I believe this is the portion of prayer that is most overlooked and the most neglected.  This portion of prayer is the one I believe we all need to work more toward incorporating into our prayer life.   So many times we focus on the other aspects of prayer and completely neglect spending time simply praising God.  We, for some reason, separate our worship time and our prayer time when Christ spent more time worshiping God in His example for us then on any other aspect of prayer.

The reason this part of prayer is neglected is more clear than I think many of us realize.  Worship in prayer can be awkward.  In my own prayer life I find myself repeating the same thing over and over again when I am trying to worship in prayer and find myself at a loss of words, not because I do not love God but rather because I just don’t know how to express it.  There are a few ideas I would like to give you if this is the case.  Many of us are musically minded and will find it much easier to play, sing, or even write worship music as part of our prayer life.  Another option is to pray different portions of scripture that are dedicated to the worship of God.  Many of the Psalms are purely written to worship God and there are many other places in scripture where men of God are screaming out His praises.

I encourage you, and emphasize that we are called to this by the example of Christ, to incorporate worship into your prayer life.  I believe you will find the more time you spend in worship during your prayer time the easier it will come and the stronger you bond with God will be.

There are several verses I will be referencing in this discussion but would like to point out one in particular to begin with.  1 Thessalonians 5:17 tells us to “pray without ceasing”.  Now to put  this in context Paul is giving instructions to the Thessalonians after spending the majority of this letter encouraging them to be holy and blameless as they look forward to the Second Coming of Christ.  (thank you ESV Study Bible for this excellent short summary of the book)  This final section of the book is a list of encouraging actions he calls them to in response to all he has said in the book.  When Paul tells them to pray without ceasing he is encouraging them to place Christ first and foremost in their thoughts as they walk through life.  This concept of prayer is important to our walk with Christ but is not what I want to focus on.  I bring this up however to make this point,  We cannot reach the point of “prayer without ceasing” until we are having silent secluded fellowship with Christ through devoted times of prayer.

The main section of verses I am going to point to is Matthew 6:9-13,  What we have commonly referred to as “The Lords Prayer”.  This portion of scripture is a template from Christ in what we are supposed to pray for each and every time we pray.  It, i believe, also is organized in a particular order for a reason.  (Now before I continue I would like to say that the notes in the ESV Study Bible vary slightly from the break down that I am about to give you, however I believe both what I am about to say and those notes to be equally true.  The notes simply break down the first section of the prayer deeper than I will here.)

The Lords Prayer is broken down into 5 distinct ideas that need to be addressed in prayer; worship, needs, forgiveness, guidance, and protection.  Each of these ideas carry their on significance as to the way we need to be conversing with God.  In later posts I will break down each aspect individually and spend time fleshing out the importance and function of each.  For now I would like to emphasize the importance of the order.  I believe that, other than the fact that we should start each time of prayer in worship (which again I will flesh out in my next post), the order of these ideas in prayer does not always need to be the same.  Each time we come to the Lord in prayer the situations in our life are different.  At times we are struggling with one sin or another and need to seek forgiveness as we approach the Lord with a heart full of repentance.  Other times there will be a significant need in our life or the life of others such as health, financial troubles, family issues, etc.  Some times we may have a difficult decision as to the direction our life will take.  Finally there are times when we feel oppressed or will be in need of protection, both spiritually and physically.  All these things are outlined here in The Lords Prayer and are all-inclusive as to the things that need to be prayed for.

This is a brief introduction to the discipline of Prayer and not nearly as deep as I want to go which is why i have decided to flesh this out in multiple posts.  I will be breaking down each of these 5 principles of prayer in individual posts over the next month or so.  I would like to take a moment as I close here to emphasize the importance of Prayer in the life of a believer and encourage you to begin spending significant time in solitude talking to God.  I would also encourage you if you have any thoughts or questions about this to comment on it and I will either happily answer you or begin the journey with you to find the answer.

The aspect of my life that I have the most control over, as I just said, is my health.  I control how much I work out, if I even do, what I eat, and for the most part how stressed out I let myself become.  I am making a decision to live a more healthy life by eating right and working out when I can.  The reason I put this in a post like this is because I would like my friends and family to help me in this endeavor to live a more physically healthy lifestyle.  You can do this by calling me out on what I eat and asking me when the last time I worked out was.   The encouragement you can give is greatly appreciated and calling me out on my lifestyle in such a way will force me to consider my choices more clearly.

