In her book, Unbinding the Gospel, Martha Reese talks about a church that was interested in exploring reaching out to the un-churched, i.e. evangelism,. Martha invited the focus group to do nothing other than to pray. They were to gather and pray for three months, they were to not make any plans, not strategize, not set an agenda…they were simply to pray. To pray for one another, to pray for the church, pray for the congregation, to pray! The group was skeptical at first but at the end of three months there was a renewed sense of passion and compassion. The group continues to meet and to pray and others in the congregation have been invited into the same practice of prayer for one another.
On Sunday Jason gave the congregation a challenge to give a smile to everyone we encounter, because we can never underestimate the power of a smile, of human connection. This past week that challenged has been broadened by asking groups of folks to enter into a covenant of prayer, to pray for one another daily. As on Sunday when we can not leave worship until we had prayed for one another, we can not truly become the Body of Christ until we hold one another in prayer. So our challenge lets us take time each day to be in prayer, to pray for our congregation, our sisters and brothers in Christ, the brokenness in our world, pray for ourselves, pray for our leadership, pray for ______, pray!
Let us take seriously the challenge of our faith, to smile and recognize the full humanity of all, to pray without ceasing, to be a people whose faith is alive. May our prayer life and devotion, to our creating God, to Christ’s call for justice, lead us to love one another. And may that love, grounded in the power of the Holy Spirit, call us deeper into our faith.