First Presbyterian Church
Kernersville • NC

P r a y e r   S o n g s

Years ago as I spent a good bit of time with my long-departed friends, Kathy and Art Fisher, songs would pop into my head.  And in Kathy’s head, too.  And one of us would “burst into song.”  We just couldn’t help ourselves, and we told Art so when he would exclaim, “Do you have to do that!”  Yes, we did.

I often want to burst into song these days, too.  Sometimes I do, but more frequently I “stifle” the urge.

Since I’ve been thinking so much about prayer and talking about it and writing about it, prayer songs are coming out of the woodwork of my brain.  Or, rather, my soul.

Consider the one printed here.

 

 

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PRAYER

 

I’ve been thinking a lot about prayer recently.  Been praying a lot, too.  Throughout the years I’ve read a lot of books on prayer, heard a lot of teaching on prayer and wondered whatever happened to “the old-fashioned prayer meetings”.

Back at St. John’s Evangelical Congregational Church in Steelstown, Pennsylvania, Wednesday night was “prayer meeting” night.  Similar to a church service, there was hymn-singing and a short message.  Yet the part I remember most vividly is the praying.  Back in the ‘50s, the floors were bare.  So were the pews.  Yet when it came time for prayer, all who were able knelt on those hard floors.  And all who chose to do so, prayed aloud.  Some very loudly.  Some whispered softly.  In memory, I can still hear that choir of voices reaching out to God.  Gradually, a few longer-winded folks came to their “amens”, and when the last was said, we rose again to our feet and sang a chorus.

I can hear those choruses, too.  “Thank you, Lord, for saving my soul.  Thank you, Lord, for making me whole.  Thank you, Lord, for giving to me Thy great salvation so rich and free.”   And “Oh that will be glory for me, glory for me, glory for me.  When by His grace, I shall look on His face, that will be glory, be glory for me.”

My children also have fond memories of the prayer meeting, especially the time one of their unchurched friends was with us.  He’d never heard some of the sounds our family was accustomed to hearing when people prayed.  So when a man in the pew in front of us let out an amen with something like an oomph -sound, this lad started giggling.  And, yes, laughter is contagious.

I recently asked a family member who continues to go to that church if they still have the prayer meeting.  They did, she says, up until Covid.  Now they have a weekly half-hour Share and Prayer conference call.

I was saddened to read in Paul Miller’s A Praying Church that it is indeed rare to find a church with a weekly prayer meeting today.   And, it seems, those churches who continue with a prayer meeting find that most people don’t bother to attend.

Miller tells the story of an evangelist from India who came to America to speak at a mega church.  Approximately three-thousand people attended the Sunday morning service.   The pastor announced the time and place for the Sunday night prayer meeting.  The visiting evangelist checked out the venue and noted that the seating capacity was only 500 so he got there early to get a seat. He was sure the place would be packed.  Not so.  No one showed up at 7.  Shortly thereafter a few people wandered in.  The leader showed up at 7:15.  The pastor never showed up.  Yet in the Sunday morning service he said he himself had something weighing heavily on his heart.

 In his book Autopsy of a Deceased Church, Thom Rainer has a chapter titled The Church Rarely Prayed Together. He quotes a former member of the church.  “That was the beginning of the decline that led to our death.  We stopped taking prayer seriously.  And the church started dying.”

Let Us Pray

September 2023

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Seasons and Reasons

December 2022

Someone once said that I think too much.  I’ve been thinking about that.  Maybe I do.  Maybe I don’t.   I once saw a sign that said, “Sometimes I sits and thinks and sometimes I just sits.”  Not me.  I can’t just sit. 

So you shouldn’t be surprised to hear that I’ve been thinking about the Season we’re in--the holiday season.  With Thanksgiving behind us and Christmas approaching us, my thoughts have been on giving thanks and celebrating the birth of our Savior.

Of course, it’s hard to think just one thought, when you’re a thinker, so these thoughts have joined forces with other thoughts, thoughts of all the seasons of my life since my birth in 1943.