At this point I would like to apologize as to the nature of this post as usually I reserve this for any deep theological or spiritual thoughts that I may feel the need to express or of some knowledge I feel inclined to impart.  However I feel that this is also beneficial to those reading in that I hope it will help you understand that Spiritual Health is not simply made up of reading your Bible and Prayer but rather it is an accumulation  of every aspect of your life.  If one portion of your life whether it be your bible study, health, attitude towards work, or your relationship to other people (note this is not an exclusive list) is not in line with how we are called to live as Followers of Christ then your Spiritual Health is suffering.  I ask that you take a look at your own life as I ask you to help me make important changes in mine and perhaps we can grow together in our relationship with Christ.

Now I have to be honest and say that I did not expect them to come back but rather thought that if I truly wanted to invest anything into them I would have to search them out.  However tonight, while my wife was conveniently out of town and most people had other plans, they came back.

I believe that we all as followers of Christ are called to go out and make disciples.  I believe that part of this is evangelism and that we are called through the Great Commission to make an effort to go out and evangelise.  I need to confess that I have rarely done so.  At this point in time I find myself in a position where two men who do not know the Truth have come to me and for the first time in my life I am not just waiting for them to go away.

As I begin my journey through listening to what these men have to say, and hopefully being able to correct their beliefs to bring them to a belief in Christ as Lord, I am encouraged to find expressing what I believe, in a way that is understandable, not as difficult as I had feared.  I find myself not being as uncomfortable with speaking the Truth with complete strangers as I had thought that I would.  I find strength in the fact that I believe that God has brought me into this for the reason of hopefully changing these young men’s lives.

Now I say all of this not to boast but rather to express to you how easy it is for us to begin the process of making disciples if we simply step out of our comfort zone and trust that the Holy Spirit will work through us to plant and water the seeds of faith.  I now find myself excited not just to continue my conversations with these men but to also go out and preach the gospel to more people.  I am excited not just about investing in believers, as has always been my passion before, but also about the opportunities I am given to spread the gospel to non-believers.

I pray that you who read this will take this as an encouragement to take advantage of every opportunity that is placed before you to share the Gospel.  We are not called to just share the gospel with our friends and those we know but called to make disciples of every nation.  This comes from leaving your comfort zone and talking to sometimes complete strangers about Christ.  I am not saying that we all need to travel to the far reaches of the earth because I can prove to you the depravity of our home town.  I ask rather that we all stop making excuses about why we aren’t participating in the act of evangelism and go make disciples.  It is time that we stop sitting around waiting for those with the “gift of evangelism” to do all the work and bring the Truth and in effect complete life change to all of those around us.

I struggle with building my faith off the faith of others.

I look back at how I have come to the doctrinal beliefs that I have this day and realize that the majority of them are just ideas that I have adopted as my own from men who I trusted and not from personal study or reading of the Scriptures. (Not that I am saying these were not godly men but rather that I have not tested what I have taken as Truth.)  What I need to be doing is testing everything I hear before I accept it as truth.  Over this past year I have found myself, instead of just dismissing different doctrines out of hand, taking what I have heard and testing it through Scripture myself and I have found that much of what I had taken as truth were simply the beliefs or personal convictions of others and not the Truth of God’s Word.  I have had to rework my thinking because of God’s Word being taken out of context or from taking man’s words as Scripture.

I say all of this not because I am going to give you a list of some doctrine but rather to make the point that we cannot live off the faith of others but need to be taking charge of our own faith.  We are told to be continuously training ourselves.  (1 Timothy 4:7-8)  We are told to test everything we hear (1 John 4).  We cannot as Followers of Christ just assume that everything that comes from the pulpit is true.  It is not enough to know what you believe you also NEED to know why you believe it.

We need to take charge of our own faith and stop living off the faith of others.

As a follower of Christ it does not matter who won.

Now please don’t misunderstand me.  I did vote and I did care who won the election.  However the results do not make a difference in how we as Followers of Christ should live.  Had McCain won, yes, we would continue with the changes in the economy and it may or may not have straightened out.  Yes Obama is going to attempt to make changes in the policies in the United States that I may not agree with.  But as a Christian my priorities and the way I choose to live my life will not change.  As Followers of Christ we need to stay as committed to the Mission as we have been to this point.  We need to continue to redeem the relationships we are in and continue do develop new ones as we work to draw more people to Christ.  The Mission has not changed.  What we are called to do as Followers of Christ has not changed.  Will there be changes in our country, yes.  But our purpose on this Earth has not changed.  I am still committed to following the Great Commission.  I am still committed to bringing people into the body of Christ and developing those who are already a part of the body.  I am still committed to living a Missional Life and no changes in the politics of man will change that.  As such we who are Followers of Christ should not waver from the Mission we have been called to.

