The church’s pastor is out of town, and the laity leads the entire service. One thing they do is “prayers for the people.”
Consider these four discussion questions about Church #48:
1. Someone asks us to sign their guestbook but then scrambles to find a pen. Though once common, guestbooks now seem archaic and carry privacy concerns.
What practices do you need to change because they no longer fit today’s culture?
2. A friend invites us to sit with her and her husband. The leader gives some announcements and then asks for more. After others share, our friend stands and introduces us to the crowd. It’s a nice gesture.
How can you introduce new people to others and thereby reduce their discomfort?
3. After a song they offer “prayers for the people.” The leader opens and then pauses. After a bit of silence, someone else prays, and a few more follow. I like their approach, effectively sharing with each other as they talk to God.
How can you make group prayer more meaningful and less awkward?
4. Afterward we stay for coffee and cookies. We linger for forty-five minutes before heading home, happy for our time at church today.
What should you change so that people want to tarry and enjoy Christian community?
Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.
Located in a building with shared tenant space, this church has an inviting location, easily accessible, with nearby parking. They are a most welcoming church.
Consider these four discussion questions about Church #43:
1. With little room to mingle, we sit down. Several people come over to greet us. They give a heartfelt thanks for visiting and invite us back.
How can you engage with people who sit in silence waiting for the service to begin?
2. We’ve identified two key elements that make us feel truly welcomed at churches. One is sharing names, and the other is making a connection. Any attempt works, provided it doesn’t become an interrogation.
How can you do better at connecting with others?
3. Their multipage bulletin contains their liturgy, but I get my pages out of order and later joke about my ineptitude to an elderly man. “We have to get a projector to display the words,” he says. “I’ve wanted this for years.”
How can technology make your service more accessible?
4. Except for the prayer and message, the members handle the service.
How much of your service do leaders handle and how much do members take care of? What can you do to allow for more participation?
This was a welcoming church with much to offer. I especially like how involved the congregation is and their sense of ownership in the service. I anticipate that a great future awaits them.
Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.
Our destination is a church we’ve heard of often but know little about. Our favorable impression suggests a thriving, dynamic congregation. After the service they invite us back.
I want to say yes, but our schedule won’t permit it.
Consider these four discussion questions about Church #40:
1. As we walk inside, a young man introduces us to his wife, and they invite us to sit with them. We gladly accept his visitor-friendly outreach.
What can you do to help visitors feel more welcomed and comfortable?
2. Avoiding the often-awkward greeting time, they pass a friendship pad for everyone to sign. It contains a visitor card, which Candy completes, but she doesn’t know what to do with it. They solved one problem but created another.
How can you make your expectations clearer?
3. Foremost in their church vision is prayer. “There is power in prayer,” states the preacher. “Prayer should be our default inclination.”
How can you make prayer a more significant part of your church service and your faith?
4. After the service, our seatmates give us a tour of the facility, which left us with a favorable impression. What an inclusive gesture. I feel honored.
How can you better include, accept, and honor guests?
Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.
When Paul talks in the Bible about marriage, I struggle with his words because he was a bachelor. What does he know about the subject? Peter, on the other hand, was married so I give more credence to what he says on the subject. Even so I struggle a bit when he talks about women as the weaker vessel in 1 Peter 3:7.
This verse is specifically about husbands and wives. It’s part of a longer passage that talks about the marriage relationship. Let’s breakdown what Peter says.
The Weaker Vessel
In looking at multiple versions of this verse, most use the phrase weaker vessel. It offends my sensibilities because I strive to view men and women as equals. Some verses clarify that this weakness refers to physical characteristics, which I understand to be true, even if I don’t want to dwell on it.
The Message translation doesn’t use the phrase weaker vessel. Instead. it says, “as women they lack some of your advantages” (1 Peter 3:7, MSG).
The Expanded Bible clarifies this even further using the phrase as “the less empowered one” and explains that in the society of that time, women tended to have less power and authority (1 Peter 3:7, EXB).
Can we expand our understanding of this teaching beyond marriage to produce a general principle? Or is that taking the verse out of context?
If we choose to extend Peter’s instructions beyond marriage, we should all—men and women—take care in how we treat others who may be a weaker vessel to us: those who lack our advantages, who aren’t as empowered, and who possessed less authority.
The outcome of husbands treating their wives properly, as joint heirs with Jesus, is a more effective prayer life. In this way, Peter gives a command with a promise: treat your spouse well and your prayers won’t be hindered. Other renderings say “blocked” (1 Peter 3:7, CJB) and “ineffective” (1 Peter 3:7, AMP).
