prayer time

In just a few minutes about 6-10 of us will gather in my office for prayer--we meet Wednesdays at noon. I always look forward to this time as we pray for the needs of our church family and community.

Our church is medium-sized; about 650-750 call Grace Fellowship "home" and on an average Sunday about 400 attend. We participate well in most things but we struggle with corporate prayer settings.

We are busy and a rural community so travel distance no doubt enters into the mix of reasons few come to pray. We have lots of older folks who have slowed the pace of their lives and a growing number of young families where children and work are factors in traveling to a corporate prayer site.

But it really makes no difference what the day, hour, occasion for prayer--we seldom come with the same interest that accompanies our scheduled potlucks, church worship services, and other special events. Smallest crowds always characterize our prayer meetings.

I want to be careful to draw too many unfair judgmental conclusions about all of this. In my forty years of ministry I remember accelerated interest in prayer following the 9-11 tragedy, the anticipation of the Y2K "crisis and events similar that reflected a state of fear and anxiousness about the future. Then getting a crowd to pray was much easier.

Prayer time is not about numbers, I admit. But I would love the day we scheduled a prayer meeting and had to get extra chairs.

Until then, I need to be faithful in prayer, and in calling our church to times of corporate prayer. The results are not for me to measure.