of the church. Aside from the fact that I am just not sure these ideas are true, it seems that these sermons and slogans really don’t get people to pray more, but simply guilt them into showing up for another meeting in the church building.

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So far in this series called “Let Prayer Meetings Cease” we have looked at a few types of prayer you might hear in a prayer meeting: The Magic Words prayer, the Let God to the Talking prayer, and the Father God Jesus Christ Glory Hallelujah prayer. We now turn to one final example of a type of prayer you might hear in a prayer meeting.

This type may be the worst because although the person thinks they are talking to God, they actually spend a good portion of the prayer talking to the Devil.  Have you ever heard a prayer like this? You probably have.

Here is an example of one I heard quite recently:

God, we thank you for your many answers to prayer this week, and—Devil! I rebuke you in the name of Jesus—and God, may you guide us and direct us this week according to your will—Satan! I bind you and cast you out with the authority of the name of Jesus!—and God, we especially want to lift up to you today Sister Maynard—Get out Satan! Get out! Leave her alone!—who is struggling with the flu this week—Evil spirit of the flu, get out of her! Leave foul demon!—may you use your power and might to restore her to health…

I’m not sure God likes to share prayers to Him this way. Half of the prayer is a conversation with Him, and the other half is a conversation with the devil. I know that they are praying against the devil, or praying against Satan, but such a practice is not learned from Scripture (the opposite is actually taught: 2 Pet. 2:10-11; Jude 1:9).
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Another type of prayer which might be heard in a prayer meeting is the one where two or three words are repeated over and over throughout the entire prayer. Sometimes these words are “Glory to God! Hallelujah!” Other times they are “Father God,” “Holy Jesus,” “Glorify Your Name, Oh Lord” or some combination or variation of these ideas.

Usually, while the person is praying out loud, they will inject these words at the beginning of every sentence, and sometimes right in the middle of a sentence.

In church prayer meetings, we usually don’t think much of this sort of praying because it is so common. And while this sort of praying is not quite as strange as speaking in tongues, when it is carried over into a real-world conversation with another human being, it sounds completely bizarre. Imagine that instead of praying to “Father God” two men, Theo and Andrew are having a conversation where Andrew repeats Theo’s name every few words. Here is how this conversation might sound:

Theo: Hey Andrew! How have you…
Andrew: Oh Theo, I thank you for letting me come into your presence today, Theo, and Theo, I ask that you bless me today, Theo. For I am your servant, Theo, and come before you with nothing but an outstretched hand, oh Theo, hoping that you might, Theo, in your glory, Theo, and out of your grace, Theo, see fit to listen to my needs, Theo, and hear my requests, Theo, and grant them, Theo, according to your mercy, Theo.
Theo: Uhhhh….
Andrew: And Theo, there are many people in this place, Theo, who have many burdens, Theo, and they come before you with many sins, Theo, which you, oh Theo, in your infinite wisdom, Theo, already know about, Theo. And we thank you, Theo, that because of your blood, Theo, shed for us, Theo, we might enter your presence, Theo, with boldness, Theo, before your throne of grace, Theo…
Theo: You can stop saying my name now. I’m not going to forget it.
Andrew: Oh Theo, Theo, Theo, Theo, Theo, Theo, Theo. We love your holy name, oh Theo. For in your name, Theo, there is strength, oh Theo, and power, oh Theo, and might, oh Theo, and glory! In your great name, Theo, we cast out evil spirits, Theo, and bind the enemy, Theo…

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I have never spoken in tongues. And honestly, I have never wanted to. I had some pastor tell me that I didn’t want to because I was proud and didn’t want to look foolish in front of others. Maybe so, maybe so. But I’ll tell you what, I don’t think that looking foolish in front of others is doing a whole lot of good for the cause of Christ and the advancement of the kingdom. But that is a topic for some other series.

All I want to say is that if you speak in tongues, I am not trying to mock you or your prayer language in the rest of this post. I am only poking fun at the two examples below…

I am introducing my series called “Let Prayer Meetings Cease” by writing about several types of prayer that you might hear in a prayer meeting. Yesterday we looked at the “Magic Words” prayer. Today, we look at the prayer where people let God do the talking.

The “I Don’t Know What I’m Saying, So God Will Say it For Me” Prayer

I have sometimes been in prayer meetings where people clearly lose their train of thought, or they don’t really know how to pray for the issue at hand, and so rather than pause, or stumble around for the right words, or simply pray wrongly and let God sort it out (He doesn’t mind), the person instead starts to “speak in tongues,” thus trying to impress everybody with their spirituality.

And rather than type what it sounds like, I will give you an example from YouTube. Of course, this guy is preaching a sermon, but just imagine he is praying instead. You’ll get the idea. I actually feel bad for this poor pastor. It appears that he was told that the Holy Spirit would take over and start preaching through him, but for some reason, the Holy Spirit power never really “kicks in”  …unless 90% of a Holy Spirit Sermon consists of the words “Glory to God! Hallelujah!”
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