Moving Forward
Putting this all together, when husbands treat their wives properly—when everyone treats everyone else with respect—our prayers will be more effective.
Don’t we all want a more vibrant, effective prayer life? Then we should take care how we treat others.
Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.
Get the Bible Reading Tip Sheet: “10 Tips to Turn Bible Reading from Drudgery to Delight.” Enter your info and receive the free Bible Reading Tip Sheet and be added to Peter’s email list.
This church offers a mix of old with new, contemporary with traditional, and public friendliness with personal indifference. As a bonus, they also talk about having a Thanksgiving potluck.
Consider these four discussion questions about Church #31:
1. At one point, the leader asks everyone who is able, to kneel. It hurts when I kneel. So focused on my pain, I miss the prayer.
What practices in your church may get in the way of people encountering God?
2. Two girls read about the Good Samaritan: the first in Spanish and the second in English. But this is the only bilingual part of the service.
What changes can you make to your service so it’s more accessible to people of other languages or cultures?
3. Afterward is a Thanksgiving potluck. Publicly, they invite all to join them, but no one personally does. “If we walk slowly,” Candy says, “maybe someone will ask us to stay.” No one does, so we leave.
What can you do to personally invite someone to do something?
4. Aside from the two greeters at the door, no one talks to us. After the service I try to make eye contact with many people, but fail each time. I don’t matter and want to cry.
How can you let people know you care?
Though this church had much going for it, the lack of personal connection is my lasting memory.
Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.
Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.
Several years ago, my spiritual director recommended I consider centering prayer as a spiritual discipline. About the same time, a dear friend was exploring this technique as well.
The goal of centering prayer is to connect us with God. It’s more about hearing from him then him hearing from us. The idea of connecting with God more deeply on a spiritual level appealed to me. I read the recommended book that taught about centering prayer.
The process the author outlined unfolded as an involved series of steps to follow with exacting precision. As I recall, it would take several minutes, up to an hour each time I tried.
Vital to centering prayer is the instruction to clear your mind. The writer admitted that it would take a few months of concerted effort to achieve the desired results. And even then, the sought-after spiritual outcome might not always occur.
Just reading the book exhausted me.
Instead of approaching my Creator with joy, the prescribed approach would rob me of my delight in connecting with him. I decided not to pursue centering prayer. The whole thing didn’t feel right to me, but it wasn’t until later that I understood why.
Now I have a bit of insight as to why this spiritual practice felt misaligned with Scripture.
Take Every Thought Captive
In his second letter to the church in Corinth, Paul teaches them about spiritual reality. He reminds them that their battle is not in this world but in the spiritual realm. Among his instructions to this congregation, he encourages them to take every thought captive and make it obedient to Jesus (2 Corinthians 10:5).
This is the opposite of what centering prayer teaches when it says to clear your mind. Clearing your mind strikes me as the opposite of holding every thought captive, as God’s Word commands.
Always Be Alert
In talking about the future, Jesus tells his followers to always watch and pray. In doing so they will escape what is to come and stand before him (Luke 21:36).
How can we follow Jesus’s command to always watch and pray if we empty our mind of all thoughts? We can’t. We must be alert and watch.
A House Swept Clean
When Jesus’s opponents criticize him for driving out demons, he responds by teaching them about the subject. He wraps up with the hypothetical case of an impure spirit leaving its host. When it finds no place to go, it returns to the person it left, finding “the house swept clean and put in order” (Luke 11:24-28, NIV).
It then goes and finds seven more demons, even more wicked than it. They invade the person, leaving them in even worse shape.
I wonder if the idea of a “house swept clean” is the same thing as a clear mind. If clearing our mind opens us to receive God in the spiritual realm, might it also open us to receive other spiritual beings as well? To open us to unseen supernatural entities that don’t have our best interest in mind?
I don’t know if this is the case, but it’s a risk I’m unwilling to take.
Centering Prayer Conclusion
The idea of connecting with God on a spiritual level to hear him and fellowship with him is a worthy pursuit, which can produce an amazing outcome. But I don’t think centering prayer is the best way to do that.
The way I learned to hear from God is much easier to do and much more effective. As a bonus, I don’t need to clear my mind contrary to what Scripture teaches and risk opening myself to negative spiritual influences.
Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.
