I feel asleep and woke thinking about these two ideas:
What does real community look like? and What does real prayer look like?
(I did a Google image search for “community” and the first picture was two ladies laying on a medical bed getting IV’s. It was for community health care. That might be a great image — and I’d post the picture here if it wasn’t too revealing. Instead, you get Google’s second choice.)
Does community just happen? Can you force community? If community does occur will everyone want to be a part of it, or only those interested in that particular community or community in general?
I don’t know that I have any answers, but maybe a lot of questions.
I would love to see a community of believers that come together for fellowship and prayer. A fellowship that blesses together and suffers together. A group that rejoices the joys of each other and mourns the hurts and sufferings. How do you obtain that?
I feel like I all my life I’ve been taught prayer. You hear the key formulas. ACTS: Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving and Supplication. You hear the Lord’s prayer. But we talked last night about how so often congressional or community prayer becomes a thing of formula rather than heart felt — and then that bleeds into our personal prayers. Is the formula bad? Or is it that we lose the heart and desperate seeking of God when we try to make our prayers an equal amount of thee’s and thou’s?
Is prayer really two way communication with God when we’re trying to formulate our prayers in our mind before we’re willing to speak them out? And what does it really mean to “groan” in the Spirit?
I remembered you, O God, and I groaned; I mused, and my spirit grew faint.
Selah
Psalm 77:3
In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.
Romans 8:26
I hope this opens up some discussion here. That this blog actually has a micro-community. I don’t just ask these questions rhetorically. I’d like your thoughts and opinions. I’m sure others have asked and maybe found answers. Let us know.
Shalom
Jonathan,
You are bringing up some good points for discussion.
I have mixed feelings about formula type prayers. Same about ceremonial prayers.
I think the best prayer is an honest and real conversation with God, stipped of any pretenses.
Community: its worth striving for but humans often seem to fall short of it. Without God, it’s impossible considering we live in a broken world with wounded and sin sick people.