The Praying Church (9 of 10)
Basic Prayer
Roger Thomas
Acts 6:1-7
May 6, 2001
Restoring New Testament Christianity is one of our top values as a congregation. We believe that every congregation, including this one, would be more like what God intends his church to be if we did a better job of patterning ourselves after the church of the first Christians. This doesn't mean we mimic everything they did—but we believe the Apostles, Jesus original disciples, knew the teachings, practices, and values that Christ intended. Many of the problems and divisions of the last nineteen centuries come from the church abandoning or changing that New Testament pattern.
One of the most important parts of that pattern is a radical emphasis on prayer. Someone has said the difference between the early church and its later counterpart is that when the New Testament church leaders gathered they talked of their powers; when modern leaders meet they talk of their problems. I personally don't believe that the secret of the early church was so much special miraculous powers (though they did have that to some degree); their power was their faith in a God who was really involved in their world and their lives and was always just a prayer away.
Far too often we are like the old Welsh woman who lived in a remote coal-mining valley of Wales. She went to a great deal of trouble to have electrical power installed in her home. But the officials at the power company noticed that she didn't use very much electricity at all. In fact, her usage was minimal. They sent a meter reader out to check on the matter. The man came to the door and said, "We've looked at the amount on your bill. We've checked your meter. It seems to be working. Don't you use the electricity?"
"Oh, of course, I use the electricity," she said, "We turn it on every night to see how to light our lamps then we switch it off again!"
So with many a church, we approach prayer as a switch to begin our ...
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