Get the Bible Reading Tip Sheet: “10 Tips to Turn Bible Reading from Drudgery to Delight.” Enter your info and receive the free Bible Reading Tip Sheet and be added to Peter’s email list.
In addition, they meet every day at the temple (outreach) and in homes (fellowship). They share all their possessions. They praise God – and every day more people join them. This is what the early church did.
There’s no mention of weekly meetings, sermons, music, worship, or offerings. If we’re serious about church in its purest form, the actions of the early church give us much to consider.
Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.
My parents taught me the proper posture for prayer: to fold your hands, close your eyes, and bow your head. These emerged as three steps I must take before I talked to God. I inferred that if I didn’t do all three, the Almighty would not hear me or answer my prayers.
This perspective is standard in church and permeates society. Most everyone, both the churched and unchurched, knows to close their eyes and bow their heads when someone else prays. And many also fold their hands.
Children with hands folded keep them from wayward action. This might prevent them from poking their sibling without their parents’ watchful eyes to stop them or popping food into their mouth before the meal’s blessing is complete.
Hands folded are hands not getting into trouble.
But I wonder if raised arms and open hands might be a preferred action.
Close Your Eyes
Keeping our eyes shut removes us from distraction, which helps us focus on God and the words of the prayer—at least in theory. This doesn’t work for me.
If I close my eyes when hearing a prayer made in public, I have one concern: what’s happening around me that I can’t see? This is especially true at restaurants. If I’m the one praying, I make it as short as possible to minimize my distress in not knowing what those moving about are doing. And when others pray, I silently implore them to finish fast. I seldom connect with or even hear these prayers.
My solution is to pray with eyes open. This works best for me.
Bow Your Heads
To lower our heads during prayer portrays reverence.
As a young child, I know one man in our church who did the opposite. During our minister’s congregational prayer each Sunday, this man raised his head, as if gazing toward heaven. I saw this as the ultimate sign of worship. I admired him for it.
How do I know this? Simple, I kept my eyes open during the prayer. But my parents didn’t know this because they kept theirs closed.
What Does the Bible Say?
Scripture never tells us to do any of these three physical acts before we pray.
When Jesus’s disciples asked them to teach them how the pray, he didn’t begin by saying to first fold your hands, close your eyes, and bow your heads (Luke 11:1-4). He simply began talking to Papa, “Our father . . .” (Matthew 6:9-13).
Notice that in both biblical accounts of Jesus giving his followers a prayer to emulate, there is not in “amen” at the end. This is another thing to contemplate as we reform our prayers.
The Intent of Prayer
The goal of prayer is communicating with God. Our physical carriage is not an issue. Our connection with our Creator is. Our words matter so much more than our physical positioning, like to fold your hands.
When we pray, we can fold our hands or raise our arms. We can close our eyes or keep them open. We can bow our heads, gaze towards heaven, or do neither.
When we pray, we should adopt whatever posture will best allow us to talk with God. This is the right way to pray.
Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.
Get the Bible Reading Tip Sheet: “10 Tips to Turn Bible Reading from Drudgery to Delight.” Enter your info and receive the free Bible Reading Tip Sheet and be added to Peter’s email list.
When going to church—whether as a visitor or a regular attendee—there are three keys to having a successful, meaningful, and spirit-filled experience. These are attitude, prayer, and expectation.
Without addressing these critical elements, many church services will fall short of expectations.
Following these three essential steps, however, can make most any church experience—despite its shortcomings—positive, even beneficial, and, dare I say, memorable.
Yes, it is true. In visiting all these churches, I’ve experienced both positive and negative outcomes. And most of these outcomes hinged on attitude, prayer, and expectation.
1. Attitude Is Everything
If we go to church with a bad attitude, we shouldn’t expect to enjoy our time there. It’s foolish to assume a positive outcome from church if we go there with a surly disposition.
When we approach church with positive anticipation of what will occur, our attention will focus on the positive elements of the service and give us the ability to extend grace to the negative aspects.
Our attention will celebrate the noteworthy and give us the ability to overlook the not-so-great.
And remember, every church, congregation, and service will possess both positive and negative elements. No church is perfect in every way, just as no church is completely flawed. Our attitude determines which of those two aspects we focus on.
I approached most all the churches we visited with a positive perspective. Most of the time this came naturally. A few times, however, I needed to work on adjusting my attitude.
Seeking a positive attitude means my overall approach to the church was positive.
Even so, that doesn’t mean I noted only positive elements. In visiting churches, I sought to share both positive and negative, celebrating the good that I witnessed and attempting to learn from the not-so-good that I encountered.