Some people look at conVerge and are thinking that we are just trying to start some new movement or something, but I want you to understand that this is not and should not be thought of as something new.  I think that a post such as this has been a long time coming and right now is heavy on my mind.

I am currently reading “Growing an Engaged Church” by Albert L. Winsemen (which please note I am not far enough into the book to recommend it to anyone at this time) and up to the point that I have gotten, which is just past the first chapter so far, the entire premise is that churches in the United States are shrinking because we have lost our focus.  The cover of the book says “How to stop ‘Doing Church’ and start Being the Church again”.  This is the idea of the Mission, shortened into one sentence.

Perhaps I am being repetative in writing this post but I think we all need to understand that we as Followers of Christ have a responsibility, and I believe if we are growing closer in our walk with Christ a desire, to see the Church grow.  Not just through empty programs and through “getting memebers involved” but rather through the redeeming of old relationships and the development of new ones.  The biggest thing the church has been missing is relationships and that is the entire idea of the Mission.

Christ told us to make disciples of all the nations.  He did not tell us to “evangelise” the entire world.  We cannot make disciples without building solid edifying relationships.  It is not enough to just have someone pray a prayer and leave them at that.  If we are not investing into each other and into the lives of those around us then we are not fullfilling the Great Commission.  This is the Mission of the Church and what conVerge has committed to.  The Mission is NOT a new idea, rather the final commandment Christ gave us before He left this world.

I am beginning to understand that although I thoroughly enjoy these things I can’t spend all my “free time” doing them.  I could be spending more time developing relationships with more people or deepening the relationships I already have (both fun things).  I could be learning more about my relationship with Christ by listening to pod-casts or reading more books (both things that are enjoyable).  But the sacrifices that I need to make are things that have no impact on The Mission.  These things are in all of our lives: video games, TV, browsing the Internet, ___.  You can fill in that final blank with whatever it is in your life that you spend time doing that in no way fulfills the Mission.

Please understand again that I am not saying you can’t have fun or that these things have absolutely no place in our lives, but I believe these things so easily become “idols” in our lives and I would also say we are wasting our time doing them when we could be spending more time dedicated to the Mission.

We all need to take a step back and look at what we spend most of our “free time” doing and take a moment to think how this affects the Mission.  Is what I am doing becoming an idol?  Is what I am doing glorifying to God? Is there something different I would enjoy doing that would impact the Mission?  These are questions we need to be asking ourselves and there is a good chance that we need to make some sacrifices in our lives.  Also keep in mind what Caleb Turner said in Missional Communities last week (and I will paraphrase it a bit) If we are developing our relationship with Christ than we will enjoy doing things in our lives that are Missional.

Although that may not seem like a profound statement to you understand that it is one of the easiest things to do without even realizing it.  I have been believing that I have been relying on God when in fact I have simply been using that idea to excuse myself from actually taking control of my own life and following any direction that God may be giving me through His word or through my friends.  I have been “Relying on God” instead of taking the actions that are required during this step of faith (remember it isn’t a ‘step of faith’ if you aren’t actually taking any steps)  It has been so easy to simply push worry and stress aside and say that I am “relying on God” when in fact I am simply using that as an excuse to sit on my lazy but and not step out and do what God requires of me.

This being said please learn from this mistake I have made and am now suffering the consequences of.  Understand that Relying on God is not just saying words or thinking the thought but it means that, while you are actually working towards what it is you have put in His hands, you are FULLY trusting in Him, realizing that it will either work out in His timing or you will come to where He wanted you to go in the first place.

As usual I find myself doubting if this is really what the Lord is wanting me to do right now and have been uncomfortable, and feeling a bit insecure about my messages for this week, when I began catching up on reading some of the blogs that I missed while in the Dominican Republic.  As I said before it is so amazing how God almost manipulates (in a good way) the circumstances in our lives.  One of the posts that I was catching up on was Pastor Steven Furtick‘s blog and interestingly enough the one that hit me the most was a guest he had blogging on his page Ryan Hollingsworth who was making an analogy of his high school running career and comparing it to his life now, talking about how we need to keep our eyes on the goal and not critiquing every decision we make causing us to doubt ourselves.

I need to keep myself focused on the reason that I am here speaking to these teens and that is because of my passion for teaching God’s Word.  I need to stop criticizing myself and trust that God has brought me here for a reason.  I need to speak from my heart and not just from some notes that I have put together.  I need to allow God to speak through me and trust that what he has led me to prepare is what these teens need to hear.  I need to follow Proverbs 3:5-6 and trust in the Lord with all my heart, leaning not on my own understanding but acknowledging Him in all my ways, allowing him to direct my paths.