I am so thankful for people who provided help along life’s way.

People like Emma Shirk, my pre-school Sunday school teacher at Bellegrove’s Evangelical United Brethren church and John and Mattie Farling, my pre-school Sunday school teachers at Steelstown’s St. John’s Evangelical Congregational church. (I had two church homes then, one when I spent Sundays with Pappy and Grandma and one when I spent Sundays with my parents.)

I don’t remember any specific lessons taught by Mrs. Shirk or the Farlings, but I do remember them.  In my memory, Mrs. Shirk was gentle and kind.   I also remember the Farlings as gentle and kind, yet the word faithful comes to mind when I remember them.   And I remember all three of them were old, very old.

I remember my grandparents.  I have often said that I owe whatever stability I’ve had throughout my life to them, the first “influencers” in my life.    World War II kept my father away from home and family until I was two and a half and then both parents went to work in factories, so I spent most of my pre-school years with Pappy and Grandma, on their farm.

I remember the routine of getting up at the rooster’s crow and hurrying out to the barn to join my grandparents, already doing the morning round of milking.  I remember the sound of the Christian radio station in the barn and in the kitchen.  I remember Pappy’s voice in prayer before meals, his voice in laughter, his voice in breaking the news to me that God could indeed see through walls, his voice in disciplining me, his voice in calling the cows in from the pasture.  “Here, hummy, hummy.”  That’s what I remember having heard.  I don’t know the exact words.

I remember Grandma’s voice in prayer as she did her housework.  I see her in memory’s eye, ironing clothes and linens.  I hear the thump of the heavy iron that was heated on the old cook stove.   And I hear her saying, “Jesus, Jesus.”  I know she was summoning His help in the burdens of life.  She certainly wasn’t swearing.  I remember her voice saying “Ay, ay, ay” when in dismay.  I remember her voice as she read countless fairy tales to me.  I remember her quietness.  I remember her squeezing fresh orange juice for me and making me a glass of vanilla milk.  I remember her patience and self-control with a precocious little girl.

Pappy and Grandma spoke love with words and actions and presence.  I remember their joy in me.   At least, they seemed to delight in me—most of the time, that is.  And maybe that’s how I came to experience love in the language of “quality time and undivided attention”.

I remember other people who came into my life for a season, leaving a profound imprint on my life.  There was Mrs. Hostetter, my God-honoring neighbor who, along with her husband, owned the tenant house we lived in when David was a baby.   When my first-born was seriously ill, she summoned her husband in from the fields and stayed with me until he came to give us a ride to the hospital.  She held David in her arms and prayed for him.  I told her I thought God was punishing me for something, and she quietly, sincerely said, “Oh, Kitty, God doesn’t work that way.”  I believed her then.   I believe her now.  She oozed kindness and gentleness and goodness.

I remember so many others during the formative seasons of my life:   A pen pal who wrote of her faith in God, sharing favorite scripture verses as she encouraged me to commit them to memory and to grow in my faith.  The DVBS teachers at Dohner’s Mennonite Church who sang without instrumental accompaniment but with conviction and joy.  I remember how the adults energetically joined with students in playground games.  Black suits, long dresses and head coverings didn’t interfere with their enthusiastic participation. 

I need to stop now.  An article could easily turn into a book.  I would be forever impoverished had it not been for so many, many people who took time for me throughout the various seasons of my life and left a legacy of love and hope.

As I remember these people and others, I remember their character traits and recognize those traits as the fruit of the Spirit.   And I wonder how that fruit came to grow in their lives, touching me and so many others so deeply.  Did they just try really hard to be good and kind and gentle and faithful and all those other things?  Or did they come to rely on the Holy Spirit to produce that fruit as they grew in their relationship with him?  Which carried the most weight—the trying or the relying?  Which came first?

I’ve been thinking about that.  I am a thinker.  Maybe I think too much.  Maybe not.

Come and join us on Sunday mornings at 9:30 for our ongoing study of the Fruit of the Spirit.