Sweet Hour of Prayer

In our planning for the services at church, January 3rd was what I call a one-off: it wasn't part of a series, just a stand-alone Sunday. Dec. 27 wrapped up our Christmas series, and January 10 begins a new series which will cast vision for the life of the church. Last Sunday existed, then, in a kind of limbo. Our pastor decided to use it to tie into the New Year's resolution vibe and call us all to prayer. For the next six weeks, we're supposed to pray every day, just to see what might happen.

I admit I was a little disappointed. This seems terribly typical, and prayer isn't really my bag. I recognize the place of prayer in the Christian tradition -- I always pray if I'm asked to, and I'm not squeamish about praying in public -- and it's hard to cast aspersions on a pastor calling his or her congregation to greater prayer. How is that not legit? Besides, it's rather shrewd, even if he didn't intend it to be; we sometimes get accused of not being "spiritual" enough, and this attention to piety will push some of the right buttons in a certain segment of our congregation. So I roll with it.

We've also launched a blog where the pastor can post something inspiring or whatever and people can comment. There's also a place for prayer requests, and another to record answers to prayer. Testifying goes Web 2.0. As staff, we were asked to "get the ball rolling" with some comments before the official launch, to seed things a little. I ignored this. Until the pastor called me.

He doesn't ask me why I haven't responded. He says, "I need your wit," and explains the plan to get some comments rolling before it goes public. He doesn't say "Hey, didn't you get the email," he just appeals to my vanity: "I was hoping you could add some color." Like I said, he can be shrewd. He's this weird combination of earnestness and savvy, and I can't always tell if I'm being played -- well, really I am being played; what I don't know is if this is calculated or just intuitive on his part. It doesn't matter, of course. I have to say yes, which means I have to come up with something to participate in the discussion.

So I post something lighthearted about already being a morning person and deciding that my new mantra is "prayer before Facebook." And what's funny is that, of all the staff pre-comments, the one that garnered a response is -- you guessed it -- mine. So now someone I don't actually know, inspired by my transparency, is joining me in my prayer-before-Facebook campaign. This means I'm committed, not because somebody joined me but simply because I said I'd do it.

I'll let you know how it goes.