5 Assumptions of Prayer

Luke 18:1 states that Jesus taught His disciples that "at all times they ought to pray and not lose heart (give up)." In fact, the challenge is for us "to cry to Him day and night." Jesus concludes that God the Father will will bring justice quickly, then asks a salient question: "when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?" In other words, will He find His people praying and trusting, or complaining with despair?

I’d like to remind us all, myself included, of prayer's assumptions.

1. God is God of the universe. He created it and sustains it with purpose. By sending His Son to earth, God initiated His desire for reconciliation with all humanity. With reconciliation comes relationship, and with relationship comes both responsibility and privilege. Prayer is both.

2. We as humans live in a world of multiple planes. The horizontal is what we see. The vertical is what we do not see. The vertical controls the horizontal. The spiritual controls the physical and social.

3. Here is where prayer steps in. Every concern should be lifted to God in prayer. Every challenge should be a matter for prayer. If something is big enough to worry about, it is big enough to pray about. Every opportunity should be processed through prayer. Every hurt and insecurity and perceived injustice should be taken to The Lord. Every problem, decision, and plan should be laid before The Lord. That is how God designed us to live.

4. We were created to live in harmony with God's will. How can we do His will if we do not know it? Should we not go to Him and ask what it is that He wants? Yes, much of His will is found in His Word. But, the specifics of our lives on a day by day basis depend on our asking.

5. Prayer, intense focused prayer, can change the direction and trajectory of our lives personally, corporately, our families, churches, communities, and even society as a whole. There is no issue that God is unable or unwilling to resolve. But He waits for us to ask. We should pray and not give up. We should pray day and night. We should be a people who are known for our faith and for our prayers!

How to Handle Hurts in the Church

Fern and I recently got the pleasure of hearing one of my heroes, Jim Henry, speak at the Mega Metro Pastor’s Conference. He talked to us about how to handle hurts in the ministry. 

He began by sharing some of the painful experiences he had in the ministry. If you are in the ministry very long issues will arise and people will take a cheap shot at you. It comes with the territory. It is just a matter of time. So the issue is not if but when these things occur, how do you respond? Jim's notes apply not only to those in leadership but also to anyone who may experience hurt by others in the church.

1. Face reality. Painful situations hurt. To pretend they do not simply compounds the problem.

2. Pray the Word of God. This is specially a time to stand upon and claim the promises of God. He shared that this one discipline got them through many times.

3. Do not respond too quickly when you are hurt. Sometimes a knee-jerk reaction or a word spoken too soon simply compounds the problem. Make sure you are prayed up and prayed through before you respond to anything. 

4. Remember that it is better to confront an issue than to brush it under the rug. Too often failing to address an issue simply gives it time to get worse. 

5. Try to be noble and respond with grace as best you can. How would Jesus respond in this situation is a good question to ask.

6. Get alone with God and seek his mind and assessment of the situation and how you should respond. Crises and difficult times, unfair accusations and attacks of the enemy never catch the Lord off guard. Remember this, when there is a situation and the church knows about it, you cannot hide. These things almost never go away on their own.

7. Seek wise counsel. There are godly people whom God will bring into your life who will help give you honest feedback and an objective assessment.

8. Compartmentalize. There are times when you simply have to put these things down and take care of other business. If you do not compartmentalize, it can lead to a paralysis of action. By compartmentalizing, I mean, just shut part of that world out for a time. 

9. Remember that people are watching you. By your actions and reactions, you are giving them a life lesson.

10. Understand that a crisis will often make you as a shepherd-leader. What someone meant for evil, God will have meant for good to prepare you for the next leg of your journey.

Let me add a few things that I, too, have learned from difficult situations.

First, no matter what happens, forgive. Do not hold a hurt done to you over someone's head. You can forgive without forgetting. Forgiving is a choice. A heart unwilling to forgive is a heart unable to receive the life-sustaining grace of God.

Second, refuse to be preoccupied with the past. Be grateful for what God is doing now and look forward with anticipation to what He will do in the days ahead.

Third, understand that no matter what happens to you, God either permitted the circumstances, or He will override the circumstances. At times, He caused the circumstances to prepare you for your next assignment in life. Do you think Moses ever fretted during his 39th year in the wilderness or if he had any idea that God was preparing him for his greatest assignment?

Finally, never forget, our lives with all the twists and turns, are in God's hands. He is God and we are not. He is ultimately the one who rights all wrongs and it is sufficient to leave these things in His hands.

At some point you will be hurt by someone in the church. How will you respond? 

Are We Playing Church or Being the Church?

If you’ve found my blog, you may know that I’ve written two textbooks on Baptist history. The Baptist Reformation is the interpretive history of the Conservative Resurgence in the SBC. A Matter of Conviction is the history of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission and Baptist influence in helping to shape Western civilization.

I haven’t spent much time in recent years poring over Baptist historical texts, but in recent weeks I’ve been preparing to teach a course at Lenexa Baptist Church on "The Baptist March Through History: Who They Were and Why It Matters," so the history of the denomination has been on my mind.

While at Cross Church in Rogers, Arkansas last week, Dr. Ronnie Floyd asked me a salient question: "Who are we as a denomination and what are the critical issues that we must face?" I answered that we are a denomination in search of an "identity." Across the board, I am not convinced that we really know who we are, what we should be doing, or why it matters.

Peter Drucker, famous business thinker, is known for stating,"The first question is this: what business are you in?" I am not at all convinced that the vast majority of our 40,000+ churches and our 16 million+ members of the SBC know how to answer that question. Many might tell you that we should be fulfilling the Great Commandment, the Great Commission, and the Great Contrast (being salt and light in a decaying culture). But the issue, however, is in what we DO; everything else is just religious talk. 

When everything is said and done, there is a lot more said than done. 

Until each local congregation determines what business it is in and aligns its actions with its answers, I see a continued drift.

If the goal of a local congregation is simply to keep the institution from going under, pay its bills, take care of itself, and perpetuate its old guard leadership structure, it is not even in its essence fulfilling the biblical definition of church. The first step in helping the denomination clarify its identity, is to help local churches clarify what business they are in.

If a local church is not thinking and acting strategically on how to:

-Win the lost to Christ

-Disciple those who are won

-Worship God authentically

-Minister to its people and community in which it resides

-Participate in the great task of world evangelism

-Engage in cultural renewal

it is not only falling short of its biblical mandate, it may be simply playing church without being the church. 

These things delineate the business we are in. So, how about your church? Are you being the church, or playing church?