The Prayer Plunge

WESTMINSTER PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
October 18th 2009

Rev. Mark R. Bradshaw-Miller
“The Prayer Plunge”
I Kings 19:11-13; Luke 5:1-10

Can you imagine a day when Westminster will host a youth lock-in where twenty high school students would willingly participate? Can you imagine that those youth claim Westminster as their church? When that does happen it would be something to celebrate. On Friday night this occurred. What are we supposed to make of this? On Monday night I asked the session where they saw the Spirit at work in the life of the church. And two members pointed out that they had noticed more young people around, and actually excited about being here as a sign of the Spirit at work. We have just gotten our six week study underway and I amazed at the stories I have heard about the surprising things going on in the life of the church. If you have not joined a small group, there is still room for you.
In the first week we have looked at the struggles we often have with the word evangelism. We have also wrestled with the question of what difference being a Christian has made in our lives. This morning we are going to look at what makes faith sharing effective. Since we are good at and like being effective this may come as welcome news.
Westminster is a church where people know how to work hard. In fact, we are masters at hard work! We know how to have church dinners, organize committee meetings, raise money for the latest UCM project, how to organize for CROP walks (which is next week by the way!) And when we have give our best to the church we drag ourselves home, exhausted! And we do it again the next day, and the next day, and the next day! In fact, we have even seen some of our hardest workers finally go away because they are burned out. But this is not a story unique to Westminster. Church people are determined, committed, hard workers for the Lord. One thing we can claim with certainty is that mainline churches are not shrinking because they are lazy!
Five years ago I met with a long term member who said to me. “I have been here a long time. We have tried everything. Nothing has worked. If we couldn’t figure out how to grow the church before you got here what makes you think you can?” I do not remember my response but I do remember how it tapped into my need to prove nay-sayers wrong. But in light of this week’s passage I can almost hear Peter saying these exact words to Jesus. Now do not here me wrong, I am not putting myself in the shoes of Jesus. After all when I got home after that meeting I prayed pretty much the same words that had been directed to me only hours before. No, what I hear now is the same feeling Peter must have had. We have been working at this all night and nothing has happened. And now you want us to do what? "We’ve already been fishing. We didn’t catch anything! But if you say so . . ." So they pulled up the anchor and headed back out to the deep water, this time with Jesus as a fishing partner.
Moving into the deep waters is scary even if we are trying to keep company with Jesus.
We are working hard at doing a lot of good things. But are we doing the God-things? Are we experiencing the peace and trust God intends for us, or are we just tensing up and kicking too hard? How’s our fishing going so far? Jesus wants these disciples to join him in his work for God. He’ll soon invite them to become “fishers of people.” But before he signs them up for employment with God, it seems that he wants to be sure they “get” something. He wants them to know that if they’re going to be effective in this new work, they will have to follow his guidance. They will have to have him along.
When Luke wrote this story down, it was for a church that was working very hard to pass the gospel on to the next generation. Maybe, in just a few decades after Jesus’ physical presence, the church had started getting tired with all the work they were doing. Maybe their efforts weren’t producing like they once did. Luke gives them, and us, this story to remind us. Hard work alone doesn’t cut it. Only going to the deep waters with Jesus will be effective. Only trusting Christ’s guidance will produce real results for the church.
Prayer is one way to go into the deep waters with Jesus. Prayer is the most effective way I know to hear and heed Christ’s guidance. Now, it’s not that we don’t pray as a church. But I suspect we work a lot more than we pray. We pray before our church meetings. But how many times do we meet to pray? How many times has the session spent all of its meeting time praying? What could God do through us if we spent half of our meeting times in prayer? What wouldn’t get done if we prayed more? What could God get done through us if we prayed more?
In the book we're reading together, Martha Grace Reese tells about a church that tried prayer as the meetings rather than just before meetings. Three high-energy, go-getter women were the new evangelism committee for Benton Street Church. They were fired up to do great things for God that year. They brought in Reese as a consultant to get some direction about what they could do first. A calling campaign? A bring-a-friend Sunday? Maybe direct mail marketing? No, the consultant said. Not that. Not yet. She told them to pray for three months before they did a thing!!!
