Demise of Prayer Meeting

I've lived a long time and I've seen a lot of changes through the years. I remember when marriage was between a man and a woman. And I remember when a man was a man and not a woman.

I remember when only sailors and circus freaks had tattoos. This whole world's gone crazy. I remember the church when it still had a voice of authority in the land.

And when the people looked to the church for guidance, when it was still a house of prayer before it became a house of entertainment. I've witnessed the demise of the weekly prayer meeting in the church as it slowly was replaced first by Bible study, then divorce recovery groups or yoga classes or Zumba dance lessons. While folks would go crazy today if they had to pray together for more than 10 minutes.

But I remember a time in America where there was such a thing as a weekly prayer meeting in the church and people actually came to pray. And they weren't embarrassed to cry when they prayed. And they prayed loud and long and did so until they grabbed hold of God and the fire fell and consumed the sacrifice.

The church back then didn't operate on money and manpower, but by God and holy ghost power. Back then, the church still had authority in the church-influenced society instead of society-influenced in the church. And preachers back then would stand with dignity in the pulpit and pray an awful long time as they address their God before they address their congregation.

But the power of the church all boiled down to the weekly prayer meeting. Jesus said, It is written, My house shall be called a house of prayer. But sadly, the house of God today is seldom a house of prayer.

And I've got to ask myself why, but I think I can answer that, friends. We got rid of the weekly prayer meetings in the church because the church is only a composite of the members who are in it. And if those members are prayerless people, then there's no desire to pray corporately when they don't even have a family altar at home.

I believe the demise of the weekly prayer meeting can be tied to the demise of the family altar in the home. Most folks just don't pray anymore. And if they do pray, they pray selfish, self-centered prayers.

Like the time I was a Sunday school teacher in a big Baptist church and opened up the class for a time of prayer. And this girl who was married to a millionaire asked for prayer for her interior decorator. She hired to decorate her million dollar house.

She wanted the decorator to have wisdom, not to choose color patterns that would contrast. But that was this girl's prayer request. That's the prayer of the American church today.

It boils down to three things. Bless me, bless me, bless me. It doesn't matter if folks are going to hell in droves, so long as we get our blessings.

But when I read my Bible, I see Jesus took time to pray. In Luke 6, 12, we read, And it came to pass in those days that he went out into a mountain to pray and continued all night in prayer to God. And I'll read over in Mark 1, 35.

And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, he went out and departed into a solitary place and there prayed. If Jesus was the Son of God and he made time for prayer, what's our excuse? I remember my homiletical mentor, Dr. Stephen F. Olford, sharing a shocking thing with me. He said the average pastor only spent 10 minutes a day in prayer.

Well, if that's true, and the average pastor only spends 10 minutes a day in prayer, what does the average Christian spend? One minute? It's shocking. When I read Christian biography of men God used like D.L. Moody, I see man of prayer. And when I read about Charles Finney, I see he had power in the pulpit because he would spend all day in a grove of trees on his knees praying to God for the souls of men.

We only give God lip service today, like we're talking to a waiter taking our food order. I saw the terrorist attack of 9-11 drive some churches to their knees, but it didn't last long. We all went back to the status quo of prayerlessness.

They killed off the weekly prayer meeting anyhow. I reckon something awful bad has to happen to this God-hating society before any of us will get serious with God and prayer. Maybe a nuclear blast that destroys half the country, burning our cities with burnt carcasses lying in the streets may get our attention and make the other half who survived go to praying again.

But I doubt that they would. Christians are supposed to be praying people, but most of them just get too busy to take time to pray or even care. If you are a pastor and you don't have a regular weekly prayer meeting in your church, then don't complain about the country going to the devil if you won't even bother to fight them on your knees.

I don't believe you can even call yourself a church if the carpet in your sanctuary isn't wet from the hot tears of a broken-hearted people crying over the things that break the heart of God and interceding for the lost and perishing in your own families and communities. Oh, heaven help us all.