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Thoughts from Rev. Matt

What if prayer isn’t all up to us?

Do you ever feel a bit sheepish, or even defensive, when the dentist asks you about how often you floss? Or with the doctor when they ask you about the dietary changes you’ve (not) made after the last blood test results?

As he was working on a book about prayer life, a United Church of Christ minister colleague of mine down in California ran into the same sort of guilt and defensiveness when he asked people about their prayer lives. Prayer had become something they knew they should do, something they felt like they weren’t doing well enough or often enough… and talking about it only made it worse. Even ministers, pastors, and other church leaders shared these feelings and reactions (and, truth be told, I get that! I do sometimes, too!)

But what if prayer isn’t all up to us?

That’s what this colleague of mine, the Rev. Dr. Wesley Ellis, pastor of First Congregational Church UCC in Ramona, California, began discovering, not in the least when he began delving into our own scriptures.

We've inherited a world that turns everything into a means to an end, and prayer hasn't been spared. What Dr. Ellis wants to recover is something the tradition has always known: that prayer is primarily something God does, and that we are less its practitioners than its recipients.

Hear more from Pastor Wesley in a recent podcast episode from the Pivot Podcast of Luther Seminary’s faith+lead centre for lifelong learning: https://faithlead.org/pivot/season-6/180-rethinking-the-christian-prayer-life/

 

(For those of you who are regular listeners to podcasts of any sort, you can also search up “Pivot Podcast” on your favourite podcast app…)