The evangelism committee at Benton Street was looking for activity, for hard work, for something to do! But instead, Reese told them to stand still and pray. Stand still for three months!!! Prayer is a different kind of hard work, of course. Most of us don't know how to do it, at least not for very- long. But this evangelism committee learned. They prayed together for one hour every week. At board meeting, when it was their turn to report, they would say, "We're still praying. She’s making us do it. We’re just praying." People giggled. Then board members started giving them prayer requests. After three months of "doing nothing but praying," interest in evangelism had skyrocketed. By the end of the year, 65 people were helping with evangelism. New visitors came in droves. Twice as many people were baptized as the year before, twice as many babies were dedicated.
"When they had done what Jesus commanded, they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to break!" Apparently, going back into the deep waters with Jesus makes a difference. Prayer expresses our willingness to do what Jesus wants us to do. Prayer prepares us to be effective in whatever work we do for Jesus. Prayer helps make room for the Holy Spirit in our lives. So let's try it. Some of you already have prayer as a part of your daily life. Many of us do not. But we can all grow in prayer. And so can our church. For the next month, let's pray as a church like we’ve never prayed before.
Will you pray with us for this next month? You are already using the "40 Days of
Prayer" guide. If not, start! We have a copy for you right outside the sanctuary. We're going to pray right here, so we can get started. Yes, right here in the middle of a sermon. Let’s put our money where our mouths are. Let’s pray, not just talk about thinking about maybe drifting towards praying . . . sometime pretty soon. Let us do it right now. Grab one of the pink prayer request forms. I want you to hold it while you pray. I’m going to explain this first, then we’ll all pray together.
Hold your prayer request form. First we’ll sit quietly and breathe slowly. Then, ask God whom to pray for. This is important because many of us have our own agendas when we pray. This time, ask God for whom to pray. As soon as God gives you a person or a situation, imagine them shrunk down so they’ll fit into your hands, right in the middle of your prayer request form. Hold whomever God puts into your hands and pray for them. I’ll say Amen at the end. All right? Any questions? Everyone got it? Okay, gently breathe and let's start. [Pause for two minutes.] Amen.
How was that? Thank you for your willingness. What an amazing church to try something out of the ordinary like that! Now write the initials of the person you were led to pray for on the prayer request form. After worship place this on the prayer wall. Maybe you’ll want to add some other notes, or update this one, next week, and the week after. What’s most important is that you keep praying for whomever, or whatever, God has asked you to pray.
You know, a lot of us know we should be praying more but we don't. We think we don't have the time. We think there are other important things that must be done. We want to be responsible and get the "to do " list done before we take the luxury of prayer. Today, I'm giving you permission. Let’s be less responsible to the world and more responsive to God. I don't mind if all the Stuff doesn’t get done during this month. Things can slide a little as long as you're spending time praying instead. You heard me. The church's grass may not get mowed. As long as you're praying instead, for one month, that is okay by me! Let’s agree among ourselves. We are going to make prayer our priority for four more weeks. Then we’ll see what God has done with us . . . and through us. I believe God will start doing some amazing things with us during this time.
I don't know what it will be . . .Maybe new visitors . . .maybe a new unity . . . maybe old wounds healed. Most likely it will be something we never imagined. I believe making room for prayer always brings new blessing. But here’s the catch: If we're anything like the human disciples, we may not be ready! Like them, our response to whatever great thing God does will be, "We're not worthy!" After Simon sees what success Jesus has given him, he falls to his knees. He says to Jesus, "Go away, Lord! I don't deserve this!" If we go deep with Jesus, we might find ourselves in deep water! We may have the same reaction. We might feel ourselves resisting the blessings God wants to bring us. We might want to bury our heads and ask God to go away.
Maybe we're not sure God should do something in our lives. We don't feel worthy for God to use us. Maybe we’re afraid of the change in our lives if God did do something in us. How’s your future mapped out? Peter went from fisherman to traveling preacher. Maybe some of us don’t really believe God can do anything new. Let’s face it. Staying on the familiar treadmill is a lot less scary than going deep with Jesus. But Jesus says to Simon, "Fear not. From now on, we'll be catching people for God." Then these hard working fishermen parked their boats and their fish and their nets right there on the shore. They left their work and followed him. In this next month, let’s leave our work and pray like we’ve never prayed before. Let’s go back into the deep waters with Jesus. Amen? Amen!