This is the reason I opted not to visit Church #69 (“Suffering from a Bad Rap”). From what people told me about their experience with this church and how the people who went there treated them, I formed a highly negative impression.
Based completely on this secondhand information, I developed a bad attitude about this church and suspected my experience would confirm what I anticipated.
Since I had such a bad perspective, I saw no point in visiting them until I could turn my mindset from negative to positive. I tried unsuccessfully for a couple of years to adjust my attitude, but I never could.
Therefore, I felt a visit would unfold as a futile encounter and produce no valuable insight or significant spiritual interaction.
I now realize—albeit too late—that I never prayed about this. I never sought the Holy Spirit’s intervention to correct my flagging attitude.
Through prayer, I’m quite confident God would have turned my attitude around. Unfortunately, I didn’t think to seek him in this.
This brings us to the next point: prayer.
2. Prayer Is Essential
When Candy and I embarked on our 52 Churches adventure, we committed ourselves to a pre-church prayer each week. Initially this was before we left our house, but later it occurred during our drive to church.
Our intent was to seek God’s blessing for our time with that church and to request a positive outcome. We only forgot to do this a couple of times, with our lack of prayer serving to diminish what we encountered at those churches.
So significant were the benefits of our pre-church prayer that we continued this practice when we weren’t visiting a new church but instead were attending our home church.
Most of the time I would pray, and Candy would add her addendum as she felt led. Other times I asked her to pray.
After a few weeks, I realized our pre-church prayer could easily slip into a rut, with us repeating the same phrases week after week.
To avoid falling into a vain repetition (see Matthew 6:7 in the KJV), I would seek Holy Spirit insight on what specific things to pray for during our drive to church each Sunday.
As a way of example, and not to imply something for you to copy, here are parts of some of our pre-church prayers:
“Thank you, God, for the opportunity to go to church today. Please teach us what you would have us learn.”
“Papa, at church today may we receive what you want us to receive and give to others what you want us to give.”
“May we worship you today in spirit and truth” (see John 4:23–24).
“Holy Spirit, direct us to divine encounters with the people at this church so that we may encourage them, and they may encourage us, as needed.”
“Please give us positive attitudes so that we may see what you want us to see.” (I prayed this prayer a few times, but Candy clarified that she already had a good attitude. It was mine that needed adjustment. She was right.)
“We thank you, Jesus, for who you are and what you’ve done for us. May we celebrate you today at church.”
“God, please speak to us through the sermon today.”
As we returned to our home church, these types of prayers continued, though some new ones were a bit more pointed, as in:
“Please direct us, Holy Spirit, to someone to minister to today at church.”
“May you give us opportunities to pray for others before and after the church service.”
“Father, today at church, may we see others through your eyes and encourage them in Jesus’s name.”
Use these examples to form your own pre-church prayers. But regardless of the words you say, know that prayer is essential when you head off to church.
These prayers don’t need to be fancy, but they should be heartfelt and Holy Spirit driven.
Prayer establishes the groundwork for what happens next.
3. Expectations Form Experience
The foundation formed by prayer prepares us for the church service. It serves to shape our expectations, which will drive our experience.
Most of the time, positive expectations result in positive outcomes, while negative expectations prompt negative results.
With prayer establishing the basis to move forward, we should easily slide into a mindset of positive expectation. This is how we put our faith into action.
We say our pre-church prayer in faith, and we prove it from the actions that spring forth from our expectations.
When we expect great things to happen at church, we will see the positive most every time. If we expect disappointment, we will surely encounter it.
As I said before, we will never experience a 100 percent perfect service, nor will we ever experience a 100 percent horrible one.
Church experiences exist on a continuum from good to bad, positive to negative. And yet, when we walk in with positive expectations, our experience will skew toward the positive.
For most Sundays, our pre-church prayer did exactly that. Yet, on a few occasions, I needed to breathe a booster prayer as we pulled into the church parking lot, walked through the doors, or encountered some initial disappointment.
These prayers sometimes came forth as little more than a groan, but God granted my plea every time.
How to Go to Church Summary
Whether visiting a new church or attending our home church, we should follow a wise strategy, remembering that attitude is everything, prayer is essential, and expectations form experience.
May we receive God’s blessing when we go to church, and while we’re there, may we be a blessing to others.
May it be so.
Action Step
Go to church with the right attitude, covered with prayer, and with high expectations.